One Turned Back
THE FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
Today's Gospel passage taken from the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel carriers two themes forward from last week: The Good Samaritan and Divine Mercy- but from a different perspective. Today we find the Good Samaritan, who, as was discovered from last week's parable, is Jesus, traveling to Jerusalem for His third and final time to observe the high feast of Passover. However, this time, he has decided to take an unusual route to the Holy City.
"AND it came to pass, as Jesus went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee." Jesus has decided to go through "enemy" territory rather than around it. His walking between Samaria and Galilee is a picture of the Gospel coming not only for the Jew but the Gentile as well. Luke's geographical note is significant because these regions were primarily Gentile, and in choosing to walk among the Gentiles, we see God's promise embodied in the person of Christ, sent to forgive the sins of the world for the salvation for any who trust in Him: the Jew first and the Gentile as well. We'll return to this grander salvific theme in a moment.
Ten lepers are standing far from the mainstream of traffic because they are lepers, suffering from a horrific disease that disfigures the flesh with sores and lesions, often resulting in the loss of limbs, fingers, noses, etc., as if the disease is "eating the flesh." According to Levitical Law a newly infected person was immediately quarantined for seven days. After seven days, the priest would make an examination. If the infection remained, another seven days of quarantine would be required (fourteen days in total or two weeks) before the final priestly exam. Now, at the slightest sign of the disease having spread, the person would be declared ceremonially and communally unclean (a leper) indefinitely separated from the worship and people of Israel.
There was a spiritual aspect to leprosy as well. Perhaps you recall from the Old Testament how Elisha's servant Gehazi took advantage of Naaman's gratitude and asked him for gifts. Elisha learned of his corruption and greed, and Gehazi became leprous. God also brought judgment upon Miriam, inflicting her with leprosy when she turned against Moses, the prophet of God. Leprosy indicated Divine judgment upon sin, like the apostles who assumed of the man born blind that his impairment resulted from sin: either his or his parents. So, you can see how leprosy became an outward sign of a greater disease caused by sin and unrighteousness: an inward state of leprosy eating away at the soul.
Now, this poor band of ten unclean lepers, a community of the diseased, are standing far away and shouting as loud as their leper-ridden throats will allow, "Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us." The ten lepers know about the name Jesus as reports of his reputation and miracles have spread throughout the region. They desperately want to speak with Jesus but are riddled with their despised disease; they cannot approach him. "Have mercy upon us!" is an urgent request for Jesus to heal them right this very instant. To merciful do whatever he possibly can to remove this dreadful scourge and heal their bodies, to look with compassion upon their lowly estate.
And without hesitation, the Lord Jesus mercifully stops and fixes his gaze upon these poor souls. Strangely, he doesn't go to them as he had previously done with another leper, nor does he command the disease to flee their bodies or command a miracle saying, "Be thou healed." Instead, he orders the ten lepers to depart from Him. To go and show themselves to the Priests.
Luke then records, "And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell on his face at his feet, giving him thanks; and he was a Samaritan." Ten healed, but only one returned; a Samaritan; an outsider. Here we return to the larger theme of salvation history touched upon earlier, namely how Israel rejected her Messiah and missed the day of their visitation. For the nine lepers are a type of Israel who received the mercy of God who sent his Son to save them from their sins) and yet they rejected him, were ungrateful, nor did they worship His Son.
The Samaritan leper illustrates how the saving work of Christ expands beyond Israel into the nations as prophesied by Hosea, "I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God." We also find in the return of the Samaritan leper a foreshadowing of God fulfilling his promise to Abraham: "I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen 26:4).
But at the individual level, what we find in the story of the Ten Lepers is a vivid portrait of two vastly different responses to God's healing. You see, the nine are like so many people in our day. Consumers come to Christ and his church to get what they need without any sense of gratitude or duty to the One from whom they have received healing. They are the very picture of Ingratitude. José Ortega y Gasset, a 20th-century Spanish philosopher, and essayist wrote, "Ingratitude is man's greatest defect. The ungrateful forgets that most of the things he has are not of his own work." So true. Ingratitude is a serious disease of the soul, most especially concerning the God of our salvation.
St. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, sees Ingratitude as an attribute of the wicked and the road into idolatry when he writes, "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." Though they knew God had created everything as a gift, including the breath in their lungs, they showed no gratitude.
Paul continues, "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." They gave thanks for and worshipped the creature instead of the creator, and God left them in their foolishness. And what about the Israelites whom God rescued from the slavery of Egypt, who, in the words of Psalm 107, failed to appreciate God's miraculous deeds, and failed to remember His many acts of loyal love, [but instead] rebelled by the Red Sea." Those who have no gratitude for God will almost certainly be ungrateful for others.
For example, how the Israelites treated Gideon when he died, who "did not remain true to the Lord their God, who had delivered them from all the enemies who lived around them. [And] They did not treat the family of Gideon fairly in return for all the good he had done for Israel." Here's the lesson: if left to spread within the soul, ingratitude will actively unfulfill the Law: neither loving God nor neighbor.
Understand that ingratitude is a matter of the heart, a disease eating away at charity originating from a severe lack of love. Ingratitude lacks love because it fails or (in most cases) refuses to acknowledge divine charity and to return to him in love. "Where are the other nine?" Jesus asks. Why are they not praising God? Where is their recognition of the gracious healing they have received from Jesus?
Surely they were as capable as the Samaritan to express gratitude. But consumerism knows no gratitude, and even when the consumer is temporally satiated, his self-focused religion breeds nothing but Ingratitude. However, the Samaritan Leper does not content himself with merely having received such great benefits; he (unlike the nine) will also praise this most Holy Benefactor.
Why? Because he is the embodiment of gratitude: one who has received from God that which he could not do for himself; not only his body made clean, but his soul washed as well; having received by faith, divine medicine for the forgiveness of his sins. For the Lord Jesus declared unto him, "Rise up, go thy way, thy faith hath saved thee."
There is leprosy which disfigures the will, confuses the mind, lurking within the heart, which gives birth in the spirit of a man to unholy indifference towards God. We are so very susceptible to being ungrateful, complaining about those we love, discontent with possessions, never skinny enough, never rich enough, never healthy enough, and on and on. Never once stopping to stack all our petty discontents on one side of the scale and in the other, the multitude of Divine blessings. Do this: hold in one hand the salvation from eternal damnation you have received through faith in the saving death of Jesus, and on the other hand, stack up every single one of your complaints and frustrations. See how insignificant and incomparably trivial these are in light of the mercy and goodness of God.
Only Jesus Christ, who is Love, can cure this leprosy of the soul, which makes 'lepers of us all,' disfiguring the face of humanity. It is only by opening the heart to God, being open to His ministry within us, that the unclean person is healed interiorly of wickedness and sin. Friends, always remember this: the healing of salvation is a gift of faith, and faith demands an openness towards Christ, being open to his gracious activity. All is a gift, and all is grace.
The healing mercy of the Lord restored the leper to what he was first created to be: Homo Adorans, the worshiping man. This Samaritan, who once was unclean and cried out for mercy, now returns, and cries out with thanksgiving giving glory to God. And we who have been healed by the mercy of Christ are being remade into what we were created to be, worshippers of the living God. Restored and recreated to give thanks for the great benefits we have received at his hand! And, beloved, be assured, genuine gratitude is always met with grace: always.
My dear friends, we are gathered today in the Lord's house as lepers in need of healing, the unclean in desperate need of being made clean once again, soiled by those sins committed in thought, word, and deed; by things we have done and those we have left undone. We need to turn elsewhere for cleansing; we cannot clean ourselves because there is only one clean. There is only one who can ascend the hill of the LORD. One who stands in his holy place. Only One with clean hands and a pure heart; One who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully: Jesus Christ, the perfect man. He has received blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation, for he was raised from the dead.
And we are made clean by faith in him, by trusting in His faithfulness, His righteousness, His perfect law-keeping, for with Paul we know that "no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ" (Gal 2:6). And we confess with the Apostle that we "have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer we who live, but Christ lives in us. So, the life we now live in the body, we live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us" (v.20).
The Gospel is our source of gratitude: God moved heaven and earth, even died for our transgressions, that we might be made clean, made whole, and inheritors of life eternal. For having received so great a salvation, we gather and give eucharist; we give thanks to God. And in the eucharistic feast, the breaking of bread and partaking of the cup, we receive the merciful healing of God again. For in these great and holy mysteries comes the goodness, kindness, and mercy of God.
Like the leper, we are unworthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under His table. And yet, he feeds lepers and sinners every week with his healing gifts. And in response to these great benefits, what doth the Lord require of thee? To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8).
Gratitude. To love mercy is to be grateful to God, for his Son, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Gratitude reveals itself through fidelity, devotion, and obedience. Therefore, let us obey Him, and in every place and every aspect of our lives: continually do all things unto his glory. Shout his praises throughout creation, "Arise, cn=otend thou before the mountains and let the hills hear thy voice." We have been made clean by the blood of Christ.
"Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?" No one. Save Jesus. And lepers like us who have been made clean. Come to Christ, do not stand afar, come to Christ, and cast yourselves at his feet and give thanks! God is doing wondrous things- be grateful. Rise and come by faith to the only one who can make you clean, who makes you whole. Amen+
