Year C

Luke 17:11-19

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Proper Response to Grace

C.S. Lewis once was asked, “Why do the righteous suffer?” “Why not?” he replied. “They’re the only ones who can take it.” Well, I don’t know if that is %100 true but our three readings today all encompass human suffering and the choices made in the midst of it. Whether trying to rise above bickering or living with a dreaded disease or enduring exile, there is a word of hope from the Lord to strengthen and sustain the faithful.    

When Jeremiah prophesied these words in the reading today, the people of Judah had been forced to leave their homes in Jerusalem and become refugees in Babylon. The text describes Jeremiah’s pastoral letter to the people in exile when many longed for their former life. They wept by the rivers of Babylon, unable to sing or play their harps. Jeremiah counsels them to make the best of their lot, to live faithfully, and to trust that God will ultimately save them. He did not want them to have false optimism but hope that though they were exiled from their homeland, they were still under God’s care and sight. Even more, the exiles are to “pray to the Lord on its behalf.” They are to pray for their enemies and through their prayer God is seen and is able to be at work for the welfare of them and their enemies.

Paul, imprisoned and facing death, still counsels, hope, faith, and fortitude to his protégé’ Timothy. Paul cut off from normal human society and interaction, was rejected by many of his followers, yet he is confident of his life in God’s kingdom.  The story of Jesus becomes his story as it can be for us. It is a story of suffering, faithfulness and salvation. If Paul lived today, the message he would send us as he told Timothy, would be “Remember, remind and be diligent for the sake of the gospel. When we are faithless, God is faithful. Though in prison, Paul’s words and testimony help Timothy remain strong in his faith and work to strengthen others.     

The Samaritan leper in the gospel knew suffering and his suffering would not only have been physical but also mental and spiritual as he is an outcast from society forced to live apart from others under Jewish law. Though a foreigner Jesus does not scorn him but commends him for his faith, shown as greater than the faith of his Jewish compatriots. The story today has Jesus coming into Bethany, with his journey moving ever closer to Jerusalem and the cross, when ten lepers see him, apparently recognize him, and head in his direction. The miracle that happens here is somewhat unusual and not in keeping with his other miracles. It has an unusual skew to it because Jesus did not heal the lepers on the spot but told them to go and show themselves to the priests.

What Jesus asks them to do is in keeping with the Levitical instructions found in the Book of Leviticus, “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ‘When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it turns into a leprous disease on the skin of his body, he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests.’” The priests were the only ones who could certify that the leprosy is gone and the person is fit to return to normal life. It seems that Jesus, in instructing the ten lepers does so with the intention that they will be healed before they reach their destination. They trusted and acted on faith, and they were healed. Jesus gives them back their lives.

Yet, only one of them, a Samaritan whom none of the priests would have given the time of day anyway, turned again to face Jesus. How could he not at the very least say, “Thank you”? But from the others not a word and Jesus seems disappointed. The nine obedient Jewish lepers had somehow missed the mark and the Samaritan, the one who was bound to be an outcast healed or not, had somehow gotten it right. Jesus said to him “get up and go your way, your faith has made you well.” It isn’t that the other nine lepers didn’t have faith. They called out to Jesus, believing he could heal them and he did. 

What they did wrong was they kept walking but one of them found that he could not. His life had changed and he had to return and give thanks. He couldn’t keep away. This is what faith is. Faith is being unable to stay away from Jesus despite the circumstances. The concern here is not the quantity of faith as if faith were a matter of cause and effect – you pray for something and it happens. Rather, Jesus is teaching us about the nature of faith. Faith in Jesus is to be in love with Jesus.  And the best part is that Jesus loves us no matter what and puts our lives back together, makes us whole again through his life, death and resurrection. To be made well, to live well, is to always stay by Jesus. He calls us to be his people, his children by baptism into his death and into his resurrection.

But Christianity is not just a nod of the head acknowledging what Jesus has done for us. Christian life is a constant returning in praise and in thanks, in humility and in service, in mercy and gentleness, to the Lord who has saved us, healed us by our salvation, and makes us whole. Faith always takes us back to Jesus who teaches us that to “have faith” is to live it, and to live it is to give thanks. It’s not just because it’s polite to go back and say, “Thank you.” Even though we should gratefully acknowledgment all God through Christ has done for us. It’s that gratitude is an essential part of true faith. 

Time magazine once made the statement about our current culture: “Never have so many had it so good and felt so badly about it.” We are all guilty of forgetting to turn, go back and give thanks and that’s why we need to be reminded of our need to turn back to Jesus. Paul today reminds us to “remember Jesus Christ—the very thing that the Samaritan leper does in the gospel story. The outsider Samaritan, a leper falls in love with Jesus and his grateful faith made him truly and deeply well, it saved him. He shows us that the proper response to an act of grace is thanks and praise to God.

The ones that didn’t turn back are the very people who had all the clues in their hands to solve the mystery of who Jesus is and what God was doing in him. But, they thought they already had the answers and that they were part of it. The point is not to lay blame on the nine who did not return but to point out the extraordinary thing that they missed. The Word made flesh sent from God to people in exile. Jesus took the advice of Jeremiah to make himself at home in a foreign land. To challenge us to embrace the place where God has us so that others might see our hope and be drawn to turn back and hear “Go on your way; your faith has made you well.” As we go on our way, we rejoice and give thanks; for in giving thanks in all things, we find that God, indeed, is in all things even in the aftermath of a hurricane.