Pentecost 18C
October 12, 2025
Luke 17:11-19
INTRODUCTION
Today we have pretty strong themes of healing, mercy, and thanksgiving. We’ll hear two stories about God healing the leprosy of a foreigner: first the wonderful story of Naaman, the Aramean warrior (that is, an enemy of Israel) who gets a lesson in humility when first, he listens to the advice of a slave girl, and then listens to his servants, and then listens to the advice of a Jewish prophet to wash in the dirty Jordan river. Sure enough, his willingness to listen (however initially hesitant) brings about his healing, and his declaration of God’s power.
This story sets up well the Gospel reading. Again, we’ll hear a story of God healing a skin disease for an “other” – in this case, a Samaritan, the contemporary adversary of the Jews. A large rift existed between Jews and Samaritans, but the main issue is regarding where one should worship. How remarkable, then, that the one Samaritan leper’s response will be one of worship – he worships Jesus, and Jesus will commend him for it. It would be unexpected for a Jewish audience! In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is always flipping the narrative and blurring the lines of who is in and who is out.
As you listen today, just… be grateful. Remember the ways God has been good to you, and listen with a heart full of gratitude. Let’s listen.
[READ]
 |
| JESUS MAFA. Healing of the ten lepers, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48295 [retrieved October 14, 2025]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact). |
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“What is required to restore community?”
This question was asked as a part of one of the presidential debates back in 2019 (a lifetime ago!). It feels all the more important now, 6 years later. How do we heal the divide and restore community?
It is a question I know is heavy on the hearts of many Americans. And our faith, and our study of God’s good Word, can help us answer it because turns out Jesus was all about restoring community. Today’s Gospel reading is one example. In this story of the ten lepers being healed, these men are literally restored to community (with their disease, they were likely cut off to some extent from society and healing allows them to reenter). But the story can also give us some insight into restoring our own communities.
The first guidance comes from a seemingly insignificant detail: the location of the story. The story is set, “between Samaria and Galilee.” In other words, this encounter doesn’t happen on anyone’s home turf. It happens in an in-between place, which in the Bible traditionally indicates a place of uncertainty and the danger that comes with that – but also it is a place of encounter and the possibilities that come with that. So that’s our first clue for restoring community: restoration of community requires us to venture out of our comfort zones, out of our siloes of familiarity and like-minded people. That could happen any number of ways – what media we consume, whom we spend time with, how and where we travel, etc. Point is: as long as we stay in our safe zone, it will be difficult to restore community, because we are too stuck in that place. Seek out some of those in-between, less stable places, where your heart will be more ready for transformation.
The second lesson this story can teach us is: to see the “other,” even an enemy, not as an adversary, but as a teacher. In Luke’s telling in these few verses, he makes sure we know just how other this fellow is. First, he has a highly contagious skin disease that has left him on the literal margins. All ten of these guys were hanging out in that in-between place, between Galilee and Samaria, probably because there was no place for them in the city itself. They are physically outsiders. Then, after the one returns to thank Jesus, Luke ominously tells us, “And he was a Samaritan,” a statement that would have been accompanied by dramatic music if this were a movie. Samaritans and Jews had a centuries-long enmity, dating back to the Babylonian exile, when some of the Jews who were left in Israel after the mass deportation by the Assyrian army, intermarried with the Assyrians who settled in Israel. Consequently, though they shared roots with Jews, these Samaritans were racially impure, and the practice of their faith had evolved into something different from Jews. “Samaritan” had become synonymous with “apostate” and “adversary.” So when Luke says, “And he was a Samaritan,” that is bad news bears.
And then, in case it wasn’t already clear enough, when Jesus commends this Samaritan for returning to give thanks and praise to God, Jesus says, “Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” This foreigner. This outsider. This guy who, I’m sure you all noticed but I’m saying it again just to be sure, looks, lives, and acts in a strange way, differently from you, who doesn’t belong here. Yet he is the one who shows us all what it looks like to love, praise, and thank God, the giver of all blessing. Not any of you insiders; this outsider.
That is a common theme throughout Luke’s Gospel. He brought it up as a part of Jesus’ first sermon in chapter 4, in which Jesus mentions the faithfulness of outsiders and foreigners – that upset the folks in his hometown so much, they tried to throw him off a cliff! He did it again in chapter 10 when Jesus told a parable about another Samaritan, a good one, who was the only one who helped a man beaten on the side of the road when a couple of religious Jewish authorities had passed right on by. This Samaritan, he said, has shown us what it looks like to love your neighbor: showing mercy. And now, another Samaritan, this one not just a story but a real flesh and blood one, is teaching all those insiders traveling with Jesus, what it looks like to love your God with heart and soul and mind and strength. It looks like worship, thanks, and praise.
Can this insight help us to restore community? Absolutely! Because so much of our division is due to our differences. Certainly race is an issue, like in this story, and also country of origin – immigrants, migrants, and refugees are very much under attack in our country right now, both in the rhetoric used against them and physically, as those with darker skin and/or accented English are rounded up and detained or deported. But could these foreigners actually be teachers placed by God into our midst? What could they be teaching us about God?
But even beyond differences in race and nationality – how about those who are foreign to us ideologically? Politically? Religiously? What would happen if we saw these others – these people who are foreigners to our way of thinking and being – not as adversaries, but as people who can teach us something, even something holy? You don’t have to agree with someone on everything to learn something from them. When we see them this way, we see them not as adversaries, but as fellow humans, as beloved, as valuable – rather than as enemies who need to be punished, mocked, or eliminated.
And finally, Jesus teaches us in this story by his celebration of this foreigner, who “turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet, and thanked him.” That wasn’t what the law required of this man – he was supposed to show himself to the priest, as Jesus said, because that was what was done in those days to be declared clean. And he could have, and he still would have been healed, like the other nine. He could have gone quietly on his way, and gone about his life. But no, this man instead puts praise and thanks first. He puts God first. He orients himself and his sight toward the God from whom all blessings flow.
And this, too, helps us in restoring community. Because humans are, sad to say, naturally pretty selfish and prideful beings. There is a reason Genesis identifies pride as the first sin, why pride is considered the worst of the seven deadly sins, and why Martin Luther defined sin as being turned in on ourselves, more focused on our own desires than anything else. But this guy shows us how to pull ourselves out of our own navels and look outside of ourselves, and toward God – as the provider, the healer, the divine giver. In this way, praise and thanksgiving is an antidote to pride, because it orients us outward and upward, rather than inward. When we are oriented toward God, then neighbor love and care for community is a natural consequence and expression of that. That orientation toward God and community is an essential step in restoring community.
None of it is easy. It can be fun, and exciting, don’t get me wrong, but it can also be scary and disruptive. We’re so tired, after all, and it is a lot easier to just keep along our same path, grumbling and shaking our heads at “those people,” assuming they are wrong and we are right. I can tell you, I know how tempting that is. I sure hate being out of my comfort zone! Sometimes it is more fun just to cast stones from the safety of my living room, rather than allow my heart to be moved and changed. But God never promised that the work of restoration would be easy. It surely didn’t come easily for God; indeed it cost the ultimate price! But the reward was great – reconciliation of community, redemption, and new life. New life, which won’t be without its own challenges, but in which we are, just the same, assured of abundant and eternal life with Christ, and the peace and joy that this brings.
Let us pray… God, you are worthy to be praised. Orient our hearts toward you, so that we would see all of your children through the light of your eyes. Open us to be learners, to be taught by that which is different, and always to return to you with thanks and praise. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment