Pentecost 18C
October 9, 2022
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 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 leprosy for a bunch of “others” – in this case, Samaritans, 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, just… be grateful. Remember the ways God has been good to you, and listen with a heart full of gratitude. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Do you have a motto for your life? Like, something you tell yourself to guide and ground your days? Maybe it’s on a post-it on your mirror, or in your car, or just in your heart. Do you have a motto?
I listened to a podcast this week that opened with this question. The motto the host offered, which was made popular by writer Alex Haley, was this: “Find the good – and praise it.” Find the good and praise it. “Find” is easy enough to understand. Shouldn’t we always be seeking out good in the world? It can be so easy to slip into noticing only the bad things, which causes us then to slip further and further into discouragement. Instead, find the good things.
But I’m especially interested in the “praise” part. What does that mean, praise? The word comes from price, or value. Like we “appraise,” or determine the value or worth, of a house, or a piece of jewelry. Not for the sake of the item – the diamond is beautiful whether or not we attach a value to it – but for our own sake. We identify, and then prize, what is worth praising. Find the good – and praise it.
Praise takes center stage in today’s story in which Jesus heals ten lepers. And notice, it is the praise and thanksgiving that take center stage, not the healing itself. That happens offstage. We don’t even see it. The lepers head offstage toward the priest, as Jesus commanded, healing at some point along the way. In artistic portrayals of this story, you often see the other nine very small in the distance. But one returns to the center stage, and praises God with a loud voice, falling at Jesus’ feet, and praising him. He finds the good, and praises it. And, Luke makes a point of telling us, “He was a Samaritan.”
Now this is not a throw-away line. Indeed, this is quite remarkable. Because we might think, from the stories Jesus tells, that Samaritans are good guys, but the Jews did not think that. Way back during the exile in Babylon, the Samaritans started intermarrying, thus dirtying their Jewish blood. And that this particular Samaritan is praising Jesus is especially worth noting, because the primary issue between Jews and Samaritans, beyond even mixed race, is that they disagreed on where was the proper place to worship. Jews believed that it was the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim. And this theological difference was a problem. Though they shared a heritage, Jews saw Samaritans as a racial and religious other.
And yet, along comes Jesus, and all throughout the Gospels he is blurring those thick lines they have drawn. From start to finish, Jesus’ life and teachings call this line-drawing into question. Think: who were the first visitors to the baby Jesus, after the shepherds and the angels? The magi – who were Persians from modern day Iran, not insider Jews. Yet they were the ones who saw what the “insiders” could not see, that Jesus was the king. And then, as Jesus hung on a cross, who was it that correctly identified him as the Son of God? A Roman centurion – not a Jew, not a follower of Jesus. An outsider. Yet he saw Jesus for exactly who he was.
Jesus’ life follows this pattern, and his teachings do the same. We humans are awfully good at forming groups and deciding who gets to be in and who doesn’t, but Jesus is constantly calling that tendency into question. Instead, he seems to follow an ethic of: “find the good – and praise it.”
Take this for example: way back in chapter 9, Luke tells us that Jesus “turned his face toward Jerusalem” – toward death and the empty tomb. On his way toward Jerusalem, he and the disciples pass through a Samaritan village, and they are denied hospitality, because remember, Samaritans don’t like Jews any more than Jews like Samaritans! Angry at this treatment, the disciples ask Jesus, “Do you want us to command fire to rain down and consume them?” After all, who do these Samaritans think they are?! They deserve punishment! Jesus tells them no, of course, and in the very next chapter he tells a story about a Samaritan, a good Samaritan, who cares for a neighbor in need. He does what the priest and the Levite (or, let’s call them, the pastor and the deacon) didn’t: he shows mercy to his injured neighbor. Jesus finds the good, and he praises it, lifting up this “other,” this Samaritan, this adversary, not just as an okay guy, but as an exemplar of faith.
Find the good, and praise it… I think we do all right at this within our own groups. After all, the reason we form the groups we do is because we think they are good, and we want to be a part of something good! But Jesus pushes against this self-praise, pushing us instead to find the good and praise it wherever we find the good – even if the good is in who we regard as adversaries.
Now, fast forward several chapters, toward the end of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, and we return to the same theme, in today’s text. Ten lepers approach Jesus and beg for mercy. He sends them to the priest, and they are healed on the way. One returns to praise God for what God has done. Jesus celebrates this act, telling him, “Your faith has made you well.” But what is he celebrating, exactly? Not his devotion or his obedience – all ten lepers called Jesus Master and did as they were told. It’s not theological correctness – Jews and Samaritans did not agree on key theological points, and that hasn’t changed.
No, what makes this guy different is that he stops, pivots, and returns to Jesus with thanks and praise. And once again, Jesus exalts a Samaritan as an exemplar of faith. He completes the portrait Jesus had begun to paint when he began his journey, of the Samaritan who showed mercy to a neighbor. That parable displayed the 2nd part of the greatest commandment, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Today’s story highlights the first part: “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.” And what does loving God look like? It looks like glorifying God for being the One from whom all blessings flow. It looks like having the insight and the nerve to stop, pivot, return, and praise. Find the good, and praise it.
So in these two Samaritans – on one end the Good Samaritan, and on the other end, the Thankful Samaritan – we see an illustration of the essence of Jewish, and now Christian, law: show mercy to those in need, and be thankful for when God’s mercy is received. Sometimes we do the good, we show the mercy, like the first Samaritan. And sometimes the good is simply to acknowledge God’s goodness and mercy, and praise it, and praise God for it. Both sides of the coin – both giving mercy and gratefully receiving God's mercy – are a part of faith, and part of the mission of the Church. And sometimes, the good, the mercy-showing, the thanksgiving, the praising… happens outside of our Christian circles. Sometimes there is something to learn about faith from a Muslim, a Hindu, an atheist, or a humanist. Find the good, wherever it is, and praise it – praise it in ways not that divide, but rather, that knit our broken world back together.
When Jesus “set his face toward Jerusalem,” toward death and new life, he knew that the road would have to go through Samaria. And so is it the case for us, that moving toward the death and resurrection that we know is a part of our lives even in a million little ways, requires us to go through the local neighborhood, through reconciling with and learning from the supposed adversaries right in our community. We find the good, and praise it, trusting that God has put a variety of people in our paths in order for us to learn ever more about what it means to be the merciful, thankful, worshipful Church together.
Let us pray… Merciful God, as broken as we are, there is still so much good that you have put in the world. Empower us to find that good, in whatever form it may take, and to praise it, trusting that you have enabled all things good. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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