NO ORDINARY HEALING
SERMON PREACHED BY FR. TONY NOBLE ON October 10th 2010
Luke 17:18-19 “Was no one found to return and give praise to
God except this foreigner? And he said to him, ‘Rise and go your way;
your faith has made you well.’”
Luke 17:11-19 is a very interesting gospel. The healing of the ten lepers is only recorded in Luke; it is not recorded in any other gospel. We know that St. Luke was a physician, so the details of this healing would be of interest to him. There are several interesting things about it.
First of all, this incident happens on the boarder of Samaria and Galilee, while Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. The important thing here is that the Samaritans and the Israelites were in disagreement concerning their different places of worship. The Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim, and the Israelites in Jerusalem. Because he was on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus would have kept away from the Samaritans because of his destination and journey. He would not have been well received.
We would assume that most of the lepers would have been Samaritans, but it seems they were not. They were possibly a mixture of Samaritans and Israelites. I find this intriguing, because, normally, they would not have been together. Leprosy, in Jewish Law meant that you were exiled from the community. You had to live apart from the people, usually outside the towns. So because they all had leprosy, they had something in common. The racial, religious and ethnic differences faded into irrelevance as they found themselves to be excluded.
The second thing is that only one of the ten lepers returned to give thanks to Jesus and praise God. This man was a Samaritan. “This foreigner,” said Jesus. We could assume that this is a story not only of healing, but of Jesus welcoming those who are excluded – breaking down the walls of exclusion. That is beside the point.
The most telling point of the whole story is the instruction Jesus gives to the lepers. He says, “Go and show your selves to the priests.” This was an instruction from Jewish Law. It required a leper who had been healed to get a certificate from the priest, validating his healing, before he was allowed back into the community. If you were cleansed, you would go to the priest and he would give you the certificate. At that point you could then return to your family and community. What joy that certificate must have brought to the cleansed leper!
The strange thing is, when Jesus told those ten lepers to go to the priest and get the certificate, they were not yet healed. They were still lepers. St. Luke records, “As they went, they were healed.”
Here is the point: Jesus asked them to go while they were still lepers to receive a certificate of healing. The faith this required, was enormous – to think that somehow from the time they turned away from Jesus and arrived at the priest, they would be healed. They went in faith and, as they went they were cleansed.
This is a wonderful example of faith being a prerequisite for healing and prayer. They were healed because they went in faith. “Your faith has made you well,” said Jesus. And so it did.
This is a story of faith in action. It follows naturally from Luke 17:5-10, the preceding five verses, which are about faith. What is faith? That question is answered by this weeks’ gospel, which tells us that faith believes what Jesus says is true, even when it doesn’t appear to be true. It didn’t seem the ten lepers were healed, but they believed Jesus. They took him at his word.
That is why we pray for all sorts and conditions of men, women, and children. We pray – even when what we ask for does not appear to be happening. We ask in faith because we take Jesus at his word.
In the case of the ten lepers, faith is not believing that something will happen when it doesn’t seem possible – but rather, continuing to pray in faith to the Lord, even when we do not get a response. This is real faith, and it is difficult. To believe and pray, even when the answer is no – this is the most difficult thing for a Christian to do.
There is a final part of the story, which comes at the end of the story. Jesus’ final words are, “Your faith has made you well.” In the New Testament, in almost every other healing that Jesus does he finishes by saying, “Your faith has saved you.” The word used is simple, but it is different. ‘Your faith has made you well,’ is about the healing. ‘Your faith has saved you,’ is about salvation. We understand that for Jesus, the greatest healing is the forgiveness of our sins. That healing has already been poured upon us through Our Lord’s death on the cross. We are already forgiven, and we are headed to heaven. We have experienced the ultimate healing.
In this gospel reading there is a different lesson for us about salvation and healing. To understand this, we need to look at another occasion when Jesus healed a leper. This is recorded in Luke 5 and also in Matthew 8, and Mark 1. On that occasion, one leper came to Jesus and said, “If you will, you can heal me.” In other words, he meant ‘if you want to.’ He was challenging Jesus to heal him. And the leper was immediately healed. Jesus then commanded him to go to the priest, because he had been healed. And Jesus charges him not to speak of what happened. The difference between the two healings is not just the instant healing of the one leper and the faith healing of the ten lepers. There is a difference in what they say to Jesus.
The ten lepers stand at a distance, because they are unclean. They say to him, “Jesus, Master have mercy on us.” The single leper challenges Jesus to heal him if he wants to. It’s more than a request for healing – it’s a challenge.
Luke 17:11-19 tells us faith is a necessary prerequisite for healing and prayer. The story of the one leper tells us that Jesus does respond to us, despite how we feel and how we confront him. In that case, the answer was an instant yes. In the case of the ten lepers, it was a surprise. It happened when they turned and walked away.
All this is perhaps to avoid the question: What about unanswered prayer? What about when we ask Jesus to heal us and healing does not happen? The fact that the ten lepers were healed after Jesus told them to go on their way tells us that Jesus is with us even when it seems like nothing is happening. That is how it seemed – nothing happened, then they went away and Jesus performed a miracle.
At the times when we are at our lowest, Jesus is there with us – even when we feel deserted. He does not walk away, but he performs his healing acts.
There is a final point. The Samaritan returns to Jesus to say thank you. In the gospels we don’t hear very often that someone comes back and says thank you to Jesus. This is, perhaps, the most important lesson from today’s gospel: The importance of saying thank you. It is such a simple thing to do, but it is so often neglected. We all know people who are sad, bitter, angry, and lacking real joy. They never seem to be grateful, or show gratitude.
In the context of any healing, the most important ‘thank you’ any Christian can express is thanks for being forgiven. Thanks and gratitude is the foundation of any church stewardship campaign. When we are asked to consider our stewardship, we are asked to give of our time and our money back to our Parish as a simple thank you. This is a way to thank God for his blessings. No job is too small, no check will ever be big enough, to thank God for the gift of forgiveness we receive through Jesus. No matter how small our gift, whatever we offer is loved by Jesus and honored by God.
The leper who came back to Jesus and thanked him did not get any more than the other nine lepers. He didn’t get anything extra because he came back and thanked Jesus – except one thing. When he returned grateful and thankful, he heard Jesus say, “Your faith has made you well.” The other nine never heard Jesus say that to them. What a pity!
The other nine did not loose what they had been given by God – they were still healed. The ultimate lesson is that to be ungrateful is yet another human failing, but it has no place in the kingdom of the redeemed.