“The First Steps”

Luke 17:11-19

November 20, 2005

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

Today is the last Sunday of the Christian year. It is also the Sunday closest to Thanksgiving Day which means that preachers have more than their usual choices when it comes to the lectionary. One of the options is to preach the lessons on what we call Christ the King Sunday. Maybe a little explaining would be helpful. The Christian year is set up so that it begins with the promised coming of Jesus, followed by his birth. Jesus doesn’t stay in the cradle long, before you know it he is twelve years old and missing in action when Mary and Joseph go looking for him. And the next thing you know, the chilly waters of the Jordan and his cousin, John, the baptizer, call out to him and Jesus is baptized in those waters. Next comes the season of lent and Jesus’ journey towards Jerusalem and ultimately His cross. Three days later, we get to be with Jesus on his finest day, his resurrection day. That night, we get to be with a couple of the followers of Jesus as they make their way to a community whose name is Emmaus. We also get to be with the disciples on the following days as Jesus appears to them. You will remember that this is where we get to know Thomas the best, not as the twin, not as the one who once said, “Let us also go with Him to Jerusalem so that we might die with him.” No, on the days after that first Easter morning, we know Thomas better as the one who said that he would not believe unless he saw the nail marks. And says Jesus to all of us in the passage where Thomas does see Jesus, “Blessed are those of you who believe even though you do not see.”

From there we move to the ascension, where Jesus goes up into the heavens. Then it is a quick journey back to Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit is given. Those in Jerusalem who did not understand the gift, who witnessed people speaking in their own tongues and still understanding, thought that the explanation had to be found in the bottom of a wine bottle. We all know better than that. The season of Pentecost, the longest season in the Christian year, continues through the summer. This season rehearses what happened once the church knew that it could do something.

And so here we land on Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday before the rehearsal begins all over again. Today the church is supposed to think about what it really means for Jesus to be the king of their lives. If Matthew had his way this morning, we would read together that parable just after the parable of the talents, where Jesus is pictured as a king on a throne, with the whole world in front of him, separating the sheep from the goats and telling his followers that when they were at their best is when they fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, visited those in prison, those kinds of things. And says Jesus, when you did those things to the least and the lost of these, you did it to me. I guess that the disciples did not do those things to Jesus in those moments because he did not look like royalty.

And then there are the lessons for Thanksgiving Day. One of the choices is a great lesson from the book of Deuteronomy. Another is our gospel lesson, from the seventeenth chapter of Luke’s gospel, the one that I read just a moment ago. These lessons lend themselves to Thanksgiving Sunday sermons. And if you do not have a community Thanksgiving worship service, and we do not, then this is the only time to hear from the church on the subject.

The gospel lesson is great. Jesus comes up against a community of lepers on the border between Galilee and Samaria. They call out to him. He tells them to go and show themselves to their priests and while they are being obedient, while they are on their way to do exactly what Jesus told them to do they are healed. One of them, Luke tells us is a Samaritan, and that is the scandal of this whole story. He turns back on his heals, heads back towards Jesus, finds him, falls at his feet, worships him and thanks him for restoring his life. Jesus, you will remember, seems to be a little perturbed at the other nine, the ones who kept going to Jerusalem, who did only what Jesus told them to do, instead of also turning back and giving thanks to him for their gift of healing. Preachers this morning, if they choose this lesson, if they do not have a Thanksgiving sermon to preach on Wednesday evening, will use this story to talk about how we all need to thank Jesus for all of the gifts that he has given us, including the gift of healing. I can see the sermon title out there on the sign board, on the message board. The title is inviting and it’s eye catching and it asks, “Where Are the Nine?”

The only problem I see with any of this, with all of this, is that this lesson, this story is not really about being thankful, though one out of ten did turn back and do that. This story, really, is about faith and taking a step toward healing even when the leprosy still seems to be hanging on. Luke wants you think about what faith and faithfulness means. He dedicates an entire chapter to it, his seventeenth chapter. In the first four verses, faith is about forgiveness. In the next two verses, faith can accomplish just about anything. In the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth verses, faith means being humble. And in our lesson for this morning faith means that you do something, take a step towards something if you want to be healed.

Luke tells us that while he was on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus was walking along the border between Galilee and Samaria. It is a path that no respectable Jew would take because good Jews would have nothing to do with Samaritans. You will know this. Jesus has many dealing with the Samaritans. He is about to have another one; this Samaritan had leprosy.

What Luke says here corresponds with what we know about lepers. They kept their distance from those who did not have leprosy. They lived and traveled in bands, in groups, and always positioned themselves on major roads because they had to be where people were. To make it, they had to beg for food and for money. You might say that they were separated in every way. They were separated from their livelihoods. But more significantly, they were separated from their families.

Jesus comes across a band of lepers, these men, just outside of a town. When they saw Jesus coming towards them, they did what they were supposed to do. The law required them to warn those coming their way that they were there. The law required for them to call out just as loud as they could, “Unclean! Unclean!” Look at the story; notice what happens. When the lepers approach Jesus, they don’t cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” They cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” That is not the cry of a leper. That is the cry of people in the church. In worship, it is called kyrie eleison. Lord have mercy. It is the cry, it is the prayer, that people in Luke’s day would have cried and prayed at the temple. Do you see what Luke is doing? Luke is telling us this story in such a way that the church will hear it as a message to them, and consequently to us that this is not just a miracle story of way back when. This is a challenge to us right now. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” It is the cry of people like us, who come to this church Sunday after Sunday with our lives in a mess or flattened out or blown away. Sometimes things are fine. When they are not, we silently cry out, “Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on me!” We hope that what is promised, here in the church, in worship services, will not be only empty words. We want to be whole again. We cry out, “Lord, look at me, notice me, have mercy on me!” I tell you, this isn’t just the kind of thing that a band of lepers would say outside of a city. This is the kind of thing that people say inside the sanctuary.

Listen to a little more of the story. Jesus tells these ten to go and show themselves to their priest. That, too, is the law. The law said that when you were healed from leprosy, you headed to the temple, you were examined by him, and if you were in fact, healed and cured, then you were welcomed back into the community and into the family. Jesus does not heal them and then tell them to show the proof to the priests. He tells them to head out and while they are on their way, they are healed. It says this to us. Sometimes, if there is to be a miracle in our lives, we have to do something. We have to step out. We have to start out, trusting that God will keep His promises. While they are on their way, says Luke, they were all healed.

Then there is the scandal of this story. There are ten lepers. All ten are healed. One out of ten comes back. He represents ten percent, I guess you could say. This story has two parts. We have been thinking about the first part, the healing part of it. It is a whopper of a healing story. Ten were healed in one fell swoop. Ten for the price of one. You don’t get that very often in the Bible. The first part is about healing, ten were healed. The second part is that one of them was not only healed; he also was saved. In the original language, the word for healing and for being saved is the same word. The scandal of this story is that the one who turned back was from Samaria. Luke is a wonderful story teller. He waits until the story is almost over to give you that detail. Just when you thought that you could sit back and be dazed by the story, Luke tells us that the one who returned had no business doing that. The other nine should have done that. It makes you stop and take notice. It is a story that says that we ought to be thankful. It is a story that says Jesus is still in the healing business. It is a story that says Jesus wants to give you a new life, no matter who you are.

This new life for us is what I would like to think about in the time that we have left. Now, not many of us have found ourselves on the road between Galilee and Samaria. And unless I have missed it, no one in this church has leprosy. But there are things that have kept us apart and even separated from the ones that we love. There are things that make us cry out to Jesus on whatever road we are on, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

Maybe this is where the passage really speaks to us. Perhaps no one really know the kind of leprosy we are dealing with, the struggles that we are having. Most of the time, these things stay in the quiet places of our souls. It may surprise those of you who do not already know that I enjoy watching Desperate Housewives on Sunday nights. By the time Sunday evening arrives, I want to relax and not have to think too hard about what I am doing. The show is a guilty pleasure for me. The show reminds me of the quote; the one that says that most men live quiet lives of desperation. We keep our secrets close to our chest, but we often cry out to Jesus for help.

I heard of a man who struggled with a particular vice in his life. He wanted to be better than it was, but most of the time it got the better of him. He sought the help of his best friend who bluntly told him, “If you want something different, then you must do something different!” At first he was offended. He could not help but to think to himself, “Who does he think he is?!” Still, he could not get the thought out of his mind. “If you want something different, then you must do something different!” One morning he prayed, “I want this out of my life!” Somehow he changed. By the grace of God he changed. Change is not easy; he mustered up the courage to be different. He struggled with his sin for years. Looking back at it, he said, “Every little bit helped. A word here, an event there. And when I look back at it, I can see it!”

For him, it was a bondage, like leprosy, something that held on to him, spread throughout his body, and kept him from the ones that he loved. Please hear this today, God is still in the business of healing and freeing and forgiving. The hardest part is the first step towards it. Let us pray.