Fantasize with me for a moment. If you wish, you may close your eyes. You are in a different place in a different time. It is Palestine 2000 years ago. You are actually daydreaming in this place. You’re thinking of a wedding party you attended several years ago. What a party it was! It lasted a whole five days. There was music and dancing. The food was plentiful and delicious. Those pastries were out of this world! And the wine kept flowing. Everyone had such a good time. You felt such love for everyone—your family, your friends, new acquaintances. Life was surely good in those days.
It was your wedding. But things have changed now, drastically. You have had to leave your home, your spouse, your children. You may not even see them, or any of your old acquaintances. You are not allowed to worship in the Temple. All contact with your community has been cut off.
It has been several years now that you have been in this condition. It all started when you developed those red, scaly blotches on your arms and head. Then it began to spread. You tried to hide it, because you knew it could lead to your being banished from the community. But one day a friend noticed the spot on your head and went immediately to the priest and reported what he saw. The priest came to your home, called for you to come outside and show him your head. One look, and he said the dreaded word—“Unclean.”
You had to leave immediately. You couldn’t go back into your house; you couldn’t say good-bye. You went to the outskirts of town and eventually began to live with others who were also banished because of their leprosy.
There are nine others in your group. Some are much worse off than you physically. They suffer physically, but you really don’t have that much discomfort. One in your group is a Samaritan. You had never known a Samaritan before, because all Jews hate Samaritans and all Samaritans hate Jews. But in your condition it no longer seems relevant.
You have heard about miracles of healing that a man Jesus performed. One day he comes to your village. As he comes into view you are not allowed to approach. You must shout “Unclean.” But then you shout something else: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”
Jesus doesn’t come near you. No one ever did that. He simply says, “Go and show yourselves to the priest.” You do as you are told, and on the way, while you are looking at the red blotches on your arms, the blotches begin to fade. With every step, they grow lighter, until, by the time you reach the home of the priest your skin is as beautiful as it was the day you were born.
The priest can hardly believe his eyes. He praises God for the miracle and tells you you may return home. You and the nine others can’t wait to go home and see your loved ones, which is just what you do. You are only vaguely aware that the Samaritan doesn’t appear to be headed for home, but is heading back in the direction from which you all came.
The fantasy is over. If you closed your eyes, you may open them now. What a horrible experience it must have been to be diagnosed with leprosy. The malady I described that you had would not be called leprosy today. It is called psoriasis, and is not contagious. But psoriasis was one of the many skin disorders labeled as leprosy in those days. If you had a skin disorder that was regarded to be leprosy, you would be known from then on by your disease. You were a leper.
The ten lepers whom Jesus healed had much for which to be thankful, for now they could lead normal lives. They could make a living, live in society, have a family, and worship in the Temple. Jesus had made them whole. Yet only one of the ten, a Samaritan, bothered to thank Jesus for this tremendous gift he had given them. Why didn’t the other nine return to thank Jesus? Perhaps they were so excited they forgot, or maybe they didn’t want to lose any more time in going about the business of living. Or maybe some of them wondered if it really was Jesus who had cured them. Perhaps some of them were bitter about their experience as lepers, still too bitter to feel any kind of gratitude. Life had dealt them a hard blow, something they could never forgive or forget.
Whatever the reason, they did not thank the one who made them whole. In recounting this story, St. Luke might have been saying something about human nature and the nature of holy living. He was lifting up the one who gave thanks as a good example of faithful living, while at the same time pointing to the fact that most of us, most of the time, like the nine lepers, do not have an attitude of gratitude.
St. Luke may also have been implying something else in telling the story of the one who gave thanks. I would guess that each of us would identify with the one who gave thanks. Each of us might think, “If Jesus were to cure me of leprosy, then I would certainly go back and thank him.” That is the Christian response, not only to a cure for a specific disease, but also to all of life. Jesus has made us whole. Through him we are given new life, the forgiveness of sins, and brought into the fellowship of his Body. It isn’t by accident that the principle form of worship in the Church from earliest times was called Eucharist, from the Greek word eucharistia, which means thanksgiving. We are a people who give thanks.
We are embarking again on a pledge drive, in which we are challenged to think seriously and pray about our stewardship. The reason we Christians give of our time, talent, and treasure is that we are saying thank you to God for life itself, for our new life in Christ, for all that we have and all that we are. Our stewardship springs from our attitude that in the midst of our joys and sorrows, of our wholeness and our brokenness, of our victories and defeats, we still must give thanks in tangible ways for the love of Christ. May we each be like the one leper made whole, who did return and give thanks.
Sermon preached by The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
The 21st Sunday after Pentecost
13 October 2013