Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23C)

October 9, 2022

Text: Luke 17:11-19

            Ten lepers cried out to the Lord for mercy, and ten lepers received what they asked of the One who is Mercy Incarnate, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Ten are cleansed.  And undoubtedly, ten are thankful.  This is the Holy Gospel appointed for the National Day of Thanksgiving.  And too often, on that day, this text is preached as a moralistic call to “remember to say thanks.”  Like your mother, who never failed to admonish you, whenever you received a gift, “And what do you say?”  Your mother was right.  You should remember to say “thank you” to God and to others who do good things for you.  But the point of our Holy Gospel this morning is much more profound than anything you’ll read in Emily Post’s book on etiquette.  It is first of all, about the mercy of God in Christ Jesus for all people, for Jews and Samaritans (and even those beyond the confines of Israel), for the suffering and destitute, for the unclean and untouchable, for sinners, for you, and even for me.  It is, secondly, about the nature and essence of this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, the Son of God, who is God’s merciful answer to sinful humanity.  And it is, thirdly, about the Christian life, which, yes, is a life marked by thanksgiving and praise.  It is a life that falls down before the feet of Jesus and confesses Him as true God and Savior.  It is a life of receiving His gracious gifts.  Then it rises and goes on its Way, the Way of Jesus, the Way of discipleship.  That is a life lived in saving faith in Christ Jesus. 

            All ten were cleansed.  The mercy of Jesus Christ is for all.  No one is surprised that the Jews are cleansed, and presumably the other nine are Jews.  At Jesus’ command, they march off to the priests, as Moses commands cleansed lepers to do in the Torah (as you well know from your careful reading of skin disease casuistry in Leviticus 13).  And it’s what Jesus said they should do.  And I’ll bet that as they walk away, their flesh suddenly clean and smooth as newborn babes, they are praising the God of Abraham, laughing and leaping for joy!  So it is not a matter that they forgot to say thank you.

            What is amazing, though, is that Jesus also responds in mercy to the prayer of this Samaritan.  Yes, a Samaritan!  The Jews hated the Samaritans even more than they hated the pagan Gentiles.  And the feeling was mutual (although, interesting that they had no problem hanging out together when they are all despised lepers).  The Samaritans were a heretical group descended from the remnants of the Northern Tribes who survived the Assyrian deportation, who intermarried with pagan peoples.  The Jews did not consider them a part of Israel.  But Jesus, the Jew, comes not just for Jews, but even for this Samaritan.  And if He has come for this Samaritan, He has even come for pagan Gentiles, to save them, and bring them into the fold of Israel. 

            Jesus is God’s answer to that historic hatred.  He stretches His arms out upon the cross, to gather to Himself those who are near, and those who are far away, thus making of the two one body, the Body of Christ.  “For he himself is our peace,” St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, “who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph. 2:14; ESV). 

            So Jesus comes for those whose bodies are diseased and broken by the curse of living in this fallen world.  Jesus is God’s answer to our suffering.  “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,” the Prophet Isaiah consoles (Is. 53:4), and Peter, echoing the Prophet from his same sermon, preaches, “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24; cf. Is. 53:5). 

            He comes for those whose guilt and shame isolates them.  Jesus is God’s answer to the defilement and sin that excludes us from His people… “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace” (Is. 53:5).  He was “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).  He “is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). 

            He does this, not only for some, the Jews, the Israelites, the “Good Christian folk.”  He does this for all.  “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).  “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29).  And, as a result, whoever believes this has exactly what the Words say: the forgiveness of sins.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.  He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). 

            And that brings us to the second point.  Who is this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, who hears the prayer of the lepers in their misery, and in mercy, cleanses them, and makes them whole?  Who is this Man, who invades the space of those who must shout, “Unclean, unclean,” and stay far away from the rest of the human race?  The Samaritan recognizes what the other nine do not.  Jesus said, “Go show yourselves to the priests” (Luke 17:14).  And the Samaritan goes, not to the sons of Zadok in charge of the Temple, not to any Levite or son of Aaron, but returns to Jesus.  He recognizes that Jesus is the true High Priest who offers the Sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of all people.  He turns back to Jesus (and that is the definition of repentance!), praising God with a loud voice, and he falls at the feet of Jesus.  Do you see what he is saying?  To turn back to God is to turn back to Jesus.  To praise God is to praise Jesus.  To fall before God is to fall before Jesus.  Jesus is God.  The Samaritan, of all people, understands it.  This Man is to be worshipped.  This Man is our life and salvation, our only cleansing from leprosy, our only cleansing from sin and death.  Jesus confirms his confession.  “Were not ten cleansed?  Where are the nine?  Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (v. 17; emphasis added).

            And that brings us to the third point.  The Christian life is a life of continual returning to Jesus in utter dependence on His mercy.  It is the life of faith marked by thanksgiving and praise.  Having received all of this mercy from God in Christ Jesus, the forgiveness of sins, healing and wholeness, eternal life and salvation, there is nothing left to do but give thanks.  Thank God.  Thank Jesus.  And then rise and walk in the Way that Jesus goes.  Which is to say, follow Him.  Be His disciple. 

            Jesus says to the Samaritan, “Rise and go your way…” (v. 19).  The command to rise is the same word as that used for Jesus’ resurrection.  So what we are witnessing in our text is nothing short of a resurrection from the dead!  Jesus is giving the Samaritan life.  It is a life known now only to faith, and that is to say, it is hidden under this flesh, which even for the Samaritan, will eventually perish and rot away once again.  But it is a life hidden in Christ, who died for the Samaritan and for all, and who is now risen from the dead.  And on that blessed Day when Jesus comes again, what is hidden now, will be revealed to all.  That is, the Samaritan, and you, will rise from the dead.  Bodily.  Clean.  Whole.  So, “go your way,” says Jesus.  Which is to say, go the way of those who have been raised from the dead, as I have now raised you.  You can live now as one who is confident that death can no longer harm you.  Walk in faith.  Walk in My train.  Through every cross and all suffering.  Through death itself.  Walk boldly.  Walk joyfully.  Be not downcast.  Lift up your head.  You are following Me.  And My way leads through the cross, to the empty tomb!  I AM the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).  When you follow Me, that is where you end up.  “Rise and go your way.”  It is no accident that the early Church was first known as “the Way” (cf. Acts 9:2).

            To go your way, then, dear Christian, is to walk as one who has been raised by Jesus to new life.  And you have been.  In Baptism, you died with Christ (you got your death over with at the font!), and you have been raised with Him, even now, as Paul says in Romans 6, to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).  It is to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7), knowing that your life is now hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).  It is to know that, whatever crosses or afflictions you suffer here and now, Christ has redeemed you from sin and all uncleanness, from death and every affliction, by His cross and death, and He is now risen from the dead, lives for you, and reigns over all things for you.  This faith, as Jesus says to the Samaritan, has not only “made you well” (Luke 17:19), as we have it translated in our ESV (and it is a fine translation of the word, with all the overtones of the Hebrew word, Shalom, peace, wellness, wholeness, of body, mind, and spirit)… but perhaps we could translate it most pointedly and literally, “your faith has saved you.”  This text preaches salvation through faith.  Your faith in Christ saves you.  Sola fide.  Faith alone. 

            Faith saves you from the historic hatreds and petty grievances that divide you from your neighbor.  Faith saves you from sin and every uncleanness of body and soul that alienates you from communion with God and with man.  Faith saves you from every affliction, from death and from its every symptom.  Faith saves you from your own sinful flesh, and from hell itself.  Faith saves you because it receives God’s answer to all of these.  That is, faith receives Jesus.  To say that faith saves you is to say that Jesus saves you.  What He does for the Samaritan in our text, He does here and now for you.  He cleanses you.  He forgives you.  He reconciles you.  He speaks you well, whole, and righteous.  He raises you from death to go His way.

            Ten lepers cried out to the Lord for mercy, and ten lepers received what they asked of the one who is Mercy Incarnate, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  And so you.  So now return to Jesus.  Repent of your sins.  Extol Him with a loud voice, confessing the Creed and singing the hymns with gusto.  Fall at His beautiful, pierced feet, and give thanks.  Eucharist, the text says.  And you know what else that word has come to mean for us.  Receive yet more mercy.  The Supper.  His body.  His blood.  Given and shed for you.  Fall before Him here, to receive that.  Then rise with Jesus’ resurrection life in you, and go live it.  “Depart in peace.”  That is the way to thank God.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.