Tag Archives: Lepers

Cleansed & Thankful – Sermon on Luke 17:11-19 for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Luke 17:11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Trouble will often create fellowship. After the terrorist attacks on 9/11 our country had a strong sense of unity – at least for a bit. Those of you who lived here during the ’97 flood still have that fellowship. Maybe you’ve noticed having better fellowship with your family when a loved one has gone through lengthy medical treatments or died. Everyone bands together to get stuff done.

One of the reasons Alcoholics Anonymous or other support groups are so helpful is that struggling people can meet others have gone through similar situations. People gain strength and encouragement from others who have had similar experiences and struggles. All those are good examples of trouble creating fellowship. That kind of fellowship produces unity and focus, a renewed sense of purpose and drive, and hope in the midst of sorrow. Fellowship created by and through trouble can have a powerful positive effect. 

But trouble can also create bad fellowship – really bad fellowship. I’ve heard of support groups that morph into a kind of contest where some will try to show how much more pain they have endured than the rest of the individuals in that group. Or, when a group like that only focuses on their pain and struggle, some might start to think they’ll lose their connections if they begin to heal from the pain. So, everyone gets fixated on either being or, even worse, remaining a victim in an effort to not lose that camaraderie.

It seems like that fixation on victimhood is one of the tactics the devil is using to divide our culture today. There is so much conversation about privileged and the underprivileged. The super-rich and those who aren’t. The oppressors and the oppressed. Even if you aren’t initiating those conversations, the natural, knee-jerk reaction to that kind of talk is to view people who are introducing that kind of vocabulary as the enemy, so you put up walls and barriers. Dear saints, you must fight against that urge.

As a Christian, you know that all of humanity is much more united than we are divided. Whenever you have the urge to shove others away – and it doesn’t matter who the ‘others’ are – remember two things: First, you are united with every person you meet by the trouble of sin. We are all under the curse of sin and the sentence of death because of that sin. Second, you are united with every person you meet by the mercy of God that is only found in Christ. You know from the Word of God that every person you meet is someone from whom Christ died (Jn. 1:29; 1 Tim. 2:6). Those two points of unity are desperately needed in our society and culture today.

In this text, the ten lepers were united by the trouble of their disease. Leprosy was a chronic skin disease caused sores, numbness, and the eventual loss of limbs. Because it was so contagious, leprosy also caused isolation from family and friends. Lepers had to live apart from others. But these ten found fellowship with each other because of their common trouble. The leprosy created a tight-knit community of ten that is more remarkable than we might realize. Apparently, most of these lepers were Jewish, but at least one was a Samaritan.

This is remarkable because this community of ten wouldn’t have formed unless they shared this disease. It wasn’t even conceivable. The disdain and divide between Jews and Samaritans was even bigger than between Vikings and Packers or Red Sox and Yankees fans. Or any other divide you want to insert here. But here they are in this little community of the suffering. And they are so united they do something very interesting.

When lepers encountered people who weren’t lepers, they would cry out, “Unclean, unclean” (Lev. 13:45). But that isn’t what these ten holler when they see Jesus. Instead, with a united voice (by the way, the Gk. for ‘voice’ there is singular not plural), these ten lepers cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus tells them to present themselves to the priests, and the only reason a leper would do that is if they had recovered from their leprosy. It’s only as they walk away from Jesus that they are healed from their leprosy. But only one, only the Samaritan, does an about-face and returns to give thanks to Jesus.

Once the leprosy that united them was miraculously healed by Christ, the unity they had was gone, so the group splits up. The Samaritan is now united through faith to Jesus. So, of course, this cleansed Samaritan returns to the One who cleaned him. The saved returns to his Savior. What happened to the nine? Were they just too excited to get back to their families that they forgot to thank the Son of God? Who knows?

We can ask this Samaritan in the Resurrection because, dear saints, you will meet him there. You will meet him because you have also been cleansed from the leprosy of your sin, just as he was. One day, you will join him in giving thanks and worshiping at the feet of your God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Maybe that Samaritan will tell us how he went and witnessed to the other nine and will introduce us to them.

From this Samaritan, we should learn that one of the characteristics of faith is thanksgiving and being a person of thankfulness. It’s interesting when Paul listed the fruit of the Spirit in our Epistle reading (Gal. 5:16-24) that he didn’tinclude thankfulness. But based on this account of the thankful Samaritan, we do see that thankfulness is one of the ways that faith is manifest.

As the Samaritan lies with his face on the ground giving thanks at Jesus’ feet, our Lord says to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has (lit.) saved you” (not just ‘made you well’). In other words, the Samaritan’s thankfulness is the visible manifestation of faith because giving thanks is how he recognizes and acknowledges the Source of his cleansing.

Dear saints, be people of thanks, not just people of gratitude. There’s a lot of talk about gratitude today, and gratitude is good, but thankfulness is better. The distinction between the two is this (you’ve heard me say this before): Gratitude recognizes the goodness of the thing that has been given. But thankfulness goes a step further. Thankfulness recognizes the goodness of the giver. If a daughter asks her mom for a snack and is given a bowl of ice cream, the girl can be grateful, but if mom gives her a few sticks of celery, the kid won’t be grateful because celery is gross. But that same child can be thankful with either a bowl of ice cream or disgusting celery because it comes from her mom who loves her and knows what her daughter needs.

This distinction between gratitude and thankfulness helps us understand 1 Th. 5:18 which says, “Give thanks in all circumstances.” Not all circumstances are good, so how can you give thanks? Well, because thankfulness is not gratitude. Through faith you can give thanks whether God sends you joy or sorrow, pleasure or pain, goodness or even evil. Remember Job. After all his property and children were taken from him, Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Even after Job’s health was taken from him and his wife told him to curse God and die, Job said, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). In both instances, Scripture says, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (Job 1:22, 2:10).

In moments of loss and pain, you might not be able to be grateful, but you can be thankful. If nothing else, you can give thanks to God for what He has given, even if He takes it away. Through faith, you can give thanks – even when God takes His gifts from you because you know the goodness of the God who gave and removed those gifts. Through faith, you know that His goodness doesn’t fade or change. Only through faith can you give thanks in all circumstances (1 Th. 5:18).

Dear saints, in this world you have lots of trouble (Jn. 16:33), but even in and through that trouble, God unites you into the community of His Church. Christ has delivered you from your sin by the forgiveness He won and purchased with His blood on the cross. Because of that, you aren’t just united with others by trouble. You are united by something much, much stronger. You are united by His Blood, which cleanses you from all your sin.

Live now as God’s forgiven people, united in giving Him thanks. Your gracious, cleansing God and Savior, Jesus Christ, now invites you to His table to receive that cleansing through His Body and Blood. Come. Receive. And leave here with His thanks and praise on your lips. Let that thankfulness be on your tongue as you go about your business this week and every week because that thankfulness will point others to your Savior, who has cleansed you. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). Amen.

Rise & Go – Sermon on Luke 17:11-19 for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Luke 17:11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem [Jesus] was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Leprosy wasn’t simply a skin disease. Scripture repeatedly equates leprosy with punishment for sin and a sign of God’s wrath. In Dt. 28(:15, 27) Moses says, “If you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God,… [He] will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with scales and [leprosy] of which you cannot be healed.” We see this happen several times in the Scriptures.

When Moses’ sister Miriam spoke against Moses (Num. 12:1-10), she became a leper. David’s general, Joab (and later Joab’s descendants), were struck with leprosy after he unjustly killed Abner (2 Sam. 3:29). After Naaman was healed from his leprosy, Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, took a bribe from Naaman and became leprous (2 Kgs. 5:20-27). King Uzziah of Judah contracted leprosy when he offered incense in the Temple even though he was not a priest (2 Chr. 26:16-21). The rabbis in Jesus’ day taught that leprosy was never contracted by people who lived moral lives. (I don’t think we can or should go that far, though.) There is little doubt that these ten lepers concluded that their condition meant they were being punished by God.

In desperation, they cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us.” What were they asking for? Did they know that Jesus had cleansed lepers before, so they were crying out to Him for healing? Did they want food or money? Honestly, we don’t know, and it’s possible that the lepers didn’t know themselves. Notice, they don’t call Jesus ‘Lord’ as many other people do when they call out to Jesus in faith. Instead, they call our Lord, ‘master,’ which opens the door to all sorts of possibilities. Jesus simply responds, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

Now, this statement from Jesus was probably not received well by the lepers. They already knew that the priests were supposed to examine people with skin diseases and declare them to be clean or unclean, and, since these ten have leprosy, they are unclean. Going to the priests would be a pointless exorcise for lepers. The best-case scenario for a leper being examined by a priest would be for them to be declared unclean again. Because we know the end of the story, we know that Jesus has a hidden word of promise here. We know that their leprosy would be gone by the time they got to the priests. But some have argued, and I think convincingly, that these lepers heard the opposite. Instead of hearing the hidden promise, they heard a hard, “No, I won’t help you,” from Jesus.

Let me explain. I frequently and regularly get phone calls and people coming in to the church asking for help. I listen to their story and ask questions to discern how we as a congregation can best help them. Nine times out of ten, the individual is simply looking for one more excuse to continue some type of sinful, destructive behavior.

A few years ago, a man came here telling me that he was homeless and wanted money to buy food. I listened to his story, prayed with him, offered him some godly advice, and told him, “We have some food I can give you in the basement.” (And just so you know it was perfectly good food that I ate a couple days after he came.) But he didn’t want what we had, so I told him that he could go to Northlands Rescue Mission or to the Food Shelf because we support those ministries monthly, but he wasn’t interested in that either. He wanted money to get something from the store. I simply told him, “Listen, we are happy and willing to help you. You can have this food here, you can get a meal at Northland, or you can get something from the Food Shelf.” He became very upset, and as he left he yelled at me, “[Bleep] off.”

I’m very glad that we, as a congregation, send monthly support to different ministries in our community that can assist probably 95% of the people who come to our congregation asking for help. Those ministries serve as a clearing house to make sure people aren’t abusing the generosity of Christians and can come along side of people to help teach them to make better decisions. And I want to be clear, we still help many who need assistance through our Deacons’ Fund, but some people refuse to receive the help they actually need.

I think the nine lepers were like that man. He was offered three ways to get food, which is what he said he wanted. But he only heard the refusal to give him money as a refusal to help him. These lepers probably heard Jesus’ statement, “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” in a similar way. It was as if Jesus was saying, “I’ll only help you if you are declared to be clean by the priests.”

The other thing we have to consider is the timing of all this. When were these lepers healed, and when did they discover that they were cleansed? I’ve typically imagined that the ten lepers start marching off to Jerusalem, and after they had walked for a couple hours, discover that they were healed. Nine of them continue journeying to the Temple, but the Samaritan hikes his way back to the village, back through the streets, back to Jesus’ feet where he falls down and gives Him thanks. The thing about this is that the text doesn’t actually supply any of those details. It’s certainly possible that it happened that way, but the grammar that Luke uses actually seems to imply something different.

The way the verbs work seems to suggest that the healing happened more or less immediately, or at least while the ten are still within earshot of Jesus. Imagine if their cleansing happened immediately, basically just as they turned away. The Samaritan, unlike the nine, turns back and praises Jesus with a loud voice. He recognizes both his healing and the source of his healing – which came from the Word of Jesus. In faith, given by the Holy Spirit, the Samaritan believes that Jesus is the good God who has good things for him. He receives the gift of healing, but even better, he believes in the healing Savior, who also gives salvation and eternal life, which is exactly what he gets. Those last words of Jesus in our text are better translated, “Your faith has saved you.”

In the end, the nine ungrateful lepers didn’t expect God to be good to them. And Jesus’ statement, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” would be a direct rebuke of them – something along the lines of, “Are you nine going to ignore when I have just done? I’ve given better than the mercy you asked for, and I have even more to give you.” But even if that isn’t the case, when the nine are healed, they refuse to recognize their Healer. The fact that they are cleansed is a wonderful thing, but it is only temporary. Their skin is restored, but their souls were still leprous in sin. They are the embodiment of the un-thankfulness that Jesus talks about in Mt. 5:45 where He says, “[God] makes the sun rise on the evil and on and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Dear saints, how often does our merciful God gives good things to draw us to Himself, but we fail to recognize it?

But the Samaritan sees God’s goodness and comes back for more. He returned to Christ from whom all blessings flow.

It’s one thing to be grateful, but it is a different thing to be thankful. There is little doubt that the nine lepers were grateful that they were better, but they didn’t recognize how they had been healed. But the one, the Samaritan, the doubly outcast, was thankful. He was not only happy for the gift of healing; he was also thankful for and to the Giver of the gift. That is why he returns to Jesus and gives Him thanks and praise.

I’m going to abruptly change gears here, so bear with me. The church has commonly used Psalm 116:12-13 as a prayer before receiving the cup during Holy Communion. Here’s that prayer: “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,” which fits perfectly with what this Samaritan leper does. Jesus is good to him by healing him. So, what thanks and service does he offer to God? He goes back and receives more. He receives the salvation of his soul which is even better than being cleansed from leprosy.

So, let’s bring this to us today. Too often, we are like the nine. We see and feel our suffering and think that God has forsaken us. We pray and ask God to remove whatever crosses we bear, but in our impatience, we think that any delay of relief is a hard, “No,” from God which makes us doubt God’s goodness. As that sinful doubt creeps in, we grow less and less thankful, and even when God does remove that suffering, we do not recognize His goodness and mercy. May we repent.

Dear saints, even in our most difficult times, we can wait on the mercy of God. Yes, we suffer in this life, and “Our sufferings are not trivial, but neither are they eternal” (Rev. Petersen). We can wait on and trust in God. We can praise Him even in times of sorrow because He has bought us with His blood and will never leave nor forsake us.

And from this Samaritan, let us learn to always return to Jesus. When Jesus tells him, “Rise and go,” He doesn’t give him any direction. The man can go wherever he wants. But notice where he did go after being healed, he went back to Jesus, back to the goodness of God for more. And the interesting thing about Jesus’ command to ‘go’ is that the Greek word is a little ambiguous. At its root, it means ‘journey’ which means that It doesn’t necessarily mean, ‘go away,’ it could also mean ‘come with me.’ And it doesn’t make much sense if Jesus praises the man’s faith and tells him to go away. Faith always returns to Jesus in thanks to receive more of what Jesus has to offer. That is why Ps. 116 answers the question, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” with, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”

Dear saints, we can expect God to be good wherever we journey. And we always desire to come back to Christ because He has more good things to give to us. Faith wants to be with Jesus and continue to receive His gifts. He is our Temple. He is our Priest. And He is here now to cleanse us and freely give us His forgiveness.

God has given you every good thing. So, what will you do to repay Him? Come and get more. Come now to His table and lift up the cup of salvation. Come, eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ for the salvation of your soul. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.