Luke 17:11-19
Made Clean!
There’s an intentional design to our worship service. A back-and-forth pattern to keep us involved in the act. We’re not just bystanders in the pews, observing what someone else does. We’re meant to participate and respond. This has been part of the service for many centuries, though lost for a period, needing to be rediscovered. For worship is more than singing praise songs and saying how great and wonderful God is. It’s a back-and-forth between pastor and people, between God and us. When we use the word worship, people have many different ideas as to what that means. Some think it’s all about praising God. Others think it’s about showing reverence to God. But we as Lutheran’s understand it as a two-way street. It’s not just about us, nor is it only about God. It’s both. This is the back-and-forth movement in our service I want you to notice. For the first movement of service is God coming to us with his gifts. We confess our sins, and God forgives. We pray to God in the collect. Then God speaks to us through his word in our readings. God uses pastors to explain his gifts and love in the sermon, so that we may bring our prayers and praise before him. Yes, worship is two-fold in its focus. It’s about God coming to us with his gifts, then us as his people returning to him thanks and praise for all that he’s done. This cycle is present not just in worship, but throughout our life as well. Thus, we’re meant to learn from worship the way God works among us and how we ought to respond.
As we dive into our Gospel reading today, let us examine the back and forth between Jesus and the ten lepers. For we don’t say thank you for no reason. Rather, we fall down before him because we recognize all that he’s done for us. So, let us learn this back-and-forth today, as we learn:
HAVING BEEN CLEANSED OF OUR SIN, LET US RETURN TO THE LORD OUR THANKS AND PRAISE!
I.
The plight of lepers in those days was more than a danger to their health. Since they didn’t have cures for most things like we do, lepers became outcasts from society and civilization as a whole. Because of Levitical law, if someone was found with leprosy, they were to be put “outside the camp” until their leprosy was gone. This often meant they would be cast outside the city and cut off from friends and family for anywhere between months to years at a time. Even more so, when travelers would walk in their direction, it was their responsibility to warn others of the danger by yelling out, “Unclean, Unclean!” But let us turn again to the Gospel, “As [Jesus] entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us,” Luke 17:12-13. We know nothing more about these ten lepers than just that… they were lepers, ostracized and cast out from their homes because of this disease. Having likely heard from afar these stories, or possibly even rumors of Jesus, they came to see Jesus as their last desperate hope.
As these lepers call out for help, Jesus is more than willing to oblige. He hears their cry and answers them. As Jesus tells them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” Luke 17:14. Notice that Jesus doesn’t heal them on the spot. The healing is even only implied. Yet, the faith of these ten is to listen and obey. For as they’re going to the priests, they’re all healed! It’s another Jesus miracle! Understand that all ten of these lepers did exactly what Jesus said. They all believed enough to take Jesus at his word and believe they’d be healed. But there’s one… just one that thinks to return to Jesus. “Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan,” Luke 17:15-16. Jesus asks three questions in quick succession which offers praise to this Samaritan. “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Luke 17:17-18. Is this purely an indictment off the Jews who were cleansed? Is this all because this Samaritan simply said “thank you”? Or is there more to this than meets the eye?
II.
I want you to walk away today understanding that as good and salutary as it is to say thank you, the morale of this story isn’t simply giving thanks. It’s so much more. Did you notice the progression of their interactions? Did you notice the back and forth between these lepers and Jesus? It’s exactly the way that God works with us. For like these lepers, we say something similar about ourselves every week. “We confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean.” Unclean, unclean! Yes, our sins have made us unclean. It’s the disease of sin that has infected us and caused us to be cut off one from another. Hence, we have but one option left to us. We have no hope of a cure. No hope of solving it ourselves. Thus, we cry out, “Lord, have mercy upon us!” Our only hope is in the one of whom we’ve heard stories and rumors. It’s in Jesus. For Jesus goes where others won’t. He came to those lepers just as he comes to us. That is, Jesus reaches out to those of us who have been ostracized, cut off, who have no hope of return except in him alone.
Jesus hears our cry and he’s more than willing to oblige. For he comes to us carrying gifts in his hands—the gifts of forgiveness, love, mercy, and grace. Jesus sends us, brings us to the font of his mercy to wash us clean of our sins that we may be healed, to join us again to the community of faith. But he doesn’t stop there. He goes to the cross so that he may take away our disease permanently. He pours out his blood for us that we may live a new life, one redeemed and sanctified. For this is the point where we say, “Thank you.” We give thanks and praise to God for all he’s done… not because we deserved it, but because he gave it to us as a gift! For this is where the Samaritan’s faith shined through. What did he do at the end? Yes, he returned and gave thanks… but to who? Wasn’t the temple the house of God? No! This is what he realized and what made his faith different from all the rest. He realized that the hands of God were at work, not solely in the temple, but in the very hands of Jesus! He realized that God was now standing before him, incarnate man. Thus, he’s the only one truly to “return and give praise to God”. So too, may we recognize how and where God is at work amongst us. As he gives us his gifts, may we rightly return to him our thanks and praise!
Like the Samaritan, may we recognize the bountiful goodness of God and see all the gifts he gives to us through the very hands and feet of Jesus. Then for all of his mercy and grace, let us return our thanks and praise to him through faith in Jesus Christ! In Jesus’ name! Amen!