A Tale Of Ten Lepers (A Sermon On Luke 17:11-19)

A guy named Charles Brown suggested offered a rather cynical list of reasons why nine of the ten failed to return:

* One waited to see if the cure was real.

* One waited to see if it would last.

* One said he would see Jesus later.

* One decided that he had never had leprosy.

* One said he would have gotten well anyway.

* One gave the glory to the priests.

* One said, "O well, Jesus didn’t really do anything."

* One said, "Just any rabbi could have done it."

* One said, "I was already much improved."

I think that’s probably a bit harsh. And I think that probably fails to take into account the incredible nature of the moment that this healing must have occasioned for these men. After all, these men had families, to which they could now return. Perhaps some of them had children that they hadn’t seen for years? No doubt some of them had been skilled craftsmen in their earlier life, and they could now return to make a meaningful contribution to the communities that they had been forced to leave. Now they could go back home and sleep in their old bed again - a soft bed. They could eat and drink with their old friends again. They could have a life again as a respected member of their family and community.

My guess is that these guys forgot to go back and thank Jesus for the same reason we forget people, as we come home from the cemetery. We move forward with life, and so we never really find the time to look back!

And it’s a mistake, as the example of the one guy who did remember makes clear.

And of course, as if Jesus Himself wrote the script, it’s not the Christian guy who goes back in gratitude. It’s the Moslem guy (or his Ancient Near Easter equivalent). And just as the lepers had displayed themselves to the priest, now Mohammed the ex-leper is displayed before all of us as the model of how genuine believers behave. "Get up and go on your way", Jesus says to him. "Your faith has made you well!"

do you take this story? It’s not a parable with some fixed message. It is a story. How does it speak to you?

It’s a healing story, reminding us of the wonderful power of Jesus to heal.

It’s a story of someone from a different religion who shows us how to believe.

For me, it’s primarily a story about forgetting and remembering.

St Paul’s conversion story is recorded so often in the Bible! I suspect that it comes up so often because Paul used to tell it so often. Why? Lest he should forget!

Blaise Pascall (the mathematician) wrote ‘The year of grace 1654. Monday 23rd November. From about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight. Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. God of Jesus Christ. My God and your God.’

When did they find this writing? In 1662, after his death. He had sown this journal entry inside the lining of his jacket. Why? So he would never forget!

If our story this morning is anything to go by, perhaps nine of our ten of us do forget the most important people in our lives and perhaps nine out of ten times we do forget the good things that happen to us all too quickly?