My Enemy My Friend
October 13, 2013
One afternoon a small boy was playing outdoors, using his mother’s broom as a horse, and he had a wonderful time until the sun went down. As he came in he left the broom on the back porch.
His mother was cleaning the kitchen when she realized her broom was missing, so she asked her son, “Do you know where my broom is?”
“I left my horse on the back porch,” he replied.
“That’s fine,” she said, “but I need it, so go get it for me.”
The boy hesitated so his mom asked, “Go on, get the broom.”
“I’m afraid of the dark,” he whimpered.
Through her laughter she said, “The Lord is out there too, so don’t be afraid.”
With a look of relief the boy opened the door a little and said, “Lord, if you’re out there, hand me the broom.”
We continue in Luke, focusing on the 17th chapter, verses 11 through 19. As mentioned before, this series in Luke did not begin intentionally but happened because these stories are so full of important information that leads humanity to better understand this person we call Messiah, the Master. The other information gleaned from Luke is virtual instruction on what our relationship with God should be and what we will do while in that bond. Some teachers have complained that there is so much about money in Luke that it is repetitious to a fault. This lesson is sort of a break in the trend.
The story in these eight short verses is familiar, and typically taught as our need to be thankful for what God does for us. Such deduction is correct and sound teaching, but as you might expect from these messages, there’s more.
The incident of the ten lepers being healed happened in a place not particularly friendly to Yeshua and His followers. Do you remember how James and John visited a Samaritan village, only to be rudely told to leave? And remember how the two disciples asked the Master to bring fire from heaven and kill them all? We don’t know if this is the same village that rejected them, but it wouldn’t matter if it was because the Master was not in favor of annihilating any Samaritan village.
Samaria was a geographical region occupied by people who followed a different Torah, or Bible, than what was taught in the Temple at Jerusalem. Today we might equate the differences in belief taught from the Book of Mormon verses the Catholic Bible verses the Bible as accepted in evangelical churches. We just don’t mix our audiences either. This religious disagreement might as well have been a wall between Samaria and Jerusalem, intended to keep the two separated while both sides insisted on their rightness, and that they had God on their side of the argument while the other side was wrong. Even the word Samaritan comes from the Hebrew shaw’-mar, meaning a hedge about to protect self, to look narrowly and preserve and save one’s self. Missions or the plight of others was not on their minds.
Regardless of right fighters being on both sides of that imaginary wall, Jesus ignored the differences and focused only on the plight of these ten lepers near the Samarian side, yelling at Messiah, showing obvious and loudly-proclaimed faith in Him.
These chapters in Luke are about the journey from Capernaum to Jerusalem and what happened along the way. The apostles and disciples had been the advance party to make the trip most profitable by arranging meetings and let the public know that Messiah would be coming through. This is how the ten lepers knew they had a chance of being healed, and their knowledge is proof that even in hostile territory, good news travels. These ten people, probably all men, were waiting near the road where Yeshua would be traveling. Obviously, Jesus’ reputation preceded Him, proclaimed by those sent out to make the way “straight,” which was within His teaching about allowing others to proclaim rank or position.
And, there is a legitimate question about chronology of this story, in that this may not have happened on the first trip to Jerusalem, yet it might have if Luke changed the order of events in his memory. Then, there is the other well-supported possibility that the Gospel According to Luke was written by the same person who wrote the Acts of the Apostles. If this is true, then writing these stories out of sequence makes sense and is understandable. In sequence or not, the message in this story is powerful and applicable to us, particularly now.
Whether these ten men, most likely all Samaritans, followed the Torah’s teaching the way Messiah accepted it or not, what He heard as He approached the village were these ten men, yelling at the top of their voices when they first see Christ saying, “O Jesus, our Master, have mercy on us!” Wait a minute. These guys were not of the same “denomination” as Jesus, yet they are calling Him, “Our Master.” What they did know on the testimony of the apostles is that this Teacher healed others and they had a chance of being physically clean again. They stood at a distance out of respect, not wanting their disease to infect the one who could heal them. Another possibility is that they knew Yeshua would not be welcomed in a Samaritan village so they waited for Him as He would pass by.
The question begs to be asked; would Jesus be their Master had He not been in the service of humanity by healing the afflicted? What if word of the healings had not been told by witnesses to those events? The fact that the lepers knew of Yeshua well enough to believe that He could heal them is testimony of the impact of His intentional service to humanity. Consider the impact of a Samaritan priest telling the lepers that Jesus was a fake, much like the Pharisees attitude, and that news of healings was only rumor. Was there some ritual needed to invoke God’s sympathy or miracle? Would these guys have been so anxious to meet the Master had they believed a lie that nothing good could come from Capernaum?
Reality is that they heard about the Healer through witnesses, set aside any doctrinal issues, cared less about discrepancies between holy books or interpretations, and recognized Messiah as the power who could change lives. These guys needed a big change to be accepted in society again, and nothing, including rumor or right fighting, was going to come between the solution to their problem and the problem solver. Being Samaritan was far down the list of importance to a person who had leprosy.
What is not commonly known is that nearly all diseases of the skin came under the diagnosis by a priest as leprosy. The only one with the authority and/or ability to tell if the disease was contagious was a priest. Doctors of the time used bizarre things to attempt treatment, and we know today that such practices only made a disease worse. These ten, standing at the edge of the village, were likely to have been to the priest already, who gave them a diagnosis of the worst kind. Because they were outside the village when yelling at Messiah to come heal them, we can rightfully deduct that the finding was that they were contagious. They most likely had been banished from the village.
Yeshua did something to let established religion know that a new Boss had shown up. He told the men, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” Remember that the Samaritan priests were in conflict with Temple leaders in Jerusalem and had no problem causing conflict with Pharisees who were in authority and opposition. Still, if the priest had declared them contagious, he could declare them clean. Had Jesus wanted to force a position about who was right in their religious thinking, he could have told them to change their minds first and then be healed. What He did was tell the men to show the priests that they were now clean, knowing for sure they would inform the priests of how they were made whole, without blemish.
Now comes the most obvious point of the story; gratitude given to the Master for doing something so huge in these lives. Nine of the guys started walking toward the priest, doing what they were told. Note that it took only the first step toward the healing process, doing as they were told, for God to do the rest. But, only one, a Samaritan who had every reason to disagree with Messiah, diverted from his walk to the priest to thank his Healer. The verse reads, “…but one of them, when he saw that he was cleansed, turned back, and with a loud voice praised God. And he fell on his face at the feet of Jesus, thanking him; and this one was a Samaritan.” The point was clearly made that the one with the presence of mind to be thankful, was the one who had the most disagreement in his heart for this new Gospel, one of the same clan with an attitude that chased James and John out of the village. The fact that this Samaritan was thankful shows us that the one with the biggest change of heart was the one with the most gratitude. Does this not sound like humanity today? Are not the ones most thankful for the grace of God, the ones who were deepest in sin?
This story is also an indictment of mainstream Christianity today. Messiah posed a question to the Samaritan man, a question he could not answer. “Were there not ten who were cleansed?” he asked, “Where are the nine? Why did they separate themselves so as not to come and give praise to God?” Then to show how separated Samaritan people were from agreement with traditional Jewish thought, He called the man, “This man who is of a strange people.” With the point being made, Jesus said to him, “Arise, go; your faith has healed you.”
At the risk of belaboring the point, yet being sure we grasp the situation, the differences in Jews and Samaritans deserves even more detail.
Samaritans were like fingernails on a chalkboard to Jews who worshiped at the Temple. They were opposites like Catholics and Protestants, Presbyterians and Pentecostals, liberals and conservatives, but lo and behold, the Master healed them anyway. Why? There was a personal need in the midst of strong and opposing opinions, yet He filled that need.
This action by Messiah is a most profound message to our society now. The political disagreements in our nation has Christians divided, like brother against brother, and father against son. There seems to be no room for negotiation or empathy, just as the Jews and Samaritans were in fierce opposition. Religious and political disparity is a part of the human psyche and we just can’t seem to find our way out. Do we not find ways to create enemies? As of this writing, the Federal Government is shut down with an attitude that appears to be; let it all fall if I don’t get my way. This is not the example the Anointed One showed us in this story of the ten lepers, or any other story or example, such as the woman caught in adultery. Her accusers were turned away with reasoning for self examination.
If our example, the Son of God, can heal across philosophical lines, can't we at least get along as brothers? Neither enemy under the banner of Christ has any other option in our Code of Conduct, than to "love one another?" Let's NOT bring politics into religion OR brotherhood, since doing that is the death of both; not something we can afford. United we stand, divided we fall. Let's decide what we stand for, which is what our Savor teaches, and treat even those we disagree with, with love just as the Father loves them.
Another lesson is this story of the ten lepers, is how to make a difference in an impossible world. James and John had been sent as the advance team but had been told not to stop at the Samaritan village. Perhaps in the dust and heat they forgot, so into the village they walked, proclaiming the arrival of Messiah. That’s when they were rudely told to leave. We see now that the Teacher had a different plan, knowing there were people within the town who needed His Word and power. Had James and John followed instruction and avoided the Samaritan village, it is possible that Jesus could have gone in and done much more good. But, the attitude was set and they wanted nothing to do with Christ based on the actions of the disciples. Lord, do not let us behave that way! This could be one reason the lepers knew that the only way to find Jesus was to separate themselves from the town, which they did, and their healing was accomplished.
If you don’t know how to deal with enemies, look at what Messiah did for the lepers, and read Matthew, the disciple who was a tax collector before meeting the Savior. Matthew’s profession was offensive to all citizens in the region since he had worked for the occupying force, the Romans, collecting money for them. It is from Matthew that we read, “But I say to you, love your enemies and bless the one who curses you, and do what is beautiful to the one who hates you, and pray over those who take you by force and persecute you.” Why would such instruction be given to us? Matthew answers; “So that you will become the children of your Father who is in Heaven, for His sun rises on the good and upon the evil and his rain descends on the just and on the unjust.” What Messiah did for these ten lepers is a beautiful example of loving your enemies.
While their physical healing was the result of this encounter with the Teacher, another lesson was left for us; we must praise God for what He does. Just one of the ten who were healed even thought to say “thank you,” but he didn’t stop with just those words. It is recorded that “he fell on his face at the feet of Jesus, thanking him.” But, before he reached the Master, he “praised God with a loud voice.” At this point, what did their theological differences mean to Yeshua or the thankful man? Nothing! This act of service on the part of the Savior met a need so great that any argument between them was forgotten. This example of service to one who so obviously disagreed on so many points is a lesson for us to follow, in that it doesn’t matter whether the person in need is rich or poor, of the same church or not, nor even of similar political views. God loves disagreeable people too, and those same people may never be reached in love if love is never given to them.
Anybody living in the Holy Land at the time Christ walked on earth, knew the Samaritans and Jews were at odds, and sometimes were very critical of what the Master did for the other. Yes, even Jesus made enemies because of what He did. This is where the words of Winston Churchill ring so true, “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” Then, Mahatma Gandhi’s quote appropriately follows. “A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became a ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”
True, what Messiah did in this story of the ten lepers was a perfect act; healing those unpopular lepers and standing in as a sacrifice for us all. Will you make enemies because you stand for something good? Yes. Will those enemies do things to hurt you? Yes. Will their efforts result in bad for you? No. Joseph told his brothers who had sold him into slavery decades before, “you thought evil against me; but God meant it for good.”
Service in the name of God may stir the proverbial and evil hornet’s nest, but the stings can never destroy unless you allow it. So, don’t be afraid of the dark, as the child in the opening story. The Lord really is there to hand you the broom when you are too fearful to retrieve it. When facing the enemy remember, enemies cannot exist within the fold of God and His love. Bring them in.
His mercy endures forever. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, amen.
©2013, J.Tilton
