Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sickness, diseases, health. Our bodies; the physical condition of our life is something that we hold in high regard. We want to feel good. We want to feel, and maybe look like we did when we were 8, 9, 10, 20 years old. We want to wake up in the morning fully refreshed and ready to take on the day; we want to go through our day without worrying about what other people think of us, and we want to fall asleep at night without any pain or hurt.
And to be sure, this is all the 10 lepers wanted in our Gospel text today. They wanted to be pain-free; they wanted to fit in and be accepted by their culture, by their family.
Now, leprosy was and is a bacterial infection which causes all sorts of sores, lesions and other problems to the skin and muscles. If left untreated it can lead to deformities of the fingers and toes, to horrible rashes in the nose, a degradation of the vocal cords, trouble seeing, trouble walking, trouble interacting with society in a way which is meaningful and productive.
During the time of Christ, and long before, there was no cure for leprosy. It was thought to be very contagious since so many suffered from it. Today we know that, while contagious, it is curable in most cases and preventable. Most people are actually immune to the particular bacteria which causes leprosy.
But for those who lived at a less advanced period of time, there were other measures that were used to control the spread of leprosy. It was not only culturally practiced, but also biblically mandated, that anyone with such a disease should be separated from the rest of society, cut off from any interaction with family and friends, and remain that way until such a time as a priest declare the “unclean” person “clean”.
Those with leprosy were not allowed to offer their sacrifices to God, they could not hug their children, they could not work and make money for their families. They were considered outcast, even cursed by God. They could not study the Scriptures or worship in the synagogues.
Imagine having such a disease as this. Imagine being told by your doctors or by your pastor that you are “unclean” and not allowed to live in society, to be part of society, to be part of church. Imagine being thrown out of Birmingham, forced to live in the middle of nowhere, and the only communication you have with people are with those who suffer just like you.
This is how these 10 lepers went about their days. People would see them and take a broad path around them, maybe even pointing at them or speaking under their breath. The lepers were required to say “unclean, unclean” so that everyone knew to stay away.
But these 10 lepers hear about Jesus. They know that He has the power to heal people of all sorts of things, including leprosy. Perhaps it’s the crowds that follow Jesus from Samaria to Galilee. Perhaps they witnessed Jesus’s healing of the man with dropsy. Whatever the case, the 10 lepers seek out Jesus and when He’s far off, they call out to him, “Mercy us”, or “give us mercy.”
The Pharisees had ruled that those with leprosy stand no closer than four paces, though these lepers are further away than that on account of the crowds. Jesus hears them and turns His attention to them.
Perhaps they expect Jesus to touch them. Perhaps they expect him to raise his hands, to say to them “be clean” or “be gone, evil leprosy”. Instead, much to their amazement, Jesus says “go and show yourselves to the priests”.
It was the duty of the priests to scrutinize the condition of anyone suffering from a disease like leprosy and to determine if they had recovered or if they were still infected. It was very uncommon for a priest to announce “clean” to anyone with leprosy because, as I said before, there was no effective cure for this infection. These lepers, knowing that Jesus has a history of healing, follow His instruction which affords them the necessary faith to go, and as they go they are healed.
One of the now clean lepers returns to Jesus to praise and worship Him. Instead of following the other 9, he recognizes what God has done for him, recognizes WHO Jesus is, and falls at His feet in thanksgiving. The other 9 should have done the same thing; they should have returned to glorify God on account of what He has done, but they don’t. The miracle Jesus performs, a miracle done in order to bring God glory and to draw people back to His presence, escapes the hearts of these 9 lepers, these 9 Jewish lepers, and only the Samaritan leper returns, and by faith, believes. The other 9 lepers may have walked away physically healed, but their hearts were far from God, hearts full of unrepentance and blindness.
But to the one leper who returns, Jesus proclaims that not only is his body healed, but his heart is healed on account of his faith, a faith which was planted and watered by the very words of his Lord and God.
But what do we learn from this text? What have we been learning over the past several weeks as we hear of the various signs and teachings of Jesus? What about our epistle readings or our Old Testament readings? What have we been learning?
We’ve been learning about faith. We’ve been learning and reminded that faith in God, trusting God is more important, better, more necessary than anything. Not a faith that says “I want something so I’m going to try and believe,” but a faith that says “no matter what the suffering; no matter what my situation, I believe that Christ died for my sins.”
The Christian Church is a body of men, women and children built upon Christ – built upon faith. That is the rock of Christ which He builds His church upon – the rock, the foundation that not even the gates of hades could stand against. No, we’re not talking about St Peter, the supposed first pope…we’re talking about faith. Faith in the one Rock – Jesus Christ.
And the thing about faith is that it’s not about physical healing. It’s not about gaining great sums of money – about wealth; it’s not about knowledge or knowing the right things. It’s not about this contemporary evangelical idea of “obedience”. You know, obedience is something that an animal does so that it doesn’t get in trouble, or so that it gets its food and is allowed to sleep indoors. But that’s not faith. The nine lepers obeyed; they were obedient all the way to the grave. But the 10th leper had faith, and by his faith, he was healed – his heart was healed. The Pharisees of Jesus’ time obeyed. They tried to follow the commandments to the letter, and some even thought that they did. But they had no faith, at least not faith in the Son of man.
It’s no different today. Today we have people praying fervently…fervently that God would grant them something. We have people trying to take every right step, listen to all the right people, do all the right things, in hopes that God will give them mercy. We have people who attend church, who sit in worship, who sing the hymns, who close their eyes in prayer, and they do all this because when they see a story like our Gospel today, or when they read a parable or some other event in Scripture, they read into it what they want, and miss the whole point.
But see, God has already given mercy in Jesus Christ – God has already granted true deliverance by saving us from our sin, forgiving us, and giving us His Holy Spirit to comfort us.
Luther said it like this: “Are you crippled? So what? You have forgiveness! Are you ill or sick? So be it, you have forgiveness!”
But some don’t care about the forgiveness; they miss the whole point because for them, Jesus is not their savior and Lord; Jesus is their ticket, their key to earthly happiness or wealth. And should God be gracious to grant their wants, should God graciously cleanse them of their ills or afford them that much-needed money or fix their leaky roof which God is fully capable of doing, they don’t return to glorify God, but they go on about their day, until the next problem comes, the next need arises. That’s not faith.
And to be true, we who are a people of faith, a people who believe and hold to the foundational doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, a people who profess our Lutheran heritage and pride ourselves in possessing the one pure doctrine, we can do just as the other 9 do. Set all of the formalities aside, all of the big words, all of the pretense, and we can often be just as the 9 lepers who never returned to Jesus and fell at His feet. They received their reward and never returned to receive their free gift of salvation.
We know God has been with us and protected us and given us gifts, countless gifts of mercy and grace. But our returning to His feet to worship and give thanks is often too out of the way, too much of a hassle, too “unlutheran” and instead we keep on going.
I want you to consider for a moment the words of Jesus. We know that the Samaritan was of Gentile blood. Samaritan’s were considered “half-breeds” by the Jews and rejected. We know that the Samaritan’s worshiped in a different location, a location also rejected by the Jews. We also know that the Samaritan’s were co-mingling, mixing Jewish doctrine and teaching with other forms of doctrine. But the Samaritan and not the Jews was the one who walked away saved.
We Lutherans who call ourselves confessional and liturgical, and rightly so, we can so easily forget why we’re Lutheran and what it means to be Lutheran because we can bury the very foundational doctrine of the Christian church, Justification by Faith, under a mountain – a mountain of theology, of doctrine, of formulas, of creeds, of written works and proper phrases and practices.
All the other denominations out there have it easy, but not us. For them it’s all about obedience, all about doing the right things, all about being that animal that does what its master says. They can be the other 9 lepers and embrace it, but not us.
We must be a people of faith because that is what our doctrine says. We must be a people of faith because that is what we confess. We cannot substitute faith for pure doctrine or right thinking, but we have right thinking and pure doctrine on account of faith. And there is a difference. The Pharisees, the Jews, the 9 lepers who walked away and never returned, they substituted pure doctrine, good liturgical practice, a proper understanding of the commandments…they substituted these things for faith and walked away doomed.
And we must always be careful. As Jesus Himself says, we must be better than that. We must be diligent and constantly watching so that we do not make our traditions or liturgies, or formulas or systematics or doctrines, or whether or not we cross ourselves as substitutes for faith. Our comfortabilities and our preferences and our “what we’re used to’s” must not replace faith, because they’re not faith and they are not God’s Word. They may not be wrong, but we never put them before faith in Christ. And Paul himself was clear when he wrote “no one will be justified in the site of God by works of the law.” No one will be declared righteous by doing, or saying, or holding to, or subscribing to…anything, because such things in and of themselves are empty, fruitless and do not produce faith. And that IS the Lutheran faith, that is confessing faith, that is the Christian faith.
But what does produce faith? What produced faith in the 10th leper who returned? What produced faith in man who said, “Lord, I believe, help me with my unbelief” when his boy was brought back to life? What produces faith in you? Is it not the Word of God which speaks into you, speaks into your heart, which produces faith within you, and which draws you back to his feet? Yes, and in fact it was the same Word of God which spoke to you and entered your heart when you were baptized, washed and buried with Christ and raised up into a new life lived by faith and not by works, such a simple thing.
This is the message, the Gospel that we have been hearing and reading and studying week after week, day after day. It is the message, the Gospel which says to us that Jesus Christ, son of God, has come in the flesh to save sinners just like you and me. He has come to die in order to destroy the power of sin and the consequence of death. And He has come to speak faith into your heart, so that against all that you see and against all of the nature within you which says “you have to work” and “you have to get it all right, have perfect health, perfect teeth, lots of wealth…on and on and on the sinful nature goes..”…against ALL of this, He has come to speak into your heart…faith, and to say to you, “I am your Lord and savior, and I have gotten it all right, I have done what is right, I have said the right things, I have raised my hands at the right time, I have bowed my head at the right time…for you…now go, your faith…the faith I have given to you…has made you well.”
It’s the same faith that we now profess in our creed. It’s the same faith that we now express in our confessions and in our doctrine that the Book of Concord time and time again makes clear. It is the faith that we learn of and express our thankfulness for…in our liturgy and hymns. It is a simple but profound gem, a light which draws people back to the feet of Christ, which has drawn YOU back to the feet of Christ in thankfulness and worship; in fear and in reverence.
It is a faith which speaks to you “here is my body, here is my blood”, and you receive it for the strengthening of that faith and the forgiveness of your sins.
May God continue to draw all men unto Himself. May He continue to speak His Word, continue to send prophets and teachers and preachers into the world so that faith might find its way into the hearts of the lame, the weak, the sick, and all people who shall receive it, even you and I. Amen.
The peace that passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. Amen.
