Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
October 9, 2016
Scriptures: Psalm 66:1-12 and Luke 17:11-19
Every Wednesday morning, when we gather around the table for Bible Study, we begin by reading that week’s scripture text out loud. We try to hear it as if for the first time, even if it’s a story with which we think we know. I invite participants to listen for the words or phrases that catch their ear. We let those first impressions guide our conversation. This week, the first phrase to catch my attention was this: “Between Samaria and Galilee.” Here is Jesus, traveling along another wilderness road; hanging out in another in-between place. Between Samaria and Galilee. Between the Samaritans and the Jews – who despised each other. Between Nazareth (where he launched his public ministry) and Jerusalem (where it would end). Not quite here nor there. Out in no-one’s land. Betwixt and between.
“If you were born on a ship, what country would you belong to?” One of our youth asked this question during youth group on Wednesday (we contemplated it over cheese pizza and Oreo cookies). I don’t remember what prompted the question, but it reminds me that in-between places raise urgent questions about belonging: If you are out in international waters, what nation will claim you? If you are wandering a road between Galilee and Samaria, which town do you call home? Where do the lepers belong? Where does the Samaritan belong? Where does Jesus belong?
When we meet them, the ten lepers belong to no one, to no community. They are out on that road because they have been sent away, quarantined because of their ailment, as dictated by law. They are the outcasts, the untouchables, banished from the temple, the town square and the family hearth. They belong to no one, except maybe each other. (I’ll come back to that later).
One day, the ten lepers spied Jesus approaching along the road. Together they called out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They knew better than to approach; the law forbade it. But Jesus answered them anyway: acknowledged their cries and sent them off to show themselves to the priests. According to Levitical law, one had to be declared clean by a priest before one could be re-admitted to the community. So, although nothing had happened yet, the lepers obeyed this order – hopeful, perhaps, that God had heard their most fervent prayer. And indeed, even as they turned their faces toward Galilee, they found themselves cleansed.
How far away were they from Jesus when it happened? A few feet? A few yards? The length of a football field? Around the corner and out of site? We don’t know. We just know that when the ten were cured, they almost all kept on going, (which is, after all, what Jesus had ordered them to do). All but one. The tenth leper, apparently overcome with gratitude, turned around and ran all the way back, praising God with a loud voice, whooping and hollering, kicking up his heals and shouting, “Look what God has done!”
What’s going on? Why did the Samaritan, of all the lepers, return and throw himself at Jesus’ feet? What pull was stronger than the need to be declared clean by the priests and welcomed back into community, stronger than the lure of belonging, after all that time apart?
A little context may help us here: In case your primary point of reference for Samaritans is that parable Jesus tells about the Good Samaritan, it’s important to note that despite modern day usage, a “Samaritan” is not a person who performs acts of charity, an extra good person. A Samaritan is, rather, a person from Samaria. Samaritans were shunned by Jews because of a generations’ long religious argument between the two groups about (among other things) whether one ought to worship God on St. Sinai or on Mt. Gerizim (Yes, really!).
So, the Samaritan was doubly outcast, from the perspective of Jesus’ followers: once, for having a skin disease; and once, for being a hated foreigner. He’s the last person that Jewish listeners would expect to show up in the story as a model for faithfulness.
And yet, for those who are keeping score at home, this is just one of several episodes in Luke’s gospel where the part of the hero is played by a foreigner. There’s also that Parable of the Good Samaritan; and the episode involving a Samaritan woman at the well. Luke’s message seems clear. Religious insiders take heed: we don’t always have it sorted out, even when we, like the other nine lepers, think we are doing the right thing, even when we are following the letter of the law. By keeping our heads down and doing what we’ve always done, we may just be missing the greater part: Encounters with grace; lives animated by unfettered expressions of gratitude and praise.
But back to that toe-tapping, knee-bending Samaritan leper, and why he turned back. Before Jesus arrived on the scene, there were ten lepers hanging out in that wilderness place. Not nine on one street corner and one on the other street corner. Ten lepers hanging out together … despite deep-seeded differences. Despite that interminable argument about God’s holy mountain. Something overcame all that to bring them together: shared suffering, mutual need, a recognition that they were all in the same boat…a bit of blessed empathy…
…Which makes me wonder whether there are, in fact, two acts of grace embedded in this text.
The second occurred when Jesus saw those ten lepers, those outcasts, heard their cries, healed them all and praised the Samaritan besides. But the first act of grace, might it have occurred when the Samaritan and his nine Jewish brothers first encountered and did not reject each other?
This may just be the holy gift of in-between places: that in them, unexpected relationships may be forged and life-transforming healing unleashed.
Maybe that’s what inspired the Samaritan leper to turn back. Not just the need to say to Jesus, in person, “Thank you for healing me.” But the need to say, to Jesus, “Thank you for healing us. Thank you, God, for healing my brothers, because I have witnessed their suffering, first hand. Thank you, God, for making it possible for them to return to their homes, because I know how they have yearned for it. Thank you also, God, for the bonds we have forged, for the tenderness they expressed on my very worst days. Thank you for giving me a glimpse of beloved community, even out here in this in-between space. Thank you for showing me that we belong to each other.”
No, I don’t know if that’s really what happened. We have no idea how the lives of the Samaritan, or the other nine former lepers unfolded after that encounter with Jesus. But we can be sure their lives were utterly changed. And I like to imagine that they all became agents for peace and healing in their own communities, witness to the wonders of God, and to the humanity of those that others would call enemies. I like to believe that the healing they themselves underwent not only cured their bodies but also expanded their vision of belonging:
“Jews? Let me tell you about the Jews who took me in, how they welcomed me when no one else would; how we cared for each other in desperate times. They were good men. Good friends. Children of God, just like you.”
And, “Samaritans? Let me tell you about a Samaritan I once knew. He was the most faithful man I’ve ever met: filled with gratitude. He was forever praising God. When you asked him, ‘How are you?’ he always answered, ‘Grateful.’ Just like that. Even when his skin was raw and his stomach hollow: ‘Grateful.’[1] He was a good man. A good friend. A child of God, just like you.”
Sisters and Brothers in Christ: We are living in an in-between time, betwixt and between… the list of outcasts in our own country is long; and the divisions seem countless: Not just between political parties in this fractious election season, but between those who feel economically secure and those who do not; between those who feel threatened by police and those who do not; between those who rely on a vanishing manufacturing sector for their very livelihood and those who do not; between those that trust our basic democratic structure and those who do not… We are Jewish, Muslim, Christian; twenty-something’s and sixty-something’s; first generation immigrants and descendants of immigrants.
And some days we get so mired in those differences that we cannot find our way out.
So together we cry, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Because our communities are fractured; and our vision of belonging is too small. We are in need of allies, from across the aisle and across the tracks, with whom to forge unexpected relationships undeterred by difference; tempered by our common humanity.
It starts here: with recognizing, like the Samaritan leper, that we belong to each other, because all of us belong to the same living, loving God, a God determined to restore us to beloved community. Sisters and brothers in Christ: this is cause for thanksgiving, unfettered expressions of gratitude and praise! Ours is a God who hangs out with the outcasts, heals the suffering, and restores hope. It is also cause for humility. The kind of on-our-knees humility that is the opposite of arrogance, the opposite of blaming or taking credit or drawing boundaries that keep others away. The kind of humility that reminds us that everything – and everyone – is a gift from God.
I’m not suggesting that this is easy. I am suggesting that grace abounds. And that we can trust God who sent Christ to stand in these in-between places. Indeed: That’s exactly where he belongs, and where he remains. This is the Good News.
Thanks be to God!
Scriptures
Psalm 66:1-12 – New Testament and Psalms, Inclusive Version
1 Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth;
2 sing the glory of God’s name; give to God glorious praise.
3 Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you.
4 All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name.”
5 Come and see what God has done: God does awesome deeds among mortals.
6 God turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There we rejoiced in God,
7 who rules by might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations – let the rebellious not exalt themselves.
8 Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of God’s praise be heard,
9 who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.
10For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.
11You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs;
12you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
Luke 17:11-19 – Common English Bible Translation
11 On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with skin diseases approached him. Keeping their distance from him, 13 they raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, show us mercy!”
14 When Jesus saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” As they left, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw that he had been healed, returned and praised God with a loud voice. 16 He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus replied, “Weren’t ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 No one returned to praise God except this foreigner?” 19 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up and go. Your faith has healed you.”
[1] http://www.davidlose.net/2016/10/pentecost-21-c-gratitude-and-grace/