Proper 23 - C - October 10, 2010

Luke 17: 11-19

By Harry T. Cook
10/4/10

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was finding his way through the area between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one village, 10 lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called to him, "Jesus, master, have mercy on us!" When Jesus saw them, he said, "Go and show your selves to the priests." And as they went, they found themselves cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself before Jesus and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not 10 cleansed? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them seen to return and give praise to God, save this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Stand up and get on your way; your faith has made you well." (Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook)

RUBRIC

Two major questions raised in this text are: 1) Did Luke expect his readers to think that people with leprosy could be instantly cured of it? 2) If so, who or what should have been afforded credit for it? As to Question 1: The 21st century person operating rationally will reject the instantaneous cure idea, and in that rejection will be asking what did Luke mean by telling the story? What was it for which someone or something should be given credit? If the lepers were not relieved of their miserable condition, of what were they relieved? The answer to that question will tell us what Luke meant by crafting the story in the first place.

WORKSHOP

Don't make the mistake of following travel directions offered by Luke. Luke clearly failed Palestinian Geography 101. A quick glance at any general map of Palestine ca. 30-80 C.E. shows that that passing or finding one's way in the areas between Samaria and Galilee would hardly be the way to reach Jerusalem. But the literary itinerary Luke mapped out for Jesus, which was begin at 9:51, is just as meandering. The author of the third gospel "wasn't from here," as the natives of my own hometown would say of one whose geographical orientation was that vague.

The story of the 10 lepers is exclusively Lucan material, though back in 5:12ff with parallels at Mark 1:40 and Matthew 8:1, Jesus is depicted as interacting with a leper and effecting his cleansing. For Luke, it seems obvious that lepers represent social outcasts, i.e. excluded for whatever reason.

Yet Luke is careful to note that the lepers behaved as they were required to do. They kept their distance, and Jesus is not depicted as touching them or in any other way interacting with them excepting his reiteration of the Levitical policy of requiring them to show the physical symptoms of their disease to the priests. (See Leviticus 13:49).

What happens next is the difference between what we call "the Old Testament" and "the New Testament." It is unseen, that which happens, and it is not detailed as to cause, but the effect was that all outward signs of the lepers' affliction disappeared.

They had hailed Jesus as "master" (epistata), a form of address associated with a perceived authority or wisdom figure. Perhaps Luke wanted the reader to understand that it was not simply alms the lepers were seeking, as their condition rendered them unemployable. They were asking intervention. At one level, they would have wanted the scourge of their disease to go away. At another level, they wanted back into the society from which, because of their dreadful appearance, they had been banished. Luke was generally attentive to symptoms of exclusion and missed few opportunities to neutralize it.

One wonders if an early version of this story ended with the "healing," thus making the necessary point about removing or ignoring excuses for exclusion. Yet soon enough the dynamics of the story shift to the question of who or what gets credit for the change. The text suggests that the one leper, held up as a fine example of gratitude, understood that his new state resulted from divine intervention via Jesus. We're just about settled on that interpretation until Luke reminds us that this particular leper was "a Samaritan."

There is another aspect in the exclusion-inclusion issue. Residents of Samaria, lepers or not, were regarded as unclean by Judeans because the ancestors of the former had intermarried with Assyrian invaders centuries before. Once a stigma is attached to a person or a segment of a population, reason is a lost cause. Was Luke suggesting that Jesus had a loyal constituency among residents of Samaria? It did lie between Galilee and Judea. Or was Luke appealing to the general irrational hatred of Samaritans by Judeans and making yet another argument for inclusion and acceptance?

Luke's Jesus is made to refer to the one leper who returned to give thanks as "this foreigner." And what is the meaning of the proclamation, "Your faith has made you well"? Remembering that faith is a combination of trust, loyalty and courage, how did that make the one returning leper "well"?

HOMILETIC COMMENTARY

Human beings are liable to all kinds of disorders: physical, mental and emotional -- some real and some imagined. Moreover, it is not uncommon for people to imagine that others are somehow disordered and therefore should be excluded. African Americans are not unfamiliar with the dynamic of marginalization. Neither now are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons. When and where those barriers are taken down and inclusion follows, there is healing or what one might call it by any other name. The thing is that no one should have to express gratitude for being included in the human race. The leper who returned was depicted as praising an unseen divine power for his deliverance. Yet what "cured" him was being taken seriously by a human being named Jesus, who evidently respected the leper's innate dignity.* He and his nine fellow lepers, in Luke's imagination, counted on Jesus to be the good and just person they had heard about, one who would not on reflex draw back from a normal human exchange. Their assumption was correct. Their courage in asking of him his eleison, and his response to their plight of exclusion made the difference.

*See final vow of the Baptismal Covenant, Book of Common Prayer 1979, p. 305.