The Grateful Samaritan Sermon preached at BMPC on Luke 17:11-19 by Rev. Berry French on

Transcription

1 Introduction to the text: The Grateful Samaritan Sermon preached at BMPC on Luke 17:11-19 by Rev. Berry French on Our Gospel lesson this morning is from the Gospel of Luke, which I ll admit is my favorite Gospel these days. Primarily because Luke is so clearly about including the outsider and making us insiders pay attention to how God is at work through those whom we least expect. Today we turn to a story that is not found in any of the other gospels; it s only recorded in Luke. Our text is located in a larger section of Luke that is themed around discipleship what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus. Earlier in chapter 17, before our story begins, the disciples have asked Jesus to increase their faith (Lk. 17:5). Text: Luke 17: On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! When he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan! Then Jesus asked, Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Then Jesus said to him, Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well. 1

2 Sermon If you haven t noticed, I really like passing the peace! It s one of my favorite parts of worship partly because I m an extrovert, partly because relationships are central to my life and faith. So I have tried to employ passing peace in my everyday language. Sometimes the youth give me a hard time about it, but I like to greet folks with peace, or more often to say good bye with the phrase: peace to you or sometimes just peace out. Another liturgical phrase that slips into everyday language for some is the phrase Thanks be to God. Mostly I have observed and admired our global brothers and sisters using it: How are you today? Thanks be to God, I am well. many Christians of other cultures will respond. How s your family? Thanks be to God, they are all doing OK It s not that everything in their life is always good and happy. Certainly life hits us all with hard seasons and tough days when it s difficult to be thankful. But being thankful is an inspiring way to move through this life. Thanks be to God! What a phrase to remember as we go about our hectic lives. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God in a loud voice. He bowed at Jesus feet and thanked him with a deep and humble and sincere gratitude. That s pretty much what we are here to do both with our individual life and with our corporate worship. Turn back to God, or come back together in order to PRAISE God and to THANK Jesus profusely for all he has done for us. Faith is certainly not simple, and it s not easy, but it does seem that there is a simple formula presented in this text and commended by Jesus. It has a lot of similarities to writer Ann Lamott s daily prayers which begin in the morning: Help me. Help me. Help me. And end at night with: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. i Listen again to the interaction as Luke tells it: Jesus entered a village and the lepers approached him, calling out together: Jesus, Master, Have Mercy on us! And then the one leper returns: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! His thank you is so intense and heart-felt that he falls to his knees with his face to the ground a posture in Luke that is otherwise reserved only for people who are pleading with Jesus for his healing mercy. ii 2

3 When we remember that this story is lodged in Luke s section about discipleship and that just a half a dozen verses earlier the disciples are asking Jesus to increase their faith, we may do well to pay really close attention to this model of discipleship. Remember I told you that Luke is probably my favorite gospel because of his tendency to shock the insiders the original Jewish audience, or in our case: us. Because most of the time we are the insiders the established, main-line denomination; or the middle-class, educated mostly white Americans. In Luke, Jesus often uses outsiders, those who are despised, to model faith. In Jesus day, just about the worst thing you could be was a Samaritan. It was way worse for a Jew to encounter a Samaritan than it would be for a fine upstanding Carolina basketball fan to share a meal with a Duke fan. Or more seriously, think of the pervasive hatred of many white people towards black people just 60 and 70 years ago. Similarly, the ancient Jew s disdain for Samaritans was embedded through generations of ill will. All Samaritans were considered lesser than. They were descendants of the mixed marriages of foreign Assyrians and the Israelites that seceded from the Davidic monarchy way back in 1 st Kings. iii This hatred ran generations and generations deep, and the religious establishment enforced the cultural boundary. So while Samaritans may have often been characters in the stories told by ancient Jews, you can rest assured they were never the hero. So Luke carefully sets the story up so that you re pulling for the leper who has returned praising God and thanking Jesus and then, only after we have fallen in love with the thankful leper do we learn that he was one of those the OTHER a Samaritan! And what s worse, the last time Jesus talked about Samaritans, Jesus seems to elevate the Samaritan, the OTHER as the model of faith. For the only other time Luke tells us a story about a Samaritan was just a few chapters earlier in a famous parable that is also found only in Luke the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37). You remember the story: A lawyer is quizzing Jesus on who exactly is his neighbor that he s supposed to love. In response to the question Who is my neighbor? Jesus tells the parable where a man is robbed and beaten and left in the ditch half dead. First a Jewish priest passes by, and crosses over to walk on the opposite side of the road. Then a Levite, a Jew belong the tribe of Levi, who was responsible for temple functions, also saw the half dead man and passed by on the other side of the road. Now, both the priest and the Levite were likely following the purity codes that governed their lives they were commanded in the Old Testament laws to avoid such an unclean man lying half dead in the ditch. 3

4 Then comes along the Samaritan, who unrestrained by any purity codes, acts with compassion by caring for the wounded victim. And the parable ends with Jesus asking the lawyer which one was a neighbor? The only answer was the Samaritan, the one who showed mercy. And then Jesus says: Go and do likewise. Jesus lifts up this outsider as the hero and the one who lived out the core of the Jewish faith the love of neighbor. I can t help but see the similarities in these two stories found only in Luke and told about individual Samaritans as role models for faith. For you see, the ten lepers that Jesus healed were also were following the rules they were being obedient. Jesus told all ten of them to Go and Show yourselves to the priest. It is the one who returns to Jesus who is technically being disobedient. Jesus tells them all to go show themselves to the priest, which is what they are on the way to do. According to Old Testament law found in Leviticus, if a leper was ever cured of his skin disease, he would have to present himself to the priest, who would then verify that he was clean which would allow the leaper to return to the community and become a member of society again. So when Jesus tells the 10 leapers to go and show yourself to the priests, they go as an act of obedience and faith. They all know that the only reason to go to the priest of the society that has out-casted them, is to be certified as clean and then restored to society. Take note that it is only ON THE WAY that they are healed. When they walk away from Jesus they are still covered with leprosy a very visible skin disease. But as they went, they were made clean. So the other nine now cured lepers are doing what Jesus told them to do, going to the priest to present themselves clean. But the outsider, the Samaritan who may know nothing about the priests, or at least have much less regard for the role the Jewish priest has in his life, is the one who returns to thank Jesus. Listen again to verse 15: Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus feet and thanked him. So it seems that both the obedient Jewish lepers on the way to the priest and the obedient Jewish Levite and priest who avoid the half dead man by passing by on the other side of the street, are following the rules. But they have missed the heart of the matter, the core of faith: in the case of the Good Samaritan love of neighbor acted out with deeds; in the case of the Thankful Samaritan sincere gratitude and praise. Just do drive the fact home, listen to Jesus final questions which are written as if they were directed at the Samaritan, but it feels to me like they are talking through that ancient Samaritan and right to us: 4

5 Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? And then Jesus, as he has done before and will do again in the Gospel of Luke, says to this outsider of the faith, this other, this NON-Jew: Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well. Actually, what he says is much deeper than that. You see the Samaritan leper was already made clean, just like the nine other lepers, as they made their way to the priests. In the original Greek that Luke used to write this gospel, Jesus says: Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you whole, or your faith has saved you. The Greek verb Luke used means wholeness, wellness, and salvation and Luke means all three of those here: to be saved, to be made whole, to be made well. So while all of the lepers were cleansed of their disease, it is only this thankful leper that receives the blessing of salvation. There is no mention of a deeper healing or redemption for the nine who dutifully make their way to the priest. The only one to receive salvation in this story is the one who is so overwhelmed with gratitude that the only thing he can do is return to Jesus praising God and thanking Jesus. Jesus has said your faith has saved you with the exact same words to both the woman who anointed his feet with oil (7:50) and the hemorrhaging woman who touched the fridge of his garment (8:48). Jesus will tell also tell the blind man in Jericho to receive your sight for your faith has saved you (18.42). In all instances, there is an undertone of salvation. And in all of those instances, the societal rules were broken by the ones whom Jesus blesses with salvation. So what it is about this leper that brings him wholeness? What it is about this Samaritan leper, who was so swept away by his gratitude that he forgot all about Jesus words to go to the priests? It seems that his salvation, his wholeness, his being elevated as an exemplary disciple has to do exclusively with his posture gratitude. As preacher John Buchanan has written: Was there something about this man that was more well, healthier, than the other nine? Apparently. Does his gratitude have something to do with his faith? Apparently. We know almost nothing about this man, except that he recognized a gift when he saw it and he returned to say, Thank you and that Jesus said to him, Your faith has made you whole. 5

6 That is surely to say that by Jesus definition, faith and gratitude are very closely related, that faith without gratitude is not faith at all, and that there is something life giving about gratitude. Being grateful and saying thank you are absolutely at the heart of God s hope for the human race and God s intent for each of us. iv Now I am not suggesting that life is always easy, or that a life lived in faith is trouble-free. We all know that is not reality it doesn t match the facts on the ground or the witness of Scripture. I m not saying that if you pray hard enough or give thanks enough that God will make your life easy, or God will answer all your prayers. And that s not what Jesus is saying either Let s not forget that this story starts off reminding us that Jesus himself is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will meet his crucifixion. I am saying that despite the difficulty that you may be going through or the hard parts of your life, there is reason to be thankful. There is always reason to be thankful, for God has done great things for us. God CREATED us and God REDEEMED us and God LOVES us - and those are some good reasons to live a life of gratitude. For as George Stroup put it: The purpose and end of human existence is gratitude and doxology not because of who human beings are, but because of who God is. The God before whom humans live is a splendor beyond human comprehension, to whom humans respond appropriately only in adoration and praise. v Then Jesus said to him, Get up and go on your way, your faith that is GROUNDED in GRATITUDE has SAVED you and made you whole. May it be so for us. Amen i John Buchanan in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 4, page 169. ii R. Alan Culpepper in The New Interpreter s Bible Vol IX, page 326. iii Oliver Larry Yarbrough, in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 4, page 167. Also from: R. Alan Culpepper in The New Interpreter s Bible Vol IX, page 229. iv John Buchanan in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 4, page 167 & 169. v Margit Ernst-Habib in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol 4, page