Thankful for the Mercy of God – Luke 17:11-19

It may seem strange given the world in which we live to even imagine what it would be like to have a disease like leprosy. I have had no personal contact with anyone who has ever had the disease. But leprosy was a very real reality in the time of Jesus’ ministry.  People who were suffering from this illness were sent to the caves and wilderness areas away from friends, family and community. It was basically a death sentence as little was known of either the cause or even a possible cure. Getting leprosy was a death sentence of body, mind and spirit.  Families might dare to visit the areas where those suffering were living to drop off food or other supplies.  But a careful distance was maintained in order not to become infected.

The island of Molokai in the Hawaiian chain is one place in the modern world that sought to not only bring a degree of healing to the body but also sought to bring healing to the spirit. Father Damien was a priest who made the decision to live among the people who had been exiled because of their disease. Eventually he succumbed to the disease himself. He knew the risks for coming into contact with this dreaded crippler of the body and spirit, but he believed that God had called him to minister to these people and to let them know that they were loved. And that is one of the keys to this event recorded in Scripture of the healing of the ten lepers.

Father Damien knew in his heart that he could do nothing to save the people from a certain death physically but he was determined that not one of them would go without receiving whatever physical relief he might be able to offer but even more he was determined that they would know that they were loved and that their lives mattered to him and to God.  Nothing could save them physically, but he could make sure that they knew the love, the forgiveness and the mercy of God by his living with them through whatever life may bring.

Father Damien knew and Jesus knew that no matter what our physical state may be, there is a part of us that needs the touch of God. Through Father Damien, the people of the colony found that they could live meaningful lives in spite of their handicap.  And even in death, their passing was full of meaning and purpose for they were celebrated for what their life had brought to the community at large.

Of course, in Jesus’ time, the leaders of the people had emphasized physical purity of the body to an extreme. No blemish could be on the skin of the priest, or he could not offer the sacrifices for the people. The people themselves were to remain ritually clean. This deep concern for perfection in the body – especially the outer parts - reached the point where the community would cut off from themselves any who believed would cause them to be impure.  But, as Jesus often reminded us, their concern with the external was never matched by a similar concern for the internal – sweetness on the outside but sour and bitter on the inside. Those who would visit or dare to come in contact with those whose bodies were scarred or diseased ran the risk of being denied the right to worship in the temple or enter the synagogue or even possibly to be allowed to remain in their community.

This was the world that Jesus ministered in and it is in a desert region between Samaria and Galilee that he is passing through on his way to Jerusalem that he meets 10 lepers on the road. And while most of the lepers he met were Jewish, one was a Samaritan. He belonged to a people who shared a heritage with the Jewish people, but who were not considered worthy to be the people of God. Seeing Jesus and having heard that he was a healer, the ten come and ask for mercy. Whether or not they realized it, they were seeking for something more than just a physical healing. The physical healing would be a welcome relief from the pain they were suffering but it would also bring them restoration to their friends, family and community. They would once more be acceptable to their community.

Jesus grants their plea encouraging them to go to the priests who will be able to verify that they have again achieved that purity of body that will enable them to once more participate in the ritual life of the community as well as the lives of their family and friends. Surely this healing would be something that should bring a word of thanks to their lips but only one returns to give thanks to Jesus – the Samaritan; the one who was not even considered worthy to be part of the people of God and yet one who had received a healing from one of the greatest prophets and teachers of the Jewish tradition.

“Why,” Jesus wonders, “would the only person who was not a Jew be the one to come and express his thankfulness?” The Samaritan was a person who did not believe that he had the right to expect healing from Jesus. He asked as the others did in hope that he would be healed but when he was healed, he recognized what a tremendous gift had been bestowed on him.  He had no right to expect compassion or mercy from this Hebrew prophet and teacher, yet he was healed. And even though the world in which he lived may not have recognized him as worthy to receive such mercy and compassion, he discovered that day that where he was born or who he was in the eyes of the world didn’t matter to God. The mercy and compassion of God knows no bounds, and he found that mercy and compassion through the gift of healing from Jesus.  What they all received was life changing; but even such a gift as this does not always change minds or spirits.

The grace and the mercy of God come to each of us in different ways.  For some, it is a physical healing – a miracle – that brings a degree of restoration to the body.  For many others, it is a spiritual healing – a gift of grace and mercy that brings peace to our mind and can have a positive effect on our body. And while it will ever remain a mystery as to how and why we experience the mercy and grace of God, we need to be open to that mystery.  We may experience that grace and mercy through the compassion of a friend or even of a stranger. We may experience it as an answer to something that is troubling us in our mind or in our heart.  But when we do experience such grace and mercy and know that it is from God, are we able to not just say thank you but have that experience begin to make a positive change in our outlook, our thoughts, our emotions and our interaction with those who share our world.

Let us be thankful that God is willing to be gracious and merciful to us; that he is willing to hear us and bring to us people who are willing to be there for us whatever we may be struggling with. We who have responded to the call of God to walk the way of life in Jesus can be more than thankful for we have been invited by God to be part of a community of people called to love and so nurture one another through whatever life may bring.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.