Trinity XIV

Micah 6: 1-8     Luke 17: 11-19

 

"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" (Micah 6: 7)
 

This, from the first Lesson today, is indeed the rhetorical question of the Samaritans, shorn of their Temple some 120 years before the birth of Jesus. And so, it seems to me, that there likely must be a home-grown, built-in religious angst present among these estranged Jews, possibly manifested in the form of: "Just what are we supposed to do with ourselves?" And that question is answered in three ways by virtue of the Samaritans present in the Gospel. The woman at the well in John 4 acts as an evangelist on account of her startling encounter with honesty. The Good Samaritan of last Sunday is not afraid to bear the costly burdens of others, even those who may only return hatred for his good will. And then there is the man in receipt of healing that we hear of this morning.
 

We are indeed fortunate to receive examples of the two kinds of disease that can afflict us, not only physical but moral/spiritual as well. St. Paul, in his usual no-nonsense style, lists many of those things that will rot the soul as surely as leprosy decays the flesh: "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkeness, revellings, and such like...they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (cf. Gal. 5: 19-21) The worst thing about this list is that each of these things is subject to indifference and apathy in the heart of man long accustomed to them dwelling within himself. And it is this spirit of indifference which feeds all the other sins listed and wastes the soul. “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God”, even to this very day. Thus are these lepers in the Gospel able to be seen as prototype (showing that the working of miracles, outside the common natural order, is indeed possible) and archetype (of the rot induced by a life of sin, consuming the intellect, the will and the senses). From St. Augustine of Hippo: “[T]hose ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off, outside the village, lifted up their voices and said: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. That they styled him Master, doth sufficiently shew that leprosy signifieth false doctrine, whereof the Good Master doth cleanse us.”
 

“And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made the whole." (Lk. 17: 17-19) I often wondered while pondering this Gospel, what did become of the other nine? Did they indeed go to the Temple to be examined by the priests and have sacrifices offered for themselves? Did they just quietly slip back home hoping that their families would be so overjoyed to have them back that they would forget to ask whether their long departed husband and father had even bothered to seek ritual purification? I wonder if there were some among them who were so absorbed in their own misery that they didn't really believe that Jesus could heal them with a word, and they just proceeded back to their solitary existence away from society, unaware that they were indeed free from contagion, only to be re-infected.
 

Now, in this instance as well as last week's, what Jesus wants to drive home to us is not in fact the inherent moral superiority of the religiously disenfranchised, though these encounters do illustrate well the great contrast emphasised by our Lord Jesus Christ between the mere 'practice of religion' and a true, lively faith that does indeed bring about what it signifies. Rather, He wishes that the true nature of God and a right belief be revealed in terms that we can all understand. Thus, it seems to me that there is a direct connexion between these stories in St. Luke and the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in the Gospel of St. John, where we read in chapter 4: “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." (vs. 23

Jesus certainly gives the woman He meets at the well a run for her money. I bet she went home at least a little freaked out by what He knew about her past. But, sure enough, what she did was exactly the same thing that the Good Samaritan did, indeed exactly the same thing that the Samaritan man healed of his leprosy does. They all worshiped God, each according to his or her particular circumstance, in Spirit and in truth. And the fruits of this worship are recognisable in each of their interior dispositions and the benefit that it brought to those around them. As St. Paul tells us this morning: “[T]he fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." (Gal. 5: 22-23) The woman at the well gives the gift of a true and sincere faith to those she knew. The Good Samaritan brings health and comfort to a complete stranger, who is in fact “one of the least of these” mentioned by Jesus in chapter 25 of St. Matthew, where He is speaking of the final judgment. And the former leper in St. Luke is able to see beyond his own condition to offer genuine thanks to God. Good counsel, acts of charity and prayers of thankfulness are all forms of worship that connect us as members of the body of Christ, which is the Church. These three people we encounter in the Gospels prefigure the virtues that are a foundation of living a true Christian life and we would do well to take after their examples. Indeed, we dare not do otherwise.
 

Not only that, our Lord also tells us that the Father is seeking such to worship Him. Not that we have to find Him, but that God the Father is seeking us out Himself. How wonderful a revelation that is. For before, the Jews and Samaritans had engaged in a centuries long dispute over where the proper place was to situate the sanctuary of God Most High and to offer the prescribed sacrifices of the Torah. They disagreed over where they should look to seek God. Now, however, that becomes a frivolous argument. God has Himself reached out to us through the person of His Only-Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, “full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14). And, lest we forget, we also learn about this from Jesus in Luke 15: "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." (vs. 20) There is no more need for disputation, neurosis enducing religious paranoia or anything else of that sort. For, as the Samaritans of the Gospel loudly proclaim: the kingdom of God is at hand.
 

To return to the present narrative, it is significant that Jesus tells the men to see the priests. Notice that He doesn't say specifically that they ought to go to the Temple, because the Jews would have one to go to, while the Samaritans would not. Both groups, however, do accept the authority of the prescriptions in Leviticus chapter 14 regarding the purification from leprosy and both maintained a priesthood.  I think this underscores the point that Jesus Christ is for everyone and all need to be free to approach Him.
 

Speaking of acceptance and rejection, at the beginning of the sermon I mentioned three possible reactions on the part of the newly healed lepers. Some, I'd like to hope, did exactly like they were told. They, at least, had the advantage of religious obedience to legitimate authority. Others, perhaps in a moment of selfishness, were really only concerned about 'getting better.' Once a result was achieved, they just forgot about the gift itself. Then there were those who just sort of followed along because the rest of the group was going, not expecting much of anything beyond a temporary distraction from their misery. With respect to Jesus, they probably asked themselves the same question posed by Nathaniel in St. John's Gospel: “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (1:46b)
 

These days, we seem particularly obsessed with our own misfortunes and those of others. A brief glance at the tabloids, daytime talk shows, the 24-hour 'news cycle' and the superabundance of self-help remedies will tell you all you need to know about contemporary pathology. I think we run the same risk as the hypothetical third group of lepers. We spend so much time obsessing about the bad, that we can fail to notice the good things in life. When I was a monk of Mt. Angel Abbey, I was told the story of one of the deceased Abbots who when diagnosed with inoperable cancer said of his situation: “It's hopeless, but it's not serious.” As well, the wise cousel of Gandalf the Grey tells us: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world...besides the will of evil."
 

Now, I do not wish to downplay the reality that everyone has something to struggle with, no one is not in need of healing. But we can always have confidence, after the manner of the virtuous Samaritans we encounter in the Gospel, that our God and Father is anxiously seeking us out. He will not leave us alone. And, as William Barclay put it: “The best thanks we can give him is to try to deserve his goodness and his mercy a little better” (Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, 218-219)
 

“And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Lk. 17:19-21) Are you ready to receive this kingdom and all it entails? Then let us put aside the idolatry of selfishness, casting away the uncleanness and instead acting as leavening to a culture hell-bent on surrendering itself to dehumanising violence in a myriad of forms, and rejecting the wrath and sedition of being religiously "against" whoever or whatever it is we are told to be against, but rather living in and for the Lord Jesus. For we "that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” (cf. Gal. 5: 24)
 

Be, then, Christ's beloved, modeled in the Samaritans of the Gospel and described so well by St. Basil the Great: "They who have removed themselves from the cares of this world should watch over their own heart with all carefulness, so that they may not at any time deprive it of the thought of God, or defile the remembrance of His wonders with the images of earthly vanities. Rather, let the hallowed thought of God, impressed like a seal upon the soul, through the pure and continuous remembrance of Him, be ever borne about with us. For it is in this way that the love of God will come to us, urging us on to the daily task of keeping the Lord’s commandments, and preserved in turn by them from failing or going astray." [Translated by M.F. Toale, D.D. (PG 32, Sermon III, col. 1147.)]