Luke 17:11-19

We have set before us in our Gospel reading this morning the second of two accounts which Luke gives of the healing of lepers. This one this morning is interesting in that it involves a group of ten lepers and also, that among the group of, presumably, mainly Jewish lepers there was one who was a Samaritan.
  Now lepers were anyway, excluded from ordinary society. The prescriptions of the book of Leviticus meant that lepers were outcast, who couldn't go near anybody at all. They had no social contacts, they most certainly couldn't touch people. If they were, or claimed to be healed they had to go and show themselves to the priests before they could enter back into the life of society. So here we have ten men in a particularly extreme sort of situation- so extreme, obviously, that the normal barrier between Jews and Samaritans mixing together had been broken down.

Outcasts from society, then, and we speak, don't we, of people being social lepers, of people who, for whatever reason are excluded from normal society. They are considered to be 'beyond the pale'; people we should have nothing to do with. Many people today would perhaps see AIDS sufferers as being social lepers. Or, maybe, a prostitute, would be regarded as being a social leper, or a refugee, maybe an east European refugee, or the homeless maybe. The people begging on street corners. We all tend, don't we, to pass them by on one side, to try and avoid contact with them. We feel that in some kind of way we've got to put up a barrier, or behave as if they weren't there. So we can make people treated very much as lepers in the first century just  because of their social standing, or their appearance. Some people are excluded because of their colour. At the present time many Muslims may feel themselves to be social lepers.

But these men in their extremity, in their pitiful situation cry out to Jesus, Jesus, Master, have mercy upon me. Jesus looks at them and says Go, and show yourselves to the priests. I'll come back to that in a moment, but let's remember that in the other incident recorded in chapter 5 of Luke, we're told that Jesus actually touched the leper- something which the law totally prohibited, and something which would have made Jesus personally ceremonially unclean. Jesus was never afraid to get his hands dirty. We, who claim to be his followers as Christians, must God helping us, have the same capacity and the same compassion. And so, immediately, at the very beginning of this story of the healing of the lepers, the questions put before us is: How are we treating those that society would regard as outcasts?   How do we regard and treat those regarded as 'beyond the pale'?  People whose appearance might repulse us. People whose backgrounds might repulse us. How do we actually respond to them? How do we treat them? Do we shun them? Do we pass them by on one side?
  People may cry out today, "Christian, have mercy" It's so easy to close our ears, to turn a blind eye to such people. It's so easy just to get on with 'business as usual'. To be preoccupied with our daily lives. So these people in desperate need and poverty and suffering do not find from us the mercy, the help, the compassion that they are looking for. Maybe we need to ask God to give us direction, resources and to enlarge our hearts.
  As Philip was reminding us at the 10 o'clock service last Sunday- he may well have said it at 8, in extreme situations one thing to remember is that we are Christians together, that we are part of the Body of Christ, and there may be some situations that we have to involve the whole church or some other members in reaching out in compassion. Compassion on the outcast is perhaps the first theme in this incident in the Gospel reading this morning

The second one is matter of faith. We thought about faith in the reading last Sunday when Jesus says to his disciples when they ask him Lord increase our faith and he replies If you have faith the size of a mustard seed and say to this mulberry tree be uprooted and planted in the sea, it would obey you. And here we have an application of this very principle. In this story we're being taught about this tiny little bit of faith being put into practice. So when these lepers cry out for mercy and Jesus tells them to show themselves to the priests, by that command they would have understood that in so doing they were claiming to be healed.
  So when they went to the priests they were acting on faith, they were acting on the faith that Jesus would heal them, and that he would bring that healing about by the time they reached the priests. We read on that as they went their leprosy was cleansed. They acted in faith, and by faith they were healed.

Faith really involves taking Jesus at his word and acting on his word. It's not some nebulous idea, it's not an intellectual belief. It's, I'll say again, taking Jesus at his word and acting on that word. These lepers took Jesus at his word, at the implied promise in his word and they acted on it. We perhaps need to ask ourselves: Is our faith such that we will act on God's very word, to act as we perceive God wishes us to do, without seeing the end result.
  The disciples, let's remind ourselves, had been asking Lord increase our faith but what Jesus is saying here, in effect, is that if you've got only a tiny faith that suffices. What matters is not the size or greatness of our faith that matters, it's the greatness of the God in whom we set our faith. What matters is acting on that faith. So: Our treatment of the outcast, our faith; these are the first two themes.

Finally: gratitude. The closing episode of this story shows us that although all ten men were cleansed of their leprosy, only one of them returned to give thanks to Jesus. And the one who returned was the Samaritan. Time and again, Luke in both his Gospel and in Acts shows that it's not the religious Jew who responds to Jesus' message, and to whom Jesus seems primarily to direct his message but rather it's the outcast, it's the one on the edge of society, it's the Samaritans and the ones whom the religiously correct would reject; they are the ones who seem to respond to Jesus' message. These are the ones that have the faith that seems to matter. Jesus perceives their latent faith, and brings them not just ceremonial cleansing but a healing, a healing of the whole man. To these he brings salvation, he brings them within the Kingdom. The Prodigal Son would expect to be (at least) rejected by the village where he had earlier lived; he needed faith that his father would accept him. Or there's the woman who has faith to break in on a Pharisee's dinner party and Jesus tells them that this woman loved him so much because she had had so much forgiven.
  So this Samaritan comes to give thanks because he realises is wasn't just his going to priests which had cleansed him , but it was Jesus and because of him something much more radical had taken place. Jesus says your faith has made you well- 'well' not just cleansed in the ritual sense People can live by a religious ritual correctness, but they have no gratitude in their hearts; but only those whom Jesus has touched on the inside.

So: this morning's incident asks us these three questions:
-First of all, what is our treatment, how do we respond to those in dire need on the edges of society?
Then, what about our faith. Is it a faith which will take Jesus at his word?
And then, what is our to Jesus in our lives. Is it one controlled by thanksgiving and gratitude.
Let us indeed be thankful this morning for all that the Lord has done. Let us resolve to act on his word in assurance of faith Let us ask for the compassion, that we may reach out and help those social lepers who cry out, "Christian, have mercy"
 
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