Remembering the Past...
        Planning the Future

    Park Christian Church
                                                                    (Disciples of Christ)

November 22, 2009

Scripture:         Luke 17:11-19

Sermon:           “One in Ten”

            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, “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 he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

            I’m going to need some volunteers.  I need ten folks to be my lepers.  Who wants to be a leper this morning?  Don’t worry.  You heard the word of the Lord with me.  All ten of you are going to be made clean.  So, there’s no risk involved.

            Ten volunteers receive a number between one and ten and stand together in the center aisle, holding their numbers.

            Yes.  Here are our ten lepers.  They’ve all contracted a dreaded skin disease from the first century in a land that the Romans called Palestine.  Now, you’re thinking about leprosy.  But, I want you to learn a new word today.  It’s sara’ath.  Say that with me.  Sara’ath.  You’ve learned a new Hebrew word.  Sara’ath.  That’s what these ten folks have.

            Now, sara’ath might be something like a rash.  We don’t know for certain.  It might something like liver spots.  We’re not sure.  But, the Bible mentions this stuff a few times.  It may be that what the Bible had in mind no longer exists.

            Here’s the thing:  sara’ath was scary stuff.  It could just strike you with no apparent reason.  Maybe it was like shingles, you know.  Stress can cause shingles.  You don’t want shingles.  You probably wouldn’t want sara’ath, either.

            Not knowing for sure what sara’ath was all about, let’s you and I imagine that it was itchy and painful.  So, our ten volunteers are going to be scratching their arms and such.  They’re going to be in pain, so you might hear them moaning a little bit.  We’ll see just how good their acting is.

            While they are all suffering for a moment, let me give you an idea of what the life of a leper in the Bible would have been like because of his/her disease.  This is the law by which folks lived:  The person who has sara’ath shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, “Unclean, unclean.”  He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean.  He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.

            Does that sound a little cruel?  You’ve already got this dreading thing going on with your body.  Now, you have to go and live away from everyone else.  You’ve got to look like your sick so that everyone knows to stay away from you.  You certainly can’t go to worship at the temple.

            Does that sound cruel to you?

            A lot of people hear this and think that the Judaism that Jesus grew up practicing must have had this cruel side to it that treated folks poorly when they were sick.  It sounds an awful lot like the sick were being ostracized and marginalized.  Doesn’t it?

            Let’s imagine that our ten volunteers all had H1N1—the dreaded swine flu.  They’re sick as dogs, you know.  Hopefully, they are covering their upper lips and letting folks know to keep their distance.

            What is it that health officials are saying about having the swine flu?  Stay home if you get sick.  CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

            Does that put a different spin on the laws from Leviticus for you?  Having sara’ath was a terrible thing.  The laws were meant, I believe, to serve as a public safety measure.

            Still, our ten volunteers here have to stay away from everyone else.  Friends.  Family.  Work.  School.  It’s an unbelievable disruption to your life until you get well.  And who knows when that will be?

            Alright.  Now I need two more volunteers.  The first is going to be our Christ figure.  And the second is going to be our random number drawer.  The Christ figure will stand here with me.  The number drawer will stand over to the side with this hat full of numbers.

            Okay.  Let’s act this story out.  All of you ten have sara’ath.  So, let’s see it.  Let’s hear it.  And, as Luke tells the story, Jesus travels into your neck of the woods, out where you’ve been living in order to prevent spreading of your disease.  Let’s see some scratching, now.  A little painful moaning would be good.

            Jesus is in the distance and you start crying out for him to have mercy upon you.  What would that sound like for you?  According to Luke it sounded like this, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”

            Now, our Christ figure here is going to read what Jesus said:  “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

            If we kept reading from the law earlier we’d have discovered that the priests were responsible for determining if people had recovered from their illnesses.

            But, that’s exactly what each of them did.  They headed out, just like Jesus said to do.  They started going away to find a priest.  It was then that they discovered their skin was cleared up.  The itching stopped.  The pain went away.  The discoloration faded.  Good as before.

            Okay.  Now I need for our assistant to draw a number from the hat.  The assistant pulls a number out at random.  Who has this number?  That volunteer raises his/her hand.  Okay.  You will come back down to the front with us.  The rest of you keep going on your merry way back to your seats.  Thank you for playing along.  There will be some lovely parting gifts for you in the Fellowship Hall.

            This one, unlike all of the others, came back to Jesus.  And he/she prostrated on the ground at Jesus’ feet.  You know what that means?  You feel like prostrating today?  You can just sit here in the pew and hold your hands together if you like.

            Well, this one was praising God with a loud voice and thanking Jesus.  Thankful for what had just happened.  And who wouldn’t be?  Knowing what you know now about how Jesus had changed their lives, who wouldn’t be thankful?

            Jesus said:  “Hey, weren’t there ten of you?  Where are the other nine?  Only one of you came back to give God thanksgiving and praise?  And you’re a foreigner?  You, then, get up and go on your way.  Your faith has made you well.”

            Alright.  How about a round of applause for all of our participants?

            Where did the other nine go?  That’s what Jesus wanted to know.  What happened to the other nine?  Only one came back to give thanksgiving.  What happened to the other nine?

            Think about that.  There were ten people with sara’ath.  Jesus healed them all, which was an incredible blessing considering how that restored their entire lives.  Only one of the ten gave thanks.

            Do you think that’s about right?  About ten percent of the time someone gives thanks for all that they have received?  Ten percent?  Sounds pretty bad.  But, I wonder if it isn’t the case for all the times we don’t say thank you to God.  Know what I mean?

            What happened to the other nine?  I’ve got some ideas on that.  Maybe they’ll sound familiar.  Let me do with you what Jewish rabbis have done for centuries.  It’s called a midrash.  There’s another new word for you.  Midrash.

            Rabbis would come up with a midrash in order to fill in the gaps of a story from scripture.  It takes what is only hinted at in the story and tries to explain it somehow.

            What happened to the other nine?

            Well, one of them was in a hurry, you see.  She had everything piled up on her to-do list at home.  You know what that’s like?  There’s a ton of things to get done.  Now that Jesus healed her she can get back to that incredible list of things to accomplish.  She’s kind of stuck between thankful and burdened.  It might even be worth it to endure some more itching and solitude just to keep from having to get back to working her fingers to the bone.

            My wife sometimes tells me that she’s ready for an illness to strike!  At least then she could just lay around in bed all day and do nothing!

            But, that one that Jesus healed?  She was too busy.

            One of them was really confused.  He wondered why he was healed when there were so many others that still suffered.  I guess he had a little bit of perspective on things, you know.  That’s nice.  Like we talked about last week.  Remember?  But, he didn’t say thank you.  He didn’t think it was right to gloat about what he’d received from God.  He thought he’d be bragging or something.

            There was one of them that wanted to say thank you.  He really did.  He wanted to say thank you.  But, as he considered giving thanks to Jesus, he wondered if there wasn’t some other explanation for what had happened.  Coincidence, maybe.  Whatever.  For him to say thank you felt like he was giving credit to God when there might just be another place to give credit.

            Do you fail to give thanks like that?  You’re the one who’s made something happen.  How are you going to give thanks for that?  You made it happen.  The credit goes to you.  How do you say thanks?

            I guess we do that when we confuse thanksgiving with giving of credit.  Do I thank God when someone else does something for me?  I don’t know.  Is giving thanks the same thing as giving credit?  Did God do this or did someone else?

            Well, maybe giving thanks is more about just having gratitude.  Maybe it is about expressing appreciation and value for what you’ve received.  Where it came from?  Well, ultimately isn’t it God?

            Several of the other nine had a time and place for doing such things as praying and thanking God.  They’d do it on Sunday at church if they remembered.  They’d whisper it before dozing off to sleep that night.  After all, going and prostrating yourself before Jesus is unsightly.  It’s embarrassing to speak of faith in public and all that.  What will others think?

            Well, I will end my midrash here.  I haven’t named what happened to all of the nine that went away.  You and I each have our own reasons, don’t we?

            I’ll tell you, though…Jesus had already healed all of them.  Whether or not they gave thanks, he healed them already.  It was only to the one who returned in praise and thanksgiving that he said, “your faith has made you well.”  They were all healed.  But, only one of them was declared to be well.  Do you think that giving thanks to God for what had already been received had something to do with it?

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)