Luke 17:11-19
I love the way our story begins … on the border … an in-between place, a no-man’s land, neither here nor there …
On the border … between Judea and Samaria, neighbors and kinfolk, sharing the blood of Abraham and the Law of Moses, but no love lost – each believing the other to be defective.
Judea to the south, centered in Jerusalem … the City of David, the Second Temple built by Herod the Great … God’s dwelling place on earth … tens of thousands of lambs and goats, bulls and birds sacrificed … a place of atonement and hope … beauty, power and pomp.
To the north and west, Samaria, descendants of the 10 Northern Tribes – under the iron heel of Assyrian conquest in the 8th Century before Jesus, intermarriage, racial mixing, dislocation …
Judea looked at Samaria with contempt.
Samaria looked at Judea with disgust.
No love lost between these neighbors and kinfolk.
But on the border, things are different … in the in-between place … ten lepers, nine Judeans and one Samaritan … brothers in sorrow and suffering … leprosy … unclean and dismissed from family and town; objects of fear and loathing, under the wrath of God, so it was thought – to fend for themselves, beggars along the road.
We are the desperate
Who do not care.
The hungry
Who have nowhere
To eat.
No place to sleep,
The tearless
Who cannot
Weep. (Langston Hughes)
As of late, I’ve been reading two books, and only recently did I see their connection … Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath – portraits of the poor … trying desperately to make something of this life … but hamstrung by events and systems beyond their control.
Scrooge bah-humbugs his way through Christmas, believing the poor to be poor by their own hand, and if they want shelter, they can go to prison or a workhouse. A cold, mean-spirited man avoided even by the neighborhood dogs.
The Okies hit the road in rattletrap trucks and oil-burning cars, stacked high and deep with whatever belongings they can take – off to California, the land of dreams and opportunity … their farmland decimated by draught and dust, their farms swallowed up by banks and big corporations – homeless migrants on the road west … trying to make something out of this life.
On the border between Samaria and Judea … ten lepers … vagabonds, the abandoned ones, trying to make something out of life.
Jesus goes to border regions often … He moves with ease between places and peoples … Judea and Galilee, Samaria and the Decapolis … He shuns no one, welcomes everyone … pedigree and purity mean nothing to Him … ancestry and social position are irrelevant to Him … religious claims carry no currency with Him … He sees the heart and knows the soul … His love has no boundaries … there’s a wideness in His mercy.
The lepers call out to Him … forbidden by law to approach, they call out from a distance … with a loud voice, says the text – “Can you see us? Can you do something?”
“We know who you are … we’ve heard the stories … will you help us?”
With a marvelous simplicity, Jesus says, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”
The priests determine who’s clean and who isn’t … who’s in and who’s out, who’s naughty or nice.
Jesus nods his head to convention … “Yes, show yourselves to the priests” … let the priests examine you, so they can declare you clean.
We might imagine the lepers saying to one another: “What’s up with this? Look at us, we’re lepers … we’re a mess … what’s to show the priests today any different than yesterday.”
But they go as Jesus says … simple obedience.
On their way, they’re made clean!
One of them, seeing that he’s healed, turns back and falls at the feet of Jesus, praising God with a loud voice.
Were the others not grateful?
They were all grateful for their healing … but only one returns to say it.
The other nine hurried home to greet their friends and attend to their business, intending, I’m sure, to return to Jesus and thank Him.
But things turned out otherwise; they were kept at home longer than they meant … and in the meanwhile, Jesus was put to death.
Albert Schweitzer writes:
We ought all to make an effort to act on our first thoughts and let our unspoken gratitude find expression. Then there will be more sunshine in the world, and more power to work for what is good.
Schweitzer reminds all of us that the waters of gratitude run deep in the human heart … but rarely rising to the surface, never coming up like a spring.
Jesus said: “The water that I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Schweitzer continues: “… we ourselves must try to be the water which does find its way up; we must become a spring at which men can quench their thirst for gratitude.”
Maybe that’s the point of the story … say it … put it into words … let someone know that you’re grateful.
Emerson said: “Words are alive. Cut them, and they bleed.”
The poet, George Herbert, noted: “Good words are worth much and cost little.”
One of the common stories throughout my ministry – someone says, “I know that my folks loved me, but they never said it.”
The story is told always in the same way, the same words, “I know they loved me, but they never said it.”
The story is told because something is missing … the words are missing, “I love you” … powerful words … words to finish the work of love. We are creatures of mouth and ear, as much as mind and heart.
People with whom I’ve counseled over the years all say the same thing, “I wish my father could have said it to me before he died. How I would have loved to hear those words.”
I know many a story wherein an adult child worked up the courage to sit beside a dying parent, take a hand, and say, “Dad, I love you” … and something like a dam breaks, a window is thrown open, a light turned on, a spring gushes up … and Dad says, “I love you, too” …
With tears and hugs – so long avoided, so long withheld … why?
Why the reluctance?
Why the restraint?
What’s to fear?
The words, “I love you” – frosting on the cake, butter for the bread, gravy ladled hot over mashed potatoes.
I know that my children love me, but I never tire of their words: “Love ya’ Dad.”
When we part and say goodbye, when we chat on the phone and have to go, we say to one another, “Love you.”
To put it into words …
Jesus asks, “Where are the others?”
That has to be the most poignant question ever asked by Jesus: “Where are the others.”
With a delightful tongue-in-cheek, a wink of the eye, Jesus says to the Samaritan at His feet, “What? Only a foreigner returns to say thanks?”
To put it into words … “Jesus my LORD, thank you.”
God longs to hear those words, and our soul longs to say them.
There’s something healthy and redeeming in speaking the reality … to let those words rise from the deeps, rumble through our throat and finally pass our lips: “Jesus my LORD, thank you.”
Jesus tells the man to get up and go on his way – “your faith has made you well.”
That day, there were two healings … a healing of the flesh, all ten of them.
A healing of the spirit, but one … the one who returns, the one who puts it into words.
Some years ago, I received a letter from a young mother who wrote: “Dear Rev. Eggebeen, perhaps you’ve forgotten me. You were my pastor when I was in high school, when my folks were going through a terrible divorce.
When I was able to make it to church, you’d give me a hug at the door and tell me that it’s going to be all right.
I made it through those hard years.
I’m married now to a fine man, I’m the mother of two young children, and in my Bible study group, we talked about people who made a difference in our lives, and we decided to write letters to them, and that’s why I’m writing to you, because you made a difference for me, your words of encouragement meant the world to me, and I want to say, “Thank you.”
She put it into words.
Some years ago, I wrote a note to one of my former pastors, when I was in high school and college, Grand Rapids, Michigan - Dr. Jerome DeJong – now at home with the LORD.
A passionate, articulate preacher … a man of the Word … who made it clear every Sunday, there’s nothing more important in this life than returning to Jesus, to fall at His feet, and with a voice of conviction and surrender, to put it into words, “Jesus my LORD, thank you.”
He wrote back a few weeks later: “Yes, I remember you, and how grateful I am to have received your letter. One always wonders if anyone hears or anyone cares. It’s gratifying to know that I had some small part to play in God’s work in your life.”
It’s more than gratitude … it’s putting it into words … it’s turning around and going back to Jesus, saying it loud and clear, Jesus my LORD, Thank you!
Amen!
