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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Modern society seems to be very focused on “the other”, not only every person apart from our individual selves but especially those people who are different, whether of a different race, country of origin, religion, biological sex, or, as they think of it, identifying gender. As a concept, “the other” has roots in the philosophy of the late 18th-century, but theorists in a number of different disciplines have continued to re‑interpret and re‑apply the concept of “the other” ever since (Wikipedia). There arguably is an “other” in today’s Gospel Reading: Jesus labels the Samaritan man who suffered from leprosy a “foreigner”, as we heard it read from the English Standard Version; in the Divinely‑inspired original Greek, the word is ἀλλο-γενὴς, one of another distinct (not necessarily different kind of) race or nation. In that sense, we might say that, in the Old Testament Reading (Ruth 1:1-19), Elimelech and his family likewise were “foreigners” in the country of Moab, and that later Ruth likewise was a “foreigner” in the land of Judah. In the case the ten men of the Gospel Reading, leprosy apparently overcame the usual long‑standing national, religious, and racial hatred between Samaritans and Jews, and God’s mercy that is for all people led to all ten men’s being cleansed, though only the one foreigner was found to return and give praise to God, perhaps all the more surprising since the one was a foreigner. Considering today’s Gospel Reading this morning, we, who are “others” in relation to God on account of our sin, realize that “God’s mercy leads to our salvation and praise”.
In what ways do we think of ourselves as “others” in relation to people around us? How are we ourselves in fact ostracized from and by people around us? Racial, national, religious, and even sexual divisions and groupings have long existed, and, no doubt, some divisions and groupings may even have served good purposes. In some cases, legitimate “discrimination” is done on the basis of such differences, such as when a Lutheran church body following God’s institution ordains only men into the Office of the Holy Ministry and then perhaps only calls such ordained men to teach theology at its universities and seminaries. And, there is a place for “discriminating” in our time on the basis of legal or illegal immigration, although such national borders and laws did not really exist in Biblical times, especially not between Samaria and Galilee, where Jesus in the Gospel Reading encountered the ten leprous men.
Those ten leprous men were regarded as “others” by the rest of society. They were dying a slow death, gradually losing body parts, regarded as already dead and so unclean. By law kept at a distance from other people, they together lifted up one voice to Jesus, emotionally and emphatically calling out to Him for mercy. The Divinely‑inspired St. Luke does not tell us exactly what the ten men were thinking that prompted their call or exactly what they were requesting, but, when Jesus saw them, He told them to show themselves to the priests as if they were clean. And, as they went, they were cleansed. Although Jesus first brought such healing, His true concern is said to have been eventually liberating them all from sin, the source of all disease and death, but presumably only one man, the foreigner, was so made well, or better “saved” (Oepke, TDNT, 3:212).
Jesus also would so liberate each one of us from sin and its consequences for us, disease and death. God calls and so enables us both to repent of our sinful nature and of all our sins of thought, word, and deed and to trust Him to forgive our sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives our sin, all our sin, whatever our sin might be, and we are so made well, or better “saved”.
Although as a foreigner, the healed Samaritan leper would not have been allowed in the Jewish Temple, Jesus sent the ten lepers to the priests, who would have come out of the city to the lepers (Leviticus 14:3). But, the healed Samaritan leper turned back, praising God with his own loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus’s feet, giving Him thanks, as if He were God, Who, of course, Jesus both claimed to be and, in fact, is. Jesus is the Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14) Who, out of His great love and mercy, suffered outside the city of Jerusalem in order to make His people holy through His own blood (Hebrews 13:11-13). The miraculous cleansing of lepers was a sign of the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed Savior (Luke 7:22), but, more than such healing, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 111; antiphon v.10), the Lord has sent redemption to His people, the forgiveness of sins, for the sake of Jesus, Who died on the cross for us and for all people, in our place, the death that we deserved. When we believe in our hearts and confess Him with our lips, then we are saved; there is no distinction; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him (Romans 10:9-12).
The Lord bestows His riches on all who call on Him through His Word in all of its forms. A cleansed leper would have been restored to his community through such things as the use of water, priests, and blood (Leviticus 14:2-32). Likewise for us, the water and Word of Holy Baptism become, what Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman called, living water, welling up to eternal life (John 4:7-14). Although at the time of the Reformation, the Lutherans rejected the use of today’s Gospel Reading to support requiring confession of all sins to a priest, they did not reject but encouraged voluntary confession of troubling sins to a pastor for the sake of individual Holy Absolution. And, in what came to be called the Eucharist because of its so giving thanks to God, Jesus in Holy Communion visits His people and gives them food; with bread and wine, He gives us His Body and Blood, and so He also forgives our sins and gives us life and salvation.
With Spirit‑produced joy, the cleansed Samaritan gave praise to God, and then Jesus sent him on his way, whether to the priests for reinstatement (Lenski, ad loc Luke 17:19, p.879) or directly to his various callings in life, we are not told which. Forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments received in faith, we also go from God’s presence with Spirit‑produced joy to live in our various callings in life. We may not see the immediate healing from our diseases, and, unless the Lord returns first, we, like the cleansed leprous men, will not escape temporal death, but we nevertheless have been healed by Jesus’s wounds (1 Peter 2:24) and given eternal life. As a brother pastor last month said well in his paper on today’s Gospel Reading presented to our Plano Study Group, “For the believer, a particular sickness does not have the final say; for the believer, cancer cannot take away what is ours in Christ; Alzheimer’s cannot take away what is ours in Christ; death cannot take away what is ours in Christ” (Rev. Weslie Odom, unpublished paper, presented 2019 September 5, p.4). Even without the temporal gifts of healing and a bodily assumption to heaven without death, we can, in the words of today’s Collect, recognize God’s goodness, give thanks for His compassion, and praise His holy Name. As today’s Epistle Reading put it (2 Timothy 2:1-13), we suffer as good soldiers of Christ Jesus.
As for “otherness”, in Christ Jesus, distinctions of race, country of origin, sex, and other status do not matter (Galatians 3:28), though His creation of male and female sexes (not one’s self‑identified gender) and His created order of male and female are preserved among people (for example, 1 Timothy 2:13). Truly people from every nation, all tribes and peoples and languages make up the great multitude that no one can number that is the Church on the Last Day, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice (Revelation 7:9). As we have realized this morning considering today’s Gospel Reading, “God’s mercy leads to our salvation and praise”. We go our way, for faith in Christ has saved us.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +