“A missing key?”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, June 6, 2023
Luke 17:11-19 (Forward, p. 39) CEV p. 1085
Commentators have often made note of the rather weird, unusual and rather inexplicable route that Jesus takes in this passage. “Jesus went along the border between Samaria and Galilee” (verse 11). That mere fact, along, of course, that they were fellow sufferers—all in the same boat, as it were—would explain why the group of lepers were a mixed bunch, Jews and Samaritans. It is interesting also that there was a village in this vicinity. This reminds me of the city where I live, Lloydminster, which is literally on the border.
So, this unnamed village in today’s account was something of a meeting place, perhaps, a neutral location, a no-man’s land, maybe. Perhaps, like Lloydminster, it felt like ‘neither fish nor fowl’, not quite fitting in with either jurisdiction, and often overlooked or neglected.
The inner reality was, however, that regardless of jurisdiction, and regardless of faith or ethnicity, there was a group of sufferers, needy people to say the least, who were bound together by their common affliction. And so, all of them were in need of God’s help. And, in this, nothing mattered. All the other distinctions were irrelevant.
However, there was one important difference. While all of them showed faith in Jesus in that they cried out to Him for help and that they, without exception, obeyed Jesus’ command to show themselves to the priests, only one of them showed his gratitude by returning to Jesus to give Him thanks. So, why did only one man return. Perhaps the Jewish men felt that ‘as proper Jews’ they ‘had it coming’. Or perhaps they were simply trying to be obedient and quick to follow Jesus’ command. I have often speculated as to why this might have been, but perhaps we will never know—at least in this life.
But the end result is that the one man, the Samaritan, received something more, not just this one incidental ‘piece’ of healing, but wholeness, healing of his entire being—in other words, salvation.
To me, living and working on a ‘border city’, this account has a special and particular meaning. We do have many needy, hurting people in this city, and regardless of all other factors or labels, they are united in their need for Jesus in their lives.
And perhaps, what is needed is not only a desire for healing and a cry for help, but also a sense of gratitude or thanksgiving. I say this because, like the nine men in our account who didn’t come back to give thanks, many of our people in this city simply take what they have for granted—or credit it only to their own hard work and diligence—and don’t think to bring God into the picture. So, while prayer is certainly needed, so too maybe gratitude is as well. Maybe this is the missing key. So, let us continually give thanks to God for all His goodness and love. Amen.
Forward notes: “And as they went, they were made clean” (verse 14b).
“The ten lepers who encounter Jesus would not have been received by the priests unless their skin had cleared up first, and yet Jesus sends them to the temple before that happens. They all obey, perhaps with varying degrees of understanding and faith, and as they walk, they are healed.
“But one of them doesn’t even make it to the temple—when he sees that he is healed, he turns back to praise Jesus. I’ve always interpreted this as his being overcome by exceeding gratitude that Jesus would care for him, a foreigner. But maybe it’s also his realization that even with his ceremonial barriers removed, his ethnic barriers remain, such that he won’t be received by the priests and/or the community.
“I’m not sure where he ‘goes on his way’ at the end of the story. I don’t know if his faith has made him well only physically or also socially. But I’m glad that he is foregrounded in this story, and I hope we set up our communities to coincide with rather than contravene God’s miracles and inclusion.”
Moving Forward: “In your service to others, how can you approach healing in a holistic way—seeking physical and social health?”
A concluding note:
I have often wished for more details about what Jesus has asked the ten lepers to do. Presumably, given that the Samaritans had their own Temple at Mt. Gerizim, they would have also had priests. And if so, would their priests have acted in the same way, as public health inspectors, as the ones back in Jerusalem? If not, that one lone Samaritan would have trekked all the way down there just like the others, through foreign and often hostile territory. And just how far were Jerusalem and Mt. Gerizim from the border between Galilee and Samaria? No matter which it was, it would have been a long journey, a journey of faith and fervent hope for these men before they could be properly and fully reinstated in their respective communities.