How God Works

The Holy Gospel According to St. Luke, the 17th Chapter

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, saying, “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.”

This story is a parable so it tells us something about the way God works.  It’s not a spoken parable like the Rich man and Lazarus, but a real life situation used as a parable.  Jesus uses both to tell us something about the way God works.  So, there were ten lepers.  They are unclean outcasts with no where to go.  By law they can’t even come up to Jesus to ask for healing.  Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, because priests decide if you’re clean, and as they go away they ARE made clean.  

Here we need a full and total stop because Jesus has just shown us how God works.  God works in unconditional, indiscriminate grace.  Jesus sees ten lepers across the road.  Regardless of where they’re from, who they were or what wonderful or awful things they may have done in their lives… regardless of what they believe or don’t believe, their political leanings, regardless of their gender, their social standing, their wealth, their poverty, their sexual orientation, or whether they had dogs, cats or guinea pigs for pets… regardless of anything… A N Y T H I N G, Jesus simply and indiscriminately heals them all.  ALL!  But wait!  There’s more!  We ALSO see exactly HOW God distributes grace… and the way God distributes this abundant, indiscriminate grace is through Jesus and THAT still happens every Sunday, right there at that table.  

So, every single leper was made whole and it wasn't because they got themselves right with Jesus.  Not because they put themselves in a place where God might be able to work in their lives (I heard that one on the radio this week!).  Not because they confessed Jesus as their lord and savior.  Not because they were good enough or not too bad.  They were ALL made WHOLE because MAKING CREATION WHOLE is what God is all about!  Period.

Back to the parable.  As the lepers were headed off to who knows where, maybe to the priests, maybe to get Chipoltle, who knows WHERE they went because now they could go ANYWHERE because they are ALL healed.  But one, when they all noticed that they were healed, turns around and comes back to Jesus praising God and thanking Jesus.  And he was (gasp), from AWAY… you know, a Samaritan!  

Since this is a parable and it tells us something about how God works, we need another brief stop to once again hammer home the total, radical, unconditional, indiscriminate grace that had just been done to this human being and the others who were with him.   Samaritans were outcasts from birth and no amount of healing or cleansing would ever fix that.  YET, God’s grace is given to this one too!  

With that in mind we can take the line:  “And he was (gasp) a Samaritan”!  And we can literally put any other label that one person might put on another person into that “Samaritan” slot and begin to understand that God’s grace is for THEM too and even for YOU.  Think of a label that someone has stuck to you.  God’s grace is for people with that label!  Think of a label that you have labeled someone else with.  God’s grace is for people with that label too.  God’s grace is for ALL… All means ALL.  

Back to the parable.  Jesus looks around and, I think sarcastically, wonders out loud, “Were not ten made clean?”  “I healed 10, right folks?  Jesus knew very well that there were ten, AND he knew the other nine weren’t coming back.  Only the Samaritan returned to say “thank you”.  But remember, this is a parable so this tells us something about the way God works.  God’s grace is a done deal.  There are no Divine take-backsies.  God gives whether we recognize it or not, whether we believe it or not, whether we accept it or not, whether we are thankful for it or not.  None of the ten got un-healed. 

  

Back to the parable.  Jesus turns back to the Samaritan and tells him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”  But what did Jesus mean by that?  Faith didn’t cure his leprosy; God’s love and grace did that.  So if it wasn’t the leprosy Jesus was talking about, what was it?  Remember this is a parable so it tells us something about the way God works.  

God’s grace, it turns out, is not something that will ONLY cure you on the outside, but God’s grace is something that can bring healing and wellness to every part of our lives through all of eternity.  All ten were cured but only one began to be transformed into the person God created him to be right there.  Only one began to understand that God’s total, radical, unconditional, indiscriminate grace went farther than just skin deep. 

God’s love and grace is not conditional.  Everyone has it.  It was and is a gift.  All of creation got it in Christ’s death and resurrection.  Period.  FAITH, on the other hand, is different.  Faith is getting a tiny glimpse of even the smallest little clue about how AMAZING God’s love and grace really is and turning around and returning to Jesus.  Then trying, one step at a time, to live your life as a “thank you” to God for that gift of love and grace.  The best “thank you” you can give is to follow Jesus’s lead and give others exactly what God first gave to you… total, indiscriminate, unconditional love and grace.  And the truth is, the better and better and more FAITH-fully we follow Jesus’s example of unconditional and indiscriminate love and grace… the more we will find that we have not just been made clean, but we've been made WELL too.  Amen.