In the cartoon strip Ziggy, Ziggy and his dog Fuzz are lost in ski country. Ziggy pulls out a book and says to Fuzz, “We won’t get lost hiking in the woods this time because I brought the cross-country skier trail guide book . . .
“Matter of fact, Fuzz, this area here looks none too familiar . . . I better consult the guide. See, there are three methods of finding our way home. First, there’s the ‘coin flip method.’ I think we’ll skip that . . .
“Two is the eeny-meeny-miney-mo method! Uh . . . that doesn’t sound too good . . . Ah, here we go!!
“Three: ‘The auditory method.’ Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Let’s see what it says to do. ‘A. Get comfortable. B. Take a deep breath. C. Yell “Help” as loud as you can!’” (1)
That sounds like a reasonable choice to me. Some people are equipped with the skills to find their way out of the wilderness on their own. For the rest of us, yelling “Help!” should be our first option.
Our Bible passage today is about ten men with leprosy who had no way of saving themselves. Their disease affected them physically, with inflammation and severe nerve damage. It affected them socially, cutting them off from contact with others. And it affected them spiritually, cutting them off from worship in the Temple. The first, last and only option these men had was to cry out for help, and Jesus heard them.
It reminds me of the story of a cruise ship that passes a small desert island. Everyone watches as a ratty-looking bearded man runs out on the beach and starts shouting and waving his hands.
“Who’s that?” asks one of the passengers.
“I have no idea,” replies the captain. “But every year we sail past, and he goes nuts.” (2)
Jesus is traveling along the border between Samaria and Galilee when he encounters a group of men with leprosy. Lepers were used to having others “sail past” them all the time. They were the outcasts. The unclean. Quarantined far away from their community, cut off from their families, prohibited from worshiping in the Temple. Everywhere a leper went, he had to stay at least six feet away from a healthy person at all times, and he was required to shout a warning to anyone who passed by, “Unclean! Unclean!” Can you imagine seeing people flinch and run away from you as you shout, “Unclean! Unclean!” Would your illness become your identity?
So that’s why it’s surprising to hear these leprous men shouting at Jesus. Because they’re not shouting, “Unclean! Unclean!” as they were required to. Instead, they were shouting, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
What do you think they were expecting from Jesus? What do you expect when you cry out to Jesus? Do you expect healing? Do you expect comfort? Do you expect an answer? I think these leprous men just wanted Jesus to see them. To pray over them. To offer them some words of hope. They were so cut off from normal life, so isolated and hopeless. If Jesus could just offer them some kind words and the presence of God, just for a moment, I think these outcast and dying men would have been satisfied. But Jesus had so much more to offer them.
The story of the ten lepers is a great image of our faith journey, and what it means to be a Christian. The journey of faith often comes with three essential steps. We come to Jesus with a need, not knowing what to expect. We receive new life and respond in gratitude. Then we go out with a new mission, to share the message of Jesus and the promise of new life to others.
The first step in their faith journey is that the lepers came to Jesus with a need. Many of us start out our faith journey with a “tow truck faith.” We’re stuck. We’re broken down. Our spiritual engine has failed us, and we just want a quick tow back to our old life. So we cry out to Jesus with our needs.
Henri Nouwen was a priest and a professor of psychology who taught at some of the most prestigious universities in the world. One day, he gave up his comfortable life of teaching and serving a prominent church in order to work at L’Arche community, a home for developmentally disabled adults in Canada.
One day a woman named Janet, a member of the L’Arche community, came up to Henri and asked, “Henri, can you bless me?”
Henri made the sign of the cross on her forehead and said a short prayer. The woman wasn’t satisfied. She said, “Henri, it doesn’t work.” What was she talking about? His blessing didn’t work?
At a worship service that evening, Henri tried again. He announced at the end of the service, “Janet wants a blessing.” He expected her to come forward for more prayer and anointing. Instead, Janet came forward and put her head on Henri’s chest. He hugged her and said, “Blessed are you, Janet. You know how much we love you. You know how important you are. You know what a good woman you are.”
Janet’s face shone with joy. This was the blessing she’d been looking for. The other worshippers got up from their seats and came forward too, all requesting the same kind of blessing Janet had received. They didn’t want a ritual anointing and a prayer. They wanted a hug and sincere words of love and appreciation. (3)
God’s first blessing on us is the blessing of seeing us and our deepest needs. Throughout the Bible, we see that Jesus is always attentive to, aware of, even searching out those who are suffering and those who are left out. I’m convinced that even if one leper had stood by the side of the road and whispered to Jesus, he would have responded.
The second step in the faith journey is to return to Jesus with thanksgiving. And that’s where this story becomes a cautionary tale for us.
So these men cry out loudly for pity, and Jesus gives them a challenge instead: “Go, show yourselves to the priest.” In those days, priests were the only ones who could verify if someone had been healed of leprosy. A priest would inspect the patient and if they didn’t see any more evidence of sores and swelling, they could announce that the patient had been healed and restored to the community again.
Be careful when you ask Jesus for something. He will often give you more than you ask. But before you can receive, you have to believe. God is not like Google Maps. When God says, “Go” that’s a complete sentence. Throughout the Bible, God sends people out into unknown territory and expects them to walk in faith.
So the leprous men are on their way to the Temple when they are miraculously cleansed of their leprosy. Nine of the lepers presumably return to their normal lives. They’ve been healed. The curse of uncleanness has been removed. And they can’t wait to get back to living. Only one leper, a Samaritan man, returns to thank Jesus. Look at what the verse says: “One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.” The one man who returned to thank Jesus wasn’t even a Jew. He was a Samaritan.
This Samaritan, when he saw he was healed, “came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.” There’s another really good lesson in this verse: If your cry for help is loud, let your praise be even louder!
Blogger Jennifer Wiler tells of reading a powerful book, The Heavenly Man, by a persecuted pastor in China. The author, Brother Yun, suffers torture, beatings, starving, electrocution and being confined to a tiny prison cell. One day, Brother Yun felt the urge to pray for a Bible. This was a suicide prayer, because if the guards found out he had a Bible, they would have increased his tortures. But Brother Yun prayed anyway, and a few days later, a passing guard tossed a Bible into his tiny cell.
Brother Yun writes, “I knelt down and wept, thanking the Lord for this great gift. I could scarcely believe my dream had come true! No prisoner was ever allowed to have a Bible or any Christian literature, yet strangely, God provided a Bible for me! Through this incident the Lord showed me that regardless of men’s evil plans for me, He had not forgotten me and was in control of my life.” (4)
“I knelt down and wept, thanking the Lord for this great gift.” Jennifer Wiler made the point in her blog that most of us would not have thanked God for the Bible. We would have begged to be set free from the prison, to be released from the tortures of the guards. But Brother Yun was overcome with gratitude because this Bible was proof that God had a ministry for him in prison, and that God would sustain him in his suffering.
Loud, humble, enthusiastic, heartfelt, uninhibited gratitude is one of the defining marks of a Christian. That kind of gratitude naturally turns to joy, which is another one of the defining marks of a Christian. Many Christians reach the first part of the faith journey, bringing their need to Jesus, and then never go any further. They do not live in perpetual thanksgiving and praise. They do not return to Jesus and throw themselves at his feet and pour out their praise to God. We miss out on the greater blessing God could do in our lives when we take our blessings for granted, when we return to our old lives without experiencing and expressing our overwhelming gratitude to Jesus for the salvation and hope he has given us.
Now there may be someone in the room who is thinking cynically, “Well, if I had some of the blessings some other people enjoy, gratitude would come much easier.” A more mature understanding of life tells us that our sense of gratitude doesn’t depend so much on our circumstances as it does on the condition of our heart.
Dr. Tom Long tells us about a time when he was having one of those frustrating days when he had more things to do than he could possibly accomplish. So he was in a foul mood as he rushed through the store. It didn’t improve his mood to get behind a mother and her young son who were playing games as they strolled nonchalantly down the grocery store aisles.
After passing the mother and son several times, Dr. Long noticed that the boy was mentally disabled. As he watched them he couldn’t help but notice that the mother had turned their shopping trip into a game, a game that allowed her son to participate in hunting down grocery items. They seemed to be having a wonderful time. Much impressed Dr. Long decided to engage the mother in a conversation.
“I was just admiring your relationship with your son,” he said.
Dr. Long reports that at this, the mother beamed and replied, “Oh yes, he is a gift from God.” (5)
I wish every child could have a mom or dad like that, don’t you? I wish every parent could think of his or her child as a gift from God. Our praise and thanksgiving are not dependent on our circumstances. They are dependent on our relationship with God. They are dependent on how much we know the power and sovereignty and provision and grace of the one, true, almighty, everlasting God whose love never fails and whose purposes are eternal.
And that leads us to the third step in our faith journey, which is to go forth from Jesus with a new mission. We come to Jesus with a need. We return to Jesus with praise and thanksgiving. Then we go forth from Jesus with a new mission—the mission to spread his name and his truth, and the promise of new life with others.
Let’s look at the lepers’ story again. While the ten lepers were on the way to the priests, they were cleansed. Nine went back to their old lives. One returned to Jesus with loud cries of praise and thanksgiving. And Jesus looked at that one man and said, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” And the word he used here for “made you well” can also be translated as “saved you.” You have healing. You have restoration. And now you have salvation. Rise and go—others need to hear your story.
There is a wonderful story about the famed actress of a few decades ago, Betty Hutton. Hutton was an award-winning movie star who also found fame on Broadway and in television and radio. But she suffered from depression and an addiction to alcohol and drugs. In 1970, she had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. Through the spiritual guidance of a Roman Catholic priest, she gave up her addictions and gave her life to Jesus.
In 1980, Hutton returned to show business in the Broadway musical Annie. All the other cast members of Annie had detailed biographies of their lives and careers in the program guide. Betty Hutton didn’t include any of her major motion pictures in her cast biography. She didn’t include her awards, or her television shows, or her radio programs, or her starring roles on Broadway. Betty Hutton’s cast biography consisted of five words: “I’m back. THANKS TO GOD.” (6)
“I’m back. THANKS TO GOD.” That’s the leper’s story, isn’t it? That’s our story too. “I’m back. THANKS TO GOD.” God didn’t just save us so we could go back to our old lives. God didn’t just save us for our own comfort and satisfaction. God saved us so that we would be adopted into the family of God and made citizens of the kingdom of God. And God saved us so that we could pass on that blessing of hope and joy and love and new life in Jesus to everyone we meet. Rise and go, your faith has saved you. Rise and go, in praise and thanksgiving to God. Rise and go, the world needs to know the hope that is in you. Someone else is crying out in need. Someone else is dying and hopeless and cut off from the love of God. They are waiting to hear your story.
1. Contributed by Dr. John Bardsley.
2. From Esquire.
3. Henri Nouwen, http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/nouwen_3502.htm.
4. “The 7 Habits of People Who Place Radical Trust in God,” by Jennifer Wiler http://jenniferfulwiler.com/2011/04/7-habits-trust-god/.
5. Thomas G. Long, “The Disciples’ Final Exam.” Contributed. Source unknown.
6. Barbara Hudson Dudley in Daily Guideposts, 1982 (Carmel, New York: Guideposts, 1981).