Healing on the Other Side

Luke 17:11–19 is more than a healing story; it’s a border story. Ten outcasts cry for mercy, and Jesus crosses every line — between clean and unclean, insider and outsider — until grace stands where exclusion used to be. One turns back, a foreigner who should never have belonged. In this sermon, we find the Christ who keeps breaking barriers and healing what exclusion has wounded.

Transcript

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You're listening to The Word on Baker Street, a podcast from Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Bakersfield, California. Each week we share the good news of God's love through the sermons from our Sunday worship. Wherever you are in your journey, you are welcome here.

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The Holy Gospel, according to Luke 17, 11 through 19. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten leopards approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. When he saw them, he said to them, Go, show yourselves to the priest. And as they went, they were made clean. When one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at the feet of Jesus 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? And then he said to him, Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well. The gospel of the Lord. Let us pray. Loving God, may these words, my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts draw us closer to you today. Amen. So I have a cousin who lives in Portland. And she has been sending me all kinds of pictures and videos of Portlanders lining up to face the National Guard. Naked people on bicycles and people like in all different kinds of costumes and these blow-up dolls, and it's really quite quite hilarious. I'm grateful to see them face all of this with so much humor. I mean, it's easy to get sucked into the gravity of it all. I mean, it feels like everywhere we look these days, somebody is drawing a line. Lines about who gets to play on what team, or who can use a certain bathroom, or who deserves health care, or housing, or who can have safety, lines about whose story is allowed to be told in a classroom. And we're told that these lines are meant to bring order, but most of the time they only bring pain. And the truth is the lines keep moving. The people who thought that they were safely on one side of the line wake up one day to find themselves on a different side. One of my favorite quotes, I think it's by Nadia Boltzweber. I probably should have looked it up. It says, Every time I draw a line, I find Jesus on the other side. I think about that a lot lately. Because the world, it seems determined right now to sort people into these clean and unclean categories, right and wrong, worthy and unworthy. I mean, I'm I certainly do it. And every time the world draws a line, Jesus crosses it. In today's gospel, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and he is traveling through Samaria on his way to Galilee, and right, he's right there on the borderlands, and he comes across ten men who have leprosy. That's a disease of the skin, and they are all standing off at a distance, and they're calling out, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And they're outside of this village because people who have leprosy were ostracized from the community. The book of Leviticus states that a person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes and let their hair be unkempt. They also had to cover up the lower part of their face and cry out, unclean, unclean. Their only hope really was a miracle. If a miracle happened and the disease went away, that person then was required to demonstrate this to a priest. And then that priest would have a final say that they could then return to their family, and community or not. If the priest said yes, then that person then had to offer a sacrifice in praise to God. Once they did that, then they would be restored, and then they would be able to return to the community. So here they are. This group of ten people that encounter Jesus that day. There's nine Jewish, and one of them is a Samaritan. And no one would expect a Samaritan to be hanging out with these Jewish people. These two groups of people, they really hated each other. The politics and religion, who owned what land, and that it wasn't any easier then than it is today. So here they are, they're they're outside these city walls, and they're all these people that they always thought that they would be on the inside. And they're all of a sudden they're they're they're outside the city walls, unable to live with their own community. They're out together, these ten people, and they've they've been unable to worship their God, unable to do anything, but now they're bound together outside this, and then they see Jesus. They know he's healed others, and now they want nothing more than to be healed, and they all cry out, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And Jesus tells them, Go, show yourselves to the priests. And all they do is they just simply start running, and as they run, they are healed. I think it took a tremendous amount of faith from all of them. You know, I've often heard this story being said, how awful it was that nine of them didn't return showing gratitude to Jesus. But the reality is they were doing what they were told to do, what they were actually required to do by Jewish law. Jesus said, Go, and they went. They ran before they even knew they were healed. Those nine were an amazing example of faith, and I believe they were grateful, and that they went to the temple and they showed themselves to the priests, and they made their sacrifice to God, a sacrifice of praise that signified their return to God and their return to family and their return to their religious community, and they ran all the way back to the temple because they could. He turns back to Jesus. See, I think, and I wonder if he was simply running along with these people that he's been in some kind of weird community with. And so he turns back. And he's praising God with a loud voice, and he throws himself at the feet of Jesus and he thanks Jesus. You know, Jesus grumbles a little bit about these others. Sounds like he might want them back. But the fact is that this is the only place in the New Testament where thanks is expressed explicitly to Jesus. Everywhere else it is expressed to God. The real catch here is the one who returned is a foreigner. The Greek word here that is used for foreigner is also the only place in the New Testament that it occurs. It is, however, the word that was inscribed outside the temple walls of Jerusalem to proclaim who could not enter. It said, Jews only, no foreigners allowed. I think this foreigner turned back for more than to simply thank Jesus. I think he turned back because all of a sudden he remembered he wasn't actually welcome. The people of that community, even though he had spent time with them as lepers, were never going to let him in. They were never going to let him be a part of that fellowship. He experienced healing, healing with them. He had felt the touch of God, but it didn't matter how much, how touched by God he was or how much healing he had received. He was never getting in because the very nature of who he was, his identity was written on the outside of that temple wall. Throughout history, there have been many names written on the outside of the temple walls of religious communities: Gentiles, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, blacks, brown bodies, women, poor, divorced, people with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, homosexuals, transgendered, drag queens. I think we all have moments when I wonder, or when we wonder, if we really belong. But for some of us, those moments have been stark examples of how unsafe and unwelcoming places of worship can be. Or well, look at what happened to the people at Sodom and Gomorrah. And I want to say, you know, have you have you read your Bible? Because the book of Ezekiel says, now this was a sin of our sister Sodom. She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy. Time and time again, people will say, the Bible says the thing is, it doesn't. Because of what the Bible says. And if we dare to look, we find Jonathan and David. First Samuel says, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. And in 2 Samuel, David says of Jonathan, your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of a woman. One of the most common verses used in weddings today is, wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you from me. Words between Ruth and Naomi. And Jesus, Jesus healed the male lover of the Roman centurion. And Jesus didn't say, go and sin no more, which Jesus is very capable of doing. Jesus said to him, Your faith has made him well. And Peter says in the book of Acts, God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure and unclean. And what about the Ethiopian eunuch? He is the first recorded baptism into the Christian faith. A sexually altered, queer black Jewish slave from a foreign land. Let's say that again. The first recorded Christian baptism is a sexually altered, queer black Jewish slave from a foreign land. Paul, in his letter to Galatians, states there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor there is male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if that's not enough, how about Romans, where Paul states, nothing can separate us from the love of God. This is what the Bible says. But why is it so difficult to proclaim? And when I think back to that moment at the concert, that audible gasp, I think it was, it wasn't just the sound of surprise. It was like the sound of longing, this longing for a church that doesn't wound, and for a faith that doesn't exclude, and for a love that doesn't have to be earned. It's what I love about Emmanuel. Because this our church here, we really are doing our best to be that kind of place, a place where no one has to recover from belonging. I know that. We got a lot of growing edges here, and uh we still make mistakes, and over and over again we choose love. We choose mercy, we choose to cross lines that others draw, because that's where Jesus always seems to be. Every time the world tells us who is in and who is out, we respond by building a longer table. And every time someone shows up, I'm sure they'll be welcome, we say, you already are. That's what healing looks like. Not something we do once and for all, but something we practice together day by day. Because baptism still means what it's always meant to mean. You are claimed, you are loved, you are free. That's what it means to be made well, that's what it means to be the body of Christ. A people whose love keeps crossing every single mind the world draws. So, beloved, hear this truth. You are seen, you are named, you are chosen, you are loved. And together, together we are being healed from the inside out. Please pray with me. Loving God, you cross every line we draw and call us beloved. Keep healing us, keep healing us every lot, every day. That our lives, our church, and our love may reflect yours. Amen.

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Thanks for listening to the word on Baker Street. If this message has spoken to you, share it with a friend. More sermons and reflections can be found at emmanuelbakersfield.org. May God's grace and peace be with you today and always.