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Thank Outside the Box

THANK OUTSIDE THE BOX*

TEXT: LUKE 17:11-19

 


INTRODUCTION TO SCRIPTURE
The story today is a short and familiar one. Ten lepers healed. Only one returns to say thank you. The scene is a roadside village on the border between Galilee and Samaria. Jesus and his disciples pass by on the way to Jerusalem.

 

LUKE 17:11-19
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" 14 When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
NINE LEPERS-A MULTIFACETED STORY
For all its seeming simplicity, there's a lot to this passage. It is a narrative about Jesus' miraculous power to heal. It is an illustration of faith. It's another "good Samaritan" story in which Luke positions these hated outsiders as grateful recipients of Jesus' ministry and worthy followers. And it's a story about being grateful.
Since I've been allotted only a few minutes for my sermon, I've picked just one of those possibilities-the theme of gratitude.

QUARANTINE AND SOCIAL ISOLATION
Often when we preach on this text, pastors have a habit of shaming the nine lepers who were healed but didn't return. I resist that interpretation. You'll notice that all of the lepers did exactly what Jesus asked them to, they went back into their village to show themselves to the priest. This was necessary to validate their healing.

The isolation of people with dangerously communicable diseases was very distressing to the victims but in societies with rudimentary health care, it was certainly a good public health measure. (We're still doing that to some degree-remember the hoopla this summer about the young man who traveled on an airliner with a case of drug-resistant TB.) It's illegal to expose others to serious, wasting diseases today and it was vastly more illegal in first century Palestine.
In that time, you were completely cut off from family, friends, livelihood-isolated in colonies. Quarantines applied for any number of diseases-leprosy was one of them but that term was used for other skin rashes and eruptions as well. Some were incurable, others went away spontaneously. When you were proclaimed healed of one of these diseases it went deeper than just getting better, it included being welcomed back into society. The priests were the keepers of the quarantines and the final authenticators of healing; they decided who could rejoin the community and when. No wonder the nine healed lepers were anxious to be on their way to start the priestly red tape.



LIVING INSIDE THE BOX

When Jesus asks, "where are the other nine," he certainly knows the answer. They're doing what he told them to do. When my colleague, Fred Kane, preached on this text, he suggested that these outcasts were used to following orders and doing what people required of them. Because they were lepers, they were used to living "inside the box." Stay 50 yards away from others, ring a bell and call "unclean, unclean," so people know you are coming, hold your hand over your mouth. "Do this. Don't do that. Stand here. Not there. Stay away from that. Every day of their lives, these lepers moved, ate, slept, spoke according to the directions." (Rev. Fred Kane. Sermon posted on PRLC.org) So why wouldn't they be equally obedient when Jesus ordered them to show themselves to the priests.



BUT ONE CAME BACK

But not all. Not all. This one, this one came back. He came back to "thank outside the box." He saw beyond his good fortune to the divine gift behind it. His healing was a pathway to deeper faith; it intensified his relationship with God. The poet Timothy Haut imagines that moment like this. His leper is a woman.


LEPER
She stopped
Suddenly as if she noticed
For the first time
Her strong, clean hands,
The tools of
Her living, her labor, her tenderness.
Holding them up high--
Spread open like stars--
She peered in wonder
At the world
Caught between her fingers:
The child running through long grass,
The crimson leaves spiraling against blue sky,
The outline of a hawk, swimming in air,
And the sweet sunlight
Shining like a miracle,
Illuminating her joyous face.
"Thank you,"
she said to the silent presence,
her arms raised and ready
to grasp the whole blessed universe.
"Thank you for all of it."
--Timothy Haut, October 14, 2007

THANK YOU FOR ALL OF IT
Thank you for all of it! That awakening to glory. That intensifying of experience. The appreciation of all that is. This is what true healing is. A healing of soul as well as body.

A MIRACLE OF OUR OWN
In a few minutes we are going to dedicate the newly renovated space downstairs. Giving back to God what God has given us. We've experienced a miracle too. Oh, it's not as dramatic as healing leprosy, but we've seen God draw us out of our boxes too.

We're a people given to logic and reason, we calculate and count and assess. When we embarked on this project, it seemed monumental. First completely overhaul the relationship with our nursery school which took 4 years, then raise more money than we felt we could easily manage, then plan to give 10% of it away, then live with the disappointment of having to put off the project for a whole year just as we were ready to start demolition. With every step, our reason and calculations seemed to tell us-this is going to be a leap of faith.

And here is the miracle. We, the people who love to be in control, who are used to doing everything by our own wits, we had to step out of that confining box of our own competence and let go. We had to trust the Spirit and each other that all would be well. And we are here today to give praise and thanks to God that it happened. Of course, this is just a single example of what often happens in our lives when letting go is forced upon us.

This miracle has inspired a profound gratitude. Just as the leper came back to Jesus, we are here today to honor what we have been given by giving it back to God. We must remember this experience as evidence of God's work and see ourselves in the poem: together arms raised, ready to grasp the whole blessed universe and have one phrase on our lips, "Thank you for all of it."

* I am grateful to Rev. Fred Kane for the title of this sermon and the concept.