The Twilight Zone

October 14, 2007

By

Reverend Litton Logan

Scriptures:

¹¹On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, ¹³they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” ¹⁴When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. ¹⁵Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. ¹⁶He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? ¹⁸Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:11-19 (NRSV)

Introduction and Comments:

The dentist gave his patient a lecture on the importance of proper dental hygiene. He then asked him, "Have you been flossing religiously?"

"Well," the man hedged, "I floss more often than I go to church."

In today’s scripture, Jesus’ question to his audience in the concluding passages of our scriptures, like the dentist’s question, moves us beyond abstractions into some very practical aspects of our relationship to God.

Sermon:

A major theme in Luke’s Gospel, as in the other Gospels, is God’s redemptive love. A Love that extends from the promise in Abraham to bless all nations and people through Moses and the prophets into the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ. This divine love encompasses the Gentiles, the outcasts, the marginalized, and the excluded. Jesus’ teachings on this matter of divine love turned people’s thinking about God, righteousness, and the kingdom of God upside down. By Jesus’ reckoning, those in the “in group” should no longer be as confident as they once were. In addition, those who believed themselves excluded or damned are now to be healed of not only their physical diseases and disorders but of their spiritual condition as outsiders.

Jesus as the mighty one from God comes among the people, he eats with sinners, he touches the unclean, he affirms the worth and dignity of those whom society demeaned and discounted. In short, Jesus isn’t your typical prophet or rabbi. Jesus’ understanding of the kingdom of God is a far cry from most people’s understanding, including the very people he preaches to and heals.

This story of Jesus healing ten lepers makes this point most succinctly. Jesus, still en route to Jerusalem and his destiny on the cross, travels along the border between Samaria and Galilee, a route traveled by many Jews to avoid crossing Samaria. Luke mentions this bit of geography as a way of placing Jesus in a sort of religious and cultural twilight zone. Jesus moves along the boundary where the distinction between things that are acceptable and things that were unacceptable becomes blurred. A zone where the unexpected and the impossible becomes possible and commonplace.

Jesus’ reputation has evidently preceded him as ten lepers approach, keeping the prescribed safe distance. In unison and in a loud voice, they cry out for Jesus to be merciful to them. Their cries beg for not only the healing of their affliction but also the simultaneous forgiveness of the underlying unrighteousness, according to prevailing beliefs, that caused their afflictions.

The disease of leprosy in the Bible covers a range of dermatological diseases. These conditions may range from psoriasis to vitiligo to Hansen’s disease—modern day leprosy. Nevertheless, the expanded rabbinical interpretations on the topic of leprosy predicated upon passages in the book of Leviticus gave detailed instructions for observing, diagnosing, and pronouncing a person “unclean” or “untouchable”. Once given this diagnosis of “unclean,” a person’s disease was generally viewed as divine punishment for some unrighteousness. Such people were to keep themselves outside the “camp” or away from others.

Furthermore, given that people did not have as sophisticated understanding of infectious diseases as modern medicine, it is most likely that lepers were ostracized in fear of the contagious effects of unrighteousness or sinful behaviors, which were understood. However, if a person’s condition improved or went a way they were to present themselves to a priest to be checked out and to be declared “clean” along with undergoing the prescribed religious rituals and ceremonies. In all fairness to the Jewish and Samaritan priestly rituals, there was a component of atonement and thanksgiving to God for healing. It was however an institutional ritual of the old order which was highly exclusive.

Today’s story is a companion piece to the story of the Good Samaritan wherein the outsider has a better understanding of true righteousness and kingdom values than the insiders do. It is also a continuation or a sequel to Jesus’ opening sermon in Nazareth, which nearly got him killed by his hometown folks. In that sermon, you may remember Jesus reminds his audience that in the time of the highly revered prophet Elisha, who prophesied during the reign of King Ahab and Jezebel, people would not listen to Elisha as he called them to repentance.

Jesus further recalls that there were many lepers in Israel at this time but the only leper Elisha healed was Naaman the Syrian, a foreigner and an enemy general. Jesus says that in Elisha’s time, as in his time, people would not and will not listen to the words of God from the mouths of God’s anointed prophet. In Elisha’s day, only Naaman, a foreigner, listen to and obeyed Elisha’s commands and he was healed. Moreover, it appears in Jesus’ time that only the outcasts, the demonic, the marginalized, and the excluded people are listening to God’s witness in Jesus and receiving healing, redemption, and blessings.

In our passages today, in contradistinction to the priest and Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan, who saw the injured man and did nothing, Jesus sees and does something. Please note that Jesus doesn’t touch the lepers. He does not tell them they are healed. He simply says, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” These lepers in an act of tremendous faith turn on their heels and head for the priests. One leper, however, stops and returns. Here would have been the shocking surprise to Jesus’ audience—there was a Samaritan leper mixed in with Jewish lepers.

As you have heard many times, there was a long-standing and mutual hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans although these two peoples shared common religious histories. Yet, in this twilight zone between Samaria and Galilee disease becomes the great leveler, the bonding agent, and the revealer of the ultimate truth of our dependence upon one another and God.

In recent history, we have seen many natural and humanly contrived disasters cause people to bond across racial, ethnic, national, and socio-economic boundaries to effect relief and support of those afflicted or injured. I find that such coming together despite people’s differences bespeaks a degree of human nobility that gives credence to idea that we are made in God’s image in spite of our other acts of cruelty and indifference toward one another.

I have also witnessed people in hospitals bond with nurses and other caregivers across social and racial barriers in times of sickness, fear, pain, and distress. I’ve seen the families of the sick and dying in hospital waiting rooms bond with each other for mutual support and assistance without regards to race, creed, or socio-economic status as they waited diagnosis, prognosis, and the treatments of loved ones. Sickness, disease, fear, disaster, tragedy, and their accompanying uncertainty seems to tear down the barriers and distinctions between people to reveal what is truly important—a common humanity under God and the caring of one person for one another.

After hearing Jesus’ words, as I said, these lepers hastily depart and head for their respective priests. That is all but one, the Samaritan leper. He alone turns around as he sees his healing beginning to take affect and comes back. The Samaritan prostrates himself—falls on his face--at Jesus’ feet, a Jew, and praises God’s healing power and presence in Jesus that was extended to him a Samaritan.

Next, we can almost see Jesus look down at the leper in admiration and appreciation and then look up and around at those who were following him and ask a rhetorical question—“Where not ten made clean” But the other nine, were are they? Was none of them—except this foreigner like Naaman the Syrian, an outcast among outcasts—found to return and give praise to God.

This question would have stung the hearts of Jesus’ Jewish audience that day as well as many in Luke’s audiences. They would have felt the accusation and the weight of shame implied in Jesus’ question—a despised outsider sees more clearly and is more grateful of God’s divine power in Jesus than the insiders. Either people in the various audiences would have reacted as the people in Jesus’ hometown synagogue or they would have asked themselves the question, do I truly recognized God’s power and presence in the life and ministry of Jesus? Am I, once an outcast, an outsider, grateful for that divine presence and what it means to my life to such a point that I pause to thank and praise God? Or, do I feel that as a child of Abraham, a Jew, or later as a Christian, I am entitled to God’s blessings?”

Jesus says to the healed Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” In Luke’s Gospel Jesus’ formula of blessing: “Your faith has saved you” is a declaration of salvation. Jesus says in effect the Samaritan’s greatest act of faith was not so much his request for healing but in his gratitude and praise of God for his healing. The nine other lepers got what they asked for—physical healing and reunion with family and friends--but the Samaritan alone received healing…salvation.

I have often wondered if after these ten lepers received their pronouncements of “clean” whether they kept in touch with one another. I wonder if they ever said “Thank you” to one another for their mutual care and support during their days of disease. I wonder if their families ever expressed thanks and gratitude to the lepers who had aided and comforted their love ones in those bleak days of exclusion. I wonder it they ever had a reunion, like old army buddies, to toast one another and remember those of their kind who may have died from their disease and they had to bury? On the other hand, did they return to their old prejudices and resentments?

I wonder if we ever really take the time to come back to our source of spiritual healing and blessings and to prostrate ourselves in thanks to God and to praise God for God’s great and mighty work in Jesus the Christ. Alternatively, are we like the nine lepers just so glad to be declared clean, forgiven, healed, and included in the family of God that we forget to express that dimension of our faith that makes faith, faith--gratitude?

By the way, one of the greatest ways to praise and to thank God, like the Samaritan leper did to Jesus, is to show our appreciations for, and thanks to those whom God has sent to stand by us and helped us in the dark days of our lives between what was acceptable and unacceptable. Have we thanked God for sending those people into our lives that helped us through our disasters and tragedies, some of our own making? Have we thanked God for God’s loving presence in the lives of those who came to us and guided us through our uncertainties?

Yes, we’ve all traveled in the twilight zones of the unacceptable where the impossible became possible for us through God’s power and presence in the lives of our various saviors and prophets, teachers, doctors, nurses, friends, and family members—who were empowered and guided by the teachings of Jesus, the Christ of God.

I guess we should be like the old guy who finally had to admit he had gotten old. He complained about having had two By-pass surgeries, a hip replacement, and two new knees. He had fought prostate cancer and diabetes. He said he was half-blind, couldn’t hear anything quieter than a jet engine. He takes 40 different medications that make him dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. He has bouts with dementia. He has poor circulation and can hardly feel his hands and feet anymore. Top it all off, he couldn’t remember if he was 85 or 92.

But...he thanked God every day; he thanked God every day, that he still had his New Mexico driver's license!

No matter what happens, what we do, or where we go, let us praise God, and thank for God for God’s saving, healing power in Jesus the Christ, and God’s divine presence in the lives of caring others who come into our lives.