Luke 17:11-19
11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
We are continuing our walk through the Gospel of Luke today by turning to a passage that we tend to hear around Thanksgiving time. We often focus on that one man out of ten who returned to thank Jesus for healing him. Gratitude is absolutely central to today’s text, but I’m going to save that sermon for next month. Today I want to look at something a little different. I want to focus on identity.
If I asked you to describe yourself, how would you begin? Often we talk about our job, “I’m the pastor at Staunton Mennonite Church,” or our family, “I’m father of two, husband of one.” We could go into physical descriptions, “I’m a 39-year-old, white male.” Or maybe you would talk about your likes, “I like gardening, long walks on the beach, and a good cup of coffee.”
What of that is essential to my being? And how much of my identity is meant to unite me with one people group and disassociate me from another? If I identify as Republican, that means I am not a Democrat, or vice versa. To say I’m a Mennonite means that I am not a Presbyterian. Today, I want to argue that our most important identity is that we are beloved children of God, and when we start by seeing others as also being beloved children of God, it changes the way we perceive the world around us.
Our text begins with Jesus and his disciples traveling along the border between Galilee and Samaria. As they are entering a town, ten men yell at Jesus from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” (v.12b).
Why did they stand at a distance and yell? That seems rude. If you need something, walk over to Jesus and ask him face to face. Luke tells us that these men had leprosy. This was their most important identifying characteristic. Even today, when we talk about this story, we call it the story of the ten lepers. (Not to be confused with the ten leapers, who are a part of the Christmas story.)
The term “leprosy” was a generic title given to any persistent skin disorder. Leprosy could range from a bad rash that wouldn’t clear up, to people who had fingers falling off from flesh-eating bacteria. I assume you all read Leviticus 13 today, so I won’t go into all the details. But the first 46 verses of Leviticus 13 are dedicated to the identification of leprosy. For instance, verses 2-3 say, “When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a shiny spot on their skin that may be a defiling skin disease, they must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest. The priest is to examine the sore on the skin, and if the hair in the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be more than skin deep, it is a defiling skin disease. When the priest examines that person, he shall pronounce them ceremonially unclean.”
Yep, 46 verses dedicated to puss, oozing sores, and the hairs found within these sores. I’d suggest not reading Leviticus 13 right before lunch.
The priest shall pronounce them ceremonially unclean. What does that mean? Verse 45-46 tell us, “Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.”
They yell to Jesus from a distance because they aren’t allowed to come in contact with anyone who doesn’t have leprosy. They must live outside the camp or the city. They must dress a certain way, and even wear their hair a certain way so that people will know that these men are unclean.
They are outsiders, and that is their primary identity.
I don’t want to be too critical of these laws and practices. If we think about it from a medical perspective, why might God have instructed Moses to keep people with certain diseases separated from the general population? I’m among those who believe that these purity laws were put in place by God to prevent the spread of disease. It is the same reason my daughter got sent home from school last week with pinkeye. But again, my concern is with the identity of these people, with these ten lepers.
The men call out to Jesus, asking him to heal them. Verse 14 tells us how this went down: “When he [Jesus] saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were cleansed.”
Leviticus 14:1-32 tells us how a person who has been diagnoses with leprosy is to go about being declared clean. There is an 8-day ritual involving anointing with oil, animal sacrifices, and shaving off all of your body hair, even your eye brows. It’s in the Bible, folks. I couldn’t make this up. And this whole process takes place only after a priest inspects your skin and begins the ritual cleansing. This is why Jesus tells the lepers to go show their selves to the priest. It is as they turn to go to the temple that they are healed. There is a simple act of faith that leads to their healing.
This is where our Thanksgiving sermons usually pick up. Verses 15-16 tell us, “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.”
Only one man came back to say thank you to Jesus, and Jesus praises him for doing so. But I don’t want to be too critical of the other nine, because they are doing both what Jesus told them to do, and what Moses commanded of them. They were going to the priest at the temple to begin this process of being pronounced clean. The thing that I notice in this text is that the one who didn’t go to the temple is the one who would have never been allowed in the temple; he wouldn’t even be received by the priests.
The one who returned to thanks Jesus was a Samaritan, an outsider. Jesus himself recognizes this man’s status in verse 18, “Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”
The lepers were considered outsiders. Yet even within this group of outsiders, the Samaritan was considered an outcast.
Our passage concludes with Jesus saying to this outsider, this reject, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
I don’t like that translation. Others say, “Your faith has healed and saved you.” Here Jesus uses the word “sodzo,” while he uses a different word in verse 14 to describe the healing of the other nine. Something else has occurred here. I want to say that something that happened is that this man received a new identity. He now is made whole. And though he had spent who knows how many years as a double outsider, now he recognizes his identity as beloved.
I read a great book this week on identity, called The Lies that Bind by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Appiah was born in Ghana to a Ghanaian father and a British mother. This makes an interesting combination, because Ghana was a nation colonized by Great Britain. So his mother is a white, Anglican, descended from the colonizers. His father a black, Methodist, descended from the colonized. What do you think Appiah writes about? Identity! In some ways, he seems to fit in everywhere, a citizen of the world! In others, he fit in nowhere, a man without a home, without a people group. Is he black or white? British or Ghanaian? Anglican or Methodist?
Appiah’s book looks at identities, and how we assign identities to one another and ourselves. These identities are real, but not as absolute as we would like to believe. For instance, I am from Ohio, and now live in Virginia. When people ask me where I’m from, I struggle to know the correct answer. But if I had been born a couple hundred years earlier, there was no Ohio or Virginia. Go back even further, there was no United States. So in some ways, my identity as Ohioan or Virginian or American is constructed, and rather arbitrary. Some dude with a map came along and drew a line and determined where one state begins and another ends.
This makes me think about how many other identifiers are somewhat arbitrary. Again, this isn’t saying that they aren’t real, but that they aren’t necessarily set in stone, and maybe shouldn’t be used to describe ourselves. Obviously, if we had been born in a different country, we would be French, British, or Russian. If we had been born in Iran or India, we might be a different religion. If you had different friends, maybe you would be a Republican or a Democrat. We might have different jobs or different homes if we had been born into slightly different situations. Appiah’s point seems to be that we need to be careful not to exclude other people because what separates us isn’t always as significant as we might want to make it out to be. And these identities should never prevent us from treating people with dignity and respect, caring for those who need help, loving those who need love.
Can you imagine Jesus healing only nine lepers, telling the tenth, “I’m sorry, you aren’t a part of our group.” In our lesson from today, Jesus never denies that the ten men who approached him were affected with leprosy. He never denies that the one man was a foreigner and a member of a different religious group. But he offered compassion and love to them all, regardless of whether or not they were clean, regardless of whether or not they were a part of the same group he was. Instead, he recognized these differences, but invited them all to take on a new identity. An identity that doesn’t erase all other identities, but an identity that does trump all other identities. He now invites these men, including the Samaritan leper, to accept their identity as beloved.
Early last week a picture began circulating on the internet. It was a picture from a football game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers. The picture wasn’t of the football game, but of a few of the people in attendance. In one of the private boxes we could see comedian Ellen DeGeneres sitting next to the 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush. This is in all ways a strange pairing. Bush is a traditional conservative, and one who led the US into the War on Terror. DeGeneres is a progressive comedian and activist, who frequently speaks out in support of LGBTQ rights. Not exactly who you would expect watching a football game together. In fact, I’m not sure that I would expect to find Ellen DeGeneres in Texas at all!
In the days following the football game, many people on the left responded to Ellen critically. How dare she sit with George W. Bush? Doesn’t she know his policies? Doesn’t she know his stance toward LGBTQ people? Doesn’t she know what he did in Iraq? Ellen addressed the criticisms on her television show, saying,
“Here’s the thing, I’m friends with George Bush. In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have. We’re all different and I think we’ve forgotten that that’s okay that we’re all different. But just because I don’t agree with someone on everything doesn’t mean I’m not gonna be friends with them. When I say be kind to one another, I don’t mean only the people that think the same way you do. I mean be kind to everyone. It doesn’t matter.”
My friends, George W. Bush is a beloved child of God. Ellen DeGeneres is a beloved child of God.
Time and time again throughout the scriptures, we see the outcasts getting it first, understanding things at a level that many of the religious elite didn’t. The tax collectors and the sinners are entering the kingdom before the rest. The Samaritan leper is the one who was made well and was saved. Maybe this surprises us, but maybe it shouldn’t. We put these labels on people instead of seeing them as Jesus sees them, as beloved children of God. Fallen children of God, for sure. But beloved nonetheless.
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