Trinity 19. The Other Nine Lepers
William Temple
Luke 17.11–19

Stand well back please!
Repulsive dermatological conditions.
Skins diseases of all sorts.
Don’t touch!
Stay well back there. Let them pass.
The poor dears – throw them a few coins. A bit of bread; a chicken leg; that old coat that hangs on the backdoor.
Keep your distance, though. Ooh.; Don't they make you want to itch and scratch yourself…

Here is a sermon that might just make you want to itch and scratch yourself. Feel free to do so.
Scratch your arms and legs. Scratch your heads. Scratch your….
Perhaps you might even want to you scratch your hearts and souls and open up a hole in your spiritual armour.
A space to let the spirit in – and lead you who-knows-where.
Sometimes a good scratch is just what's needed…

They were obliged to shout to announce their approach.
‘Here we are – stand clear.’
‘We’re coming through.’
‘Have pity on us – we must have sinned somehow to end up like this.’
‘Why me? – Why not you?’
‘Have pity on us – do what you can for us – it might be you one day.’
‘Have mercy on us.’

If only cortisone cream had been invented!
If only some one had talked to them about the need for Vitamin C!
If only people knew that hardly any skin diseases are contagious.

As it was, however, people believed differently
And that made a huge impact on their lives…

Touch a leper and their impurity sticks to you –
Tick – you’re impure… (Rpt)
Like a children’s playground game gone nightmare-mad.
Touch a leper – and no-one will touch you.
People won’t touch you – for 28 days and 28 nights.
They won’t dare!

They won’t brush against you in the crowd – stand well back please.
They won’t enter your house – stand well back please.
Their children won’t play with yours – stand well back please.
You can’t go to work, or to the well, the river, the market place,
or to the supermarket, the bus stop, the football match, the hairdressers, the pub – stand well back please.
No job, no money, no social life… Even shunned by your own family, children, partner…
‘For better or for worse, in sickness and in health’…. But not in the case of leprosy…

They’ll keep staring at you – just to check you aren’t one of them.
What’s that blemish she’s got on her cheek? Was it there yesterday?
What’s that flaky skin on his collar? When did that start?

(Dandruff is a skin disease too, you know. And no one had invented Head and Shoulders.
If you have dandruff, flakiness or itching skin, thank yourselves lucky this isn’t 1st century Palestine!)

A group of these poor souls wandered through the village, begging as they went.
Picture the scene.
They call to Jesus and he sees them…
It doesn’t say he touched them either – he was a man of his time, after all –
but he sends them off to the priests. 
For the priests alone could decide if and when anyone was healed.
The priests alone would decide if a miracle had happened.

And on the way something did happen. – On the way their lives were changed.

And not just one – but all ten of them. What a miracle. What a sight. What a relief.
(The relief we all experience when that blasted itch stops itching…)

Imagine the scene again.
The priests gradually came closer. ‘Show yourself. Let me see that arm. Take your clothes off.’
They checked and double checked. Perfect skin. Clear as a baby’s bottom. Well, well. Then they sounded the all-clear.

One of the former lepers rushed home for a hot shower and a change of clothes. Oh, the bliss.
Two of them went out for a curry and a pint together – just as they were.
One – a younger man – went back home to the comforts of his wife.
Another – a market trader rushed off to see if she still had a business.
Another – an elderly man sat down and cried when he found his wife had left him for some one else.
Two – middle-aged ladies – took tea and scones together in the little tea shop round the corner. (Their regular Tuesday practice.)
And the ninth one – a doctor – went back to his patients.

All of them were so happy to put that awful chapter of their lives behind them!
All of them intended to lead holier lives and to avoid temptation in future. Just in case the disease came back.
And all of them – without exception – resolved to be kinder to lepers in future.
But would their old lives still be there for them?

Just one of them turned around and went back to Jesus, lay on the ground and said thank you.
And he wasn’t Jewish. He was an outsider. An undesirable. A foreigner.
A person who would now be shunned by his former leper friends: who never talked with strangers. Ever.
His old life would still be there for him! Cured – yes! But welcomed into the community now? I fear not.

Those who listened and watched with Jesus that day in the village knew what had happened there meant one thing – and one thing only.
God loves everyone. God heals everyone. Whatever the colour and condition of their skin.

And those read and listened to Luke’s gospel in the early days of the church knew it meant one thing – and one thing only.
In God’s kingdom there are no outsiders. Outsiders are just as good as us. We are all the same. Equal.
Whatever the colour and condition of our skin.
And now – those of us gathered hear today?
Those read and listen to Luke’s gospel today in Wythenshawe. What does it mean for us?
Where’s the good news for us to hear and share today? Listen.

Jesus tells the foreigner: ‘Your faith has made you well.’ But weren’t all ten already healed?
So what does Jesus mean? What is he getting at?
Time for another scratch. Scratch our heads and minds and hearts.

What does it mean that all ten were healed, but only one was made well? (Rpt)

All ten received the free gift of healing that God gave them –
but only one makes the connection;
only one has the imagination to connect the presence of Jesus with the breath-taking events that day;
only one sees that Jesus serves as a sign of something bigger than himself: something extraordinary;
a sign that God’s power for life refuses to be defeated, overcome or resisted –
a sign that God will not permit deathliness and fear of sickness to triumph –
a sign that God’s endless, creative loving will never allow anything or anyone to be on the outside of God’s love;

a sign that God – ‘who gives life to the dead and who calls into existence things that do not exist’ – longs for us to let go of the things that prevent us from receiving fullness of life –

that God calls us to let go of our fears and anxieties, our paranoia and our deep insecurity –
that God desires us to say yes to life, yes to life, yes to life

to say thank you for what has been, and yes, yes, yes – to all that will be;
to heed the gut feeling we get, follow the hunch and assent to the possibility
that God will never fail us.

Say yes…..

Terry Biddington

 

St Peter's Chaplaincy is a resource for exploring the life of faith. It seeks to be inclusive, open and welcoming, offering companionship on the Journey
Chaplaincy to Higher Education in Manchester		Manchester Metropolitan University University of Manchester Royal Northern College of Music
		St Peter's Church