“TRINITY 14”
Saint Luke 17: 11-19
14th Sunday after Trinity: 10 September Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
The 10 Lepers again. What is the point. Obviously to some, God The Holy Spirit thought this event was important enough to include twice during The Church’s calendar year—today, the 14th Sunday after Trinity, and later in November on the day of a national thanksgiving. So, if you are tired with this pericope take it up with The Holy Ghost.
Ooh, but maybe pastor will explain all the various types of the disease of leprosy—how there are different kinds and what was the strain coursing through Palestine in the year 29 A.D. No. This is Christ’s person and actions not science or medical class. What IS the point.
Well for that “school” of constrained exegetes in the Missouri Synod and other protestants—this text only means one thing and one thing only. What was written by Saint Luke: happened. Don’t you know “is means is?” And for the wider Church of the last 2,000 years, plus, the text is loaded with beautiful allegorical symbology and typology that paints a multi-colored fresco of the both the mercy and greatness of God all wrapped up with Eschatological and Ecclesial realities.
[Do not use them big words, pastor, give us some cool history and memory facts]
No.
But I will eschew the allegory and “types” this sermon.
So, what is the point? Luke the Blessed Apostle, one of only four men who ever lived that was graced by The Lord to preach and then record The Evangel, Luke was not even there. Luke got this story from both The Blessed Virgin Mary (possibly) and from Saint Peter and the others that he talked with (cf. The Acts of The Apostles, chapter 1). One point, Saint Luke was a physician—so there is your leprosy “tie-in.” Diagnosis sound!
Jesus is headed to Jerusalem, but let us be honest, He is not headed there today. Jerusalem is a city filled to the brim with heathen non-believers and atheistic God haters. Jerusalem back then was still, technically, the city of Peace. But Christ Jesus IS Peace—peace incarnate. Where He was, where He is, is the Temple, The Ark, The Mercy Seat, the propitiating paschal lamb. Where He stands all before Him kneel and fall prostrate at His pierced feet.
Jesus is not with the Jews. He is not in Judea. Jesus stands in the midst of Samaria—if not exactly the land of the Gentiles at least the land of the 2nd class, half-breed, despised Samaritans. And when those 9 filthy leprous Jews contracted “disease” they find themselves in Samaria along with the 10th victim—home grown Samaritan boy.
The point? The Jews rejected Messiah and clung to Moses. Now, I have to say, so no one accuses me of…anything…NOT ALL the Jews rejected Jesus. Peter and Paul, and Luke, and all those converts both on The Feast of Pentecost and thereafter, became followers and believers of Christ—THE WAY, the only way to God The Father. That is all the nuance you need. But, Jews rejected Christ. They still reject Christ though they are not even Jews of the same caliber as the Palestinian Pharisees and Sadducees.
10 is the number of The Law. The Law kills. So many Lutherans today want The Law to lead, motivate, regulate, and do all the other good things your pastor taught you when he was explicating the 3 “uses” of The Law—as if it was a Swiss Army knife. The Law kills and damns.
How do you preach the insanity (Paul calls us “fools for Christ”) of the seems-way-too-good-to-be-true Gospel when you are clinging with every fiber of your being to the sanity of the Law? Today's pro-nomians are a mystery to me. They're like the nine Jews who, after having been healed of their leprosy, go and show themselves to the priests in the Temple, as if the Law will somehow make the Gospel they've received valid. They are so worried about "dead faith" (which is a concern, yes, valid) that they seek to enliven faith through the Law, amazingly failing to realize that the only thing it can do is make "dead faith" deader still. But yes, “show yourselves unto the priests.”
The nine healed Jewish men ran to the Priests, to the old Temple. In and of itself that was not wrong. In fact, Jesus told them to. That way they could be included in worship and society once again. They were like Martha though, scurrying around the house and not paying attention to WHO had healed them. The Samaritan man was Mary, heeding the one thing needful.
He is the New Testament Christian writ large. He knows Who healed him and just Who this Savior is. He falls down at the feet, genuflecting and then face-planting on the ground, the dirt, from whence Christ made Adam. Christ the new, second, and Perfect Adam, has given the Samaritan life and light. He has his sins forgiven and is at Peace in the presence of Peace.
They all initially prayed the Kyrie: “Lord have mercy on us.” Jesus did. “For God so loved the world.” But only the one who confessed, actually believed, that The Lord—This Jesus—was God, was saved. He fell at the presence of That (He) Who had saved him. That gift of faith by The Holy Ghost. That dispensing of Baptismal + Water from Christ’s mouth giving Christ Himself, cleansed that Samaritan (non-Jewish, Gentile) as surely as it had cleansed the Syrian General Naaman by Christ’s Words in the mouth of Elisha.
The Law kills. Leprosy kills.
Jesus did keep The Law and is the end of The Law’s damning finality—to all who are in Christ by faith. Jesus suffered and hung on the cross as “leprosy” slowly sucked away His holy life—piece by piece, to that your own sinful black body would be resplendent in His own shining glorified whiter-than-white resurrected Body (and Blood).
Your faith—Jesus—makes you whole.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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