Just One Person (1/31/11)

Shalom,

 

    Please begin by reading Luke 17:11-19.

 

    Normally when this passage is talked about in church we hear about the wonderful faith of the Samaritan who returned to Jesus to thank him.  I'd like to present a different perspective of the Jewish men who didn't come back.  As we hear one man's story maybe we won't be so harsh on the nine who didn't personally return to thank Jesus.

 

    He knew!  He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what was wrong.  He knew!  He knew, but he couldn't believe what he knew was actually true.  It was too terrible to be true.  So he kept it a secret, a secret that haunted him day and night.  He would wake up in the middle of the night, tangled in the covers, his body slick with sweat.  Other nights, nightmares would haunt him, pulling him screaming from the blessing of sleep.  His shouts of "No! No!" shattered the silence of the night air.  The days weren't much better as his tormented thoughts just wouldn't leave him alone.

    It's true... You know it's true... Admit it... It's true!  His family and his friends were worried about him.  He'd lost weight.  He was preoccupied, ignoring them.  He no longer had the time to stop and sit for a while and chat.  They pleaded with him to let them help, but since he wouldn't admit to anything being wrong, they couldn't help.  He couldn't tell them.  They wouldn't understand.  But then how could they understand, when he didn't understand himself.

    Finally, despair drove him to the point where he had to do something.  So early one morning, before his family rose from their beds, he snuck out of the house.  He didn't tell a soul where he was going.  Maybe he was wrong, but worse was the fact that maybe he was right.  The trip took forever.  He'd walked this way many times before, but today he didn't notice the familiar sights.  He just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and praying that he wouldn't run into anyone he knew.  When he arrived in the city, he took a different route to a familiar location, the great Temple.  When he arrived at the place, he didn't go in the front door, instead he walked down a back alley and went in through a narrow door.  The room he entered was pitch black and he had to feel his way along a wall in order to find a bench to sit on.  He sat and waited.  Finally, a door opened and a priest entered carrying a lamp.

    This priest didn't speak.  He didn't ask a question.  There was no doubt in his mind why the man was sitting on that bench.  People only came for one reason... to verify what they already knew was true.  The exam took less than five minutes after which the priest said with a fearsome voice... You are condemned!  You are a leper!  No more were the first words spoken than the man dropped to his knees and cried with a sorrowful voice: "O God, why me?  Lord God of Zion, have mercy on me!"

    Having uttered the plea, the man began to rip the beautiful robe his wife had made for him.  The priest held out a bowl of mud and man plunged his hands into it.  Then he rubbed the dirt into his hair and onto his beard and across his face until he looked filthy and disgusting.  Then he opened the door and went out into the sunlight.  Only this time everything was different.  HE WAS A LEPER!  As he neared the end of the alleyway, just where it intersected with a major street, he knew what he had to do.  So he practiced a time or two.  Putting his hand over his upper lip, he issued the traditional warning:  Unclean!  Unclean!

    But the practice time was soon over.  As he joined the throng of Temple visitors he called out: "Unclean!  Unclean!"  But no one responded and he knew he would have to be louder.  He had to be heard, or risk causing the contamination of an innocent person.  Unclean!  Unclean!  This time they heard him, and their response was immediate.  Mothers hid their children under their cloaks, fearful that just a look would contaminate their children.  Older men turned away in contempt and younger men pelted him with chunks of garbage and with stones.  Never before in all his life had he been treated like this.  Never before had he walked through the streets of Jerusalem without being greeted by many people.  Never in all his life had he felt so alone.  But the worst was yet to come.  He still had to go home and tell his family.

    The trip that had taken so long that morning was far too short as he returned home.  He knew that his family would be waiting for him.  He knew that as soon as his children saw him, they would fly to jump in his arms.  He knew that if they did, if they so much as touched him, they too would be considered lepers and be forced to leave the village and live near the dump on the outskirts of town.  How could he tell them?  What would they think?  Would they wonder what he had done to make God punish him in this way?  Would they ever be able to forgive him?  His mind reeled with questions, but he would have many a lonely day to contemplate the answers soon enough.

    As he turned onto his street, the scene was just as he had anticipated.  His wife was sitting in fornt of their house as the children played outside their home.  And as soon as they spotted him they began to shout and to run towards him.  He had to do something fast.  So he cried out:: Unclean!  Unclean!  And as they had been taught, they froze in place, frantically looking around to see where the leper was.  But there was no one else there, just their Daddy.  And as they watched, he raised his hand to his lip and cried Unclean!  He could see it in their expressions, "How could this be?"  The confusion in his children's eyes and the pain and anguish he saw in his wife's eyes tormented him as he turned to leave.  His steps were slow and heavy as he headed for the exile of the leper colony.

 

    Life at the leper colony was different, although he was treated well.  Everyone there knew what it was like to be an outcact, to be cut off from your family and friends, to have people run away from you.  They all knew the overwhelming feeling of loneliness caused by their exile from family and friends.  They became family to one another, but it just wasn't the same.  Everyone had someone back home they missed terribly.

    With a suddenness that was still hard for him to grasp or understand, this man who had been so proud all his life was forced to beg for survival.  This man who worked hard to support his family, to provide for them, must now rely on the charity of others.  This man who had always observed all of the Jewish Law about cleanliness, well, now he stunk to high heaven.  He prayed long and hard for healing, or at least for an explanation of why this had happened to him.  He  longed to be able to return to his family.  He spent many hours day-dreaming about what it would be like to go back home, to be able to walk down the street with dignity again.

    Then one day a man he had known before his leprosy came to the edge of the leper camp and called out, "My friend, I have heard about this man called Jesus.  It's said that he's helped others just like yourself.  And he might be able to help you, too.  He's supposed to be going through the village just north of here in about two days time.  Won't you go and see if he can help you?"  Then his friend left.  That night at the campfire, the man talked to some of his comrades about this news.  They discussed and debated and bantered late into the night.  Finally the man said, "Let's go together.  It will be safer for all of us.  Besides, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

    The next day he and nine of his fellow lepers traveled to that nearby village.  Which brings us to the familiar part of this passage from Luke: "As Jesus was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him.  They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, 'Jesus, Master, have pity on us!'  When he saw them, he said, 'Go, show yourselves to the priests."

    And you had better believe that our man did just that.  He didn't stop and think about anything.  He just followed the instructions of Jesus, the Healer.  He raced down the road, burst into the back room of the Temple, and demanded to see a priest so he could be declared free of leprosy.  The priest who checked him was amazed at what he saw, or should we say at what he didn't see.

    But he was a new Leper Checker, so he decided to call on one of the more experienced Leper Checkers.  This man wanted to know what had happened and our man told him all about how he was healed by Jesus.  That probably wasn't a good idea.  Jesus wasn't very popular with the establishment, the preistly leadership.  So that Leper Checker decided to consult with a few more Leper Checkers.  Well, by that time there was so much commotion that the Head Leper Checker appeared, demanding to know what was going on.  Hearing the story, the Head Leper Checker decided that he would personally check this leper.  The only thing was the leper was now a former leper.  The priest found nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a scar.  The man was pronounced clean.  Not clean enough to go home, but clean enough to begin the ritual of cleansing mandated in the Book of Leviticus.

    First, two birds are brought in.  One is killed and the other kept alive.  Hyssop is dipped in the blood and sprinkled on the leper seven times.  Then the live bird is set free.  Then the man must take a bath, wash his clothes, shave his head, his beard, and his eyebrows.  Then he must sleep outside for seven days.  Then the ritual begins again.  This time lambs and oil are used, and again the man must bathe and shave.  This goes on for three weeks, until the man is declared clean and free of leprosy.

    The torment of waiting for the three weeks of cleansing to be over was hard, but now he can finally go home.  I can just see him now.  Running and dancing and skipping and praising God.  The sun shining off his clean shaven head, his tattered robe flapping in the breeze, and his voice crying out to all he passes: I'm clean!  I'm free!  Can't you just see him as he rounds the corner onto his street, his face a massive smile and tears flowing down his cheeks.  What a reunion that must have been.  This time he didn't stop his children when they flew into his arms.  He held them and kissed them and savored their familar feel and smell.  He then gently put them down and swept his wife into a bear hug and twirled her around in a little dance of celebration.  And as word spread around the village, the party grew and grew.

    The story of how he was healed was told and retold.  Then someone asked, "But how did you know where to go?  How did you know who to ask for?"  The man paused, looking through the crowd for one man.  Where was he?  Where was the one man who had dared to come  near the leper camp to tell him about Jesus?  Where was the man who had actually introduced him to Jesus?  Where was the man who had made such a difference in his life?  Eventually, he spotted him and his smile was accompanied with tears of joy.

 

    We don't have many lepers in this country, but we have a lot of people who like lepers are outcasts.  They don't have any true frineds, at least not Christian friends.  These are people who are too sick, too poor, too lazy, too old, out of work, out of luck.  You know, the people it's all too easy to ignore.  They're the people who feel unloved and unwanted, disconnected from their community and even their families.  Granted some of them put on a good front and are quick to assure you that they're just fine.  But there's hardly a day that goes by that's not plagued with uncertainty.  They ask themselves the same questions the leper asked: What's going to happen next?  How am I ever going to make it through another day?

    The man in our story needed the help of a friend to find Jesus.  Without the loving concern this friend displayed for his exiled neighbor, the man with leprosy may have ended up dying in the leper colony.  We need to show the same concern for those who don't knwo Jesus as their Savior.  We need to go out of our way, walk the extra mile, to reach the lost and dying world with the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ.

    I believe that Jesus can and will make a difference in people's lives, any person's life.  But someone has to tell them where to find Jesus.  Someone has to pray for them.  Someone has to invite them to church.  Someone has to be their friend.  Someone has to risk being told to go away and mind their own business.  Someone has to risk being laughed at and called a radical Christian.  But the good news is that it will only take one person.  Will you be that one person?

 

    Blessings & Peace,    Mike