Surprise!

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 9, 2022

23 Proper C 

          One Sunday last summer, I worshipped at a small Episcopal church up near Lake Erie.  The service was a typical Episcopal service, and when it was time for the second reading, I noticed that a woman was listed as the lector.  However, a young man stood up instead.  Rather than go directly to the lectern, the young man went up the center aisle, stopped near the front and took an elderly woman by the arm.  He led her up the steps to the lectern and waited.  The women read in as strong and clear a voice as I have ever heard.  When she finished, the young man gently escorted her down the stairs and to her seat.  I am sure there was nothing remarkable about this to the congregation.  This is just the way they roll.  But for me, as a visitor, an outsider, I experienced a profound moment of God’s abundant grace, tender and yet strong, and one that still gives me goosebumps.  For a moment, the woman was healed of her old age and able to use her God given gift just as she had for what I suspect was many decades.  The smile on her face spoke volumes and my heart was filled with gratitude for her and for this congregation.  I expected a routine Sunday morning service. Instead, I had an experience that I am still talking about months later.

          This morning, we see 10 people with leprosy approach Jesus while still keeping their distance.  We hear them call out “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  What are they asking of Jesus? Do they need something to eat?  A place where they can stay despite their leprosy?  Or do they recognize Jesus as someone who can heal them?  Their request is for mercy, which could mean a lot of things.  In response, Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests.  And as they went, they were made clean.

          Only one, when he realizes that he has been made clean, turns back to praise God and thank Jesus.  The person was a Samaritan, an outsider, considered by some at the time to be enemies of the Jewish people.  Jesus says to the Samaritan “Were not ten made clean?  But the other nine? Where are they?”  Well, they are exactly where Jesus told them to be.  They have gone to show themselves to the priests as Jesus commanded.  Jesus seems unfairly critical of the nine.  But to the 10^th, he says “Get up and go on your way.  Your faith has made you well.”

          What are we to make of Jesus this morning?  Is this a reminder to write our thank you notes?  If so, one would think there would be some consequence for the 9 who did not return to give God thanks, and to our knowledge there is no such consequence.  Is the lesson that somehow gratitude and faith are intertwined, and the 10th man’s faith has made him well as Jesus seems to say.  I do believe that gratitude and faith are intertwined, but all 10 of the people with leprosy were healed so the linking of faith and gratitude does not seem to be necessary for healing.

          What the 10^th person realized, that perhaps the other 9 did not, was the unanticipated magnitude of what God had just done in his life.  As a Samaritan, he might not have expected such generosity on God’s part.  His response to God’s unlikely action is to praise God with a loud voice and fall to the ground in gratitude.  In that gratitude, we see a pure expression of faith, which Jesus commends.  The other 9 turned to go show themselves to the priests before they were even healed.  They were not without faith.  But in the Samaritan, faith finds expression in gratitude for God’s action in his life.

          We hear a similar story in 2 Kings this morning. Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram so not an Israelite, also has leprosy.  Elisha sends a messenger to tell Naaman to go and wash in the Jordan seven times and he shall be healed.  Naaman responds in anger, expecting a much more dramatic healing.  But eventually Naaman is convinced to go to the Jordan and once he had washed 7 times, he was healed.  Naaman’s healing led him to say “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel."  Again, God’s healing power is demonstrated in the least likely person, someone outside the fold of God’s chosen people. Naaman responds in faith and we can hear the gratitude in his voice.

          This morning we will baptize Banks Reed, known in our family as Baby Banks.  In baptism, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  After Banks has been baptized with water and sealed by the Holy Spirit, we will ask God to “Give him an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.”  Jesus calls us to have an inquiring and discerning heart to see where God is at work, which will sometimes be in the least likely places, to have courage and perseverance to keep watching and believing that God will act even when God seems rather absent, and to allow ourselves to be filled with joy and gratitude in all that God does.  Both the Samaritan and Naaman turn out to be unlikely but powerful models for how we are to follow Jesus. 

                                                                                      Amen.