The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity - September 25, 2011

The Church Season of Trinity
The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (September 25, 2011)

Readings: 
    Psalm 119:9-16
    Proverbs 4:10-23
    Galatians 5:16-24
    Luke 17:11-19

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
The text for today’s message is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 17th chapter of St. Luke, the following verses,

Luke 17:11-19 (ESV)

11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit

What a wonderful exposition of grace, salvation, mercy, and worship.  The Words of scripture are always enlightening and joyful to read, yet even what a greater joy when our ears, so often filled with self-righteous thoughts, hear how the scripture screams through our ears and shatters our inwardness by the densely packed words reflecting the mercy of our Lord.  Truth is, His mercy and grace is always there and is only by His Word do we hear of Jesus who sets us free from all that ails us.  The setting of this Gospel lesson from the beginning piles on the despair that is related to the challenges we face in life, the ones which we see no way to overcome.

While leprosy is not really a disease that we are familiar with in modern times, it is still a excellent metaphor for sin.  Sin, like leprosy, requires healing which can only come from outside you.  No one has ever cured themselves of leprosy just like no on can or ever will be able to cure themselves of sin.

And leprosy is a disease which cannot be ignored.  For if you ignore it, then it only gets worse.  Again, the same as sin, although you try to heal yourself, you give it the old college try, you cannot defeat sin by any action of your own.  But we say, What if I just don’t think about sin, maybe it will go away.  Maybe I won’t sin anymore or maybe if I do sin it really won’t be sin, because I know I’m not supposed to sin,  but God forgives right?  God will just wink and I’m good to go thank God He understands what I’m up against.

Well, God certainly understands sin, but He can’t stand sin. Sin is repulsive before God.  Nothing unclean is able to stand before Him and live.  But what can we do?  We’re going to die anyway wink, wink, nudge, nudge, God will understand the challenges of what I encounter.

As Jesus was walking along he encountered 10 lepers, He healed them all, but only one returned to give thanks and that one was a foreigner.  That one who returned was a Samaritan who was therefore was a foreigner, a non-Jew, a non-believer.  The word translated as “foreigner” here, ἀλλογενής, is only used once in the entirety of the New Testament and literally means “other born”.  It is this one Leper who is “other born”, a stranger, of another race, someone who in reality could not do what Jesus told him to do.  Because a non-Jew could not go to “the priests and show himself”(v. 14) And this truth is born out even further as we know the only other known recorded use of the word ἀλλογενής, other born in all of history was used on a sign at the temple in Jerusalem.  It was , “the famous Jerusalem Temple inscription μηδένα ἀλλογενῆ εἰσπορεύεσθαι;” which roughly stated,  “no one other born may go in or out.”  So this one Leper could not go to the Temple built by the hands of man to be healed, to be cleansed, to be verified as ritually clean.

But remember what this leper first said when he saw Jesus, “Jesus, Master have mercy on us.”(v. 13) And the words he used in Greek you know and have spoken here in church, for he said Eleison Me, remember, it.  Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy?  This is the exact scripture where those words come from which we repeat to this very day.  Eleison me, have mercy on me.  And so this foreigner receives that for which he prays, that is cleansing, healing, and the mercy he prayed for “Elieison me”.(v. 16)  And all these blessings are delivered by hearing the Word of the God from the Word God who is The Great High Priest, Jesus Christ.  For Christ is The One who was “other born.” who Himself “was made man” by the speaking of the Holy Spirit into the ear of a virgin.  And so it is only by the free gift of pure grace from the very lips of our Lord Jesus Christ that faith turns this “foreigner” around.  What does it mean to be turned around, well that is exactly the word for repentance, to be turned around.  And so he returned and came before the presence of the Lord.   He fell on his face at the feet of Jesus and then gave what?  He gave Eucharist, thanksgiving to Jesus Christ.  Thus, the One Jesus, who would “take away the sin of the world” gives access to the very Temple of God, to this leper who faced an incurable disease.  

It is indeed sad to note that most people who call themselves Christians only call upon the Lord when they need Him. And it is also indeed sad that once they receive what they ask, they never bother to thank Him. They never bother to show any sort of gratitude. They get their handout and keep on running.  But do not be deceived. God is not mocked. What will happen when God removes His gracious Hand from you if you believe that you can control His mercy? You will wither and die.

Repent. Believe once again what God's Word says about our Savior, Jesus Christ. Saint Paul tells Saint Timothy: This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. You can't argue with Saint Paul, he was a filthy, rotten sinner, just like you and just like me.

However, the Gospel, that is the Good News is that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Jesus did not come into the world to save grateful sinners, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” Jesus suffered pain and scorn from the same people He came to save from their sin. Jesus could have removed His gracious Hand from His beloved children. He could have paid for the sin of Gentiles only, or Jews only. Nevertheless, Jesus suffered unbelief and ingratitude, just as He does today. Jesus suffers unbelief and ingratitude, but does not cease to offer His deliverance from the distress of sin.

Jesus laments that only one out of the ten lepers returned to give Him honor and praise. Luke adds, and He was a Samaritan. It's amazing how often the Samaritans upstage the Jews in the Gospels. Two weeks in a row the Holy Gospel has a Samaritan doing something he shouldn't. Jesus tells the Samaritan, Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.

What is the way he should go? He goes in the way of the Lord, the Way the Truth and the Life.  He goes walking with Jesus to the new Jerusalem for the Temple is no longer a guilding but the body of Christ for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Jesus takes the Samaritan's greatest infirmity, his sin, and puts sin on His own back, walks to Golgotha, and dies for it. Jesus does the same with your sin, too. Jesus takes your infirmities and diseases, that which scares you, that which ails you, and especially the infirmity of your unbelief and the disease of your ingratitude, and Jesus dies for all that on the cross. By Jesus Christ you are healed, you are forgiven.

You are made well not by your own actions but by the absolution of your sin.  And so you journey with Jesus through this life, washed clean in Baptism, fed with His True Body and Blood in the Holy Supper of our Lord, he Eucharistic blessing.  And you are pronounced clean from the leprosy of sin in Absolution, dying in His Name in order to rise from the dead when He calls you forth on the Last Day. In the meantime, Jesus' healing Word powered by the Holy Spirit speaks through you when you show gratitude to your neighbor to Eleison them, to have Mercy on them. This gratitude shown to your neighbor is a fruit of faith. It shows that the healing medicine of Christ is at work in you.  His medicine given in the Word and Sacraments.

The Lord Jesus Christ keeps His Church in His perpetual mercy. He takes away your infirmities and makes you whole. You are no longer are you a leper, an outcast, an other born of sin. You are part of the family of God. You are clean. Your faith, a gift from a loving and gracious God, not something you earned on your own, has saved you. An eternal gift from the Jesus the One has been bestowed upon you by Him who died and was resurrected from the dead, for all who would believe in Him. Jesus speaks to you, Be not incurable anymore, “Rise and go your way, your faith has made you well.”(v. 19) Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
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