Ten is a number of completeness. Ten lepers approached Jesus. They kept their distance. That was the rule for lepers. They were unclean, and therefore considered separated from God and society. In our gospel (Luke 17:11-19), the lepers were all cleansed by Jesus. However, only one of the lepers returns and in thanksgiving, prostrates himself at Jesus' feet.
Andre Prior writes that true completeness or wholeness comes from recognizing God's presence in Jesus. The Samaritan returned and praised God, but also recognized God’s working through Jesus, as the reason for Jesus declaring the man’s “wholeness.”
In a very real sense, true worship comes about when we recognize the active presence of God in our midst. In keeping with Jesus’ “radical” penchant for keeping us off balance and not following expected patterns, this story is deliberately subversive. Lepers were not very respectable, and Samaritans were despised by many if not all Jews of the day. Lepers were unclean, feared and anyone having anything to do with them would be considered as cut off from God in the eyes in Jewish law.
In some ways we can see a continuum in Luke’s theme as this story may be is reminiscent of past gospels and our recent discussions of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son (Luke 15). In a sense, the Samaritan leper is akin to the lost sheep and is incomplete and lost without the other ten. And in some way the Samaritan leper in Jesus’ time may be considered a metaphor for the Muslim of our time. How much does our despising or fearing others prevent us from being made whole, or even being saved?
In this light, this story serves as an invitation to believers -- then and now -- to recognize that what we see makes all the difference. Do we see danger or opportunity in the face of adversity? In the face of the stranger, do we see a potential enemy or friend? And it goes further. When we look to God, do we see stern judge or loving parent? When we look to ourselves, do we see failure or beloved child? When we look to the future, do we see fearful uncertainty or an open horizon? There is, of course, no right answer to any of these questions. How we answer depends upon what we see. Yet how we answer dramatically shapes both our outlook and our behavior.
Worship is not simply about hearing God's story or even praising God in response; rather, hearing and discussing the story helps us see God at work in our lives and the world. This is the key to the Christian life as we are called simply to see...and to help others do the same.
At the outset of this story, ten men are live "between regions" in a "no-man's" land of being socially, religiously, and physically unclean. By the end of the story, all ten are made well. But one has seen Jesus, recognized his blessing and rejoiced in it, and changed his course of action and behavior. And because he sees what has happened, the leper is not just healed, but is made whole, restored, drawn back into relationship with God and humanity. In all these ways he has been, if we must choose a single word, saved.What is true stewardship, worship, and Christian living? It is the tenth leper turning back. For now as then, seeing makes all the difference.
Adapted from Andrew Prior and David Lose, The Text This Week, Luke 17:11-19, 2013
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