Foreigners...! (2)

¹¹ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:11-19

We saw last time how Jesus responded to the ten lepers whom he “cleansed” of their disease, and how disappointed he was that only one of them turned to give him thanks - and “he was a Samaritan”, not a member of the chosen people of Israel. We drew the obvious point: Jesus is for anybody and everybody who humbly cries out to him. And we also felt (I hope) the sharpness of the challenge: that we should cleanse our hearts of any hint of prejudice or hatred (easier said than done, I think, if we are ruthlessly honest with ourselves).

But there was more also to think about…

First, the importance of gratitude.

This is what the tenth man demonstrated in an extravagant way. “Praising God in a loud voice”, he “threw himself at Jesus’ feet…” And this is what gave Jesus such pleasure to see, even though the person in question was a mere “foreigner”.

Somebody scored a goal for my team the other day, his first ever for the club. He launched himself into a succession of mid-air cartwheels (and could have ended up with a broken neck, I thought). But you couldn’t help smiling as you watched.

Well, our childlike trust in God will not necessarily take that form, but even it doesn’t, it can and should form the inner essence of our very personalities: not carping or grumbling or complaining, but quietly content with the lot he has given us. Here is a prayer of the poet George Herbert (1593-1633): “Thou hast given so much to me… Give me one thing more – a grateful heart”. May God hear our loud ”Amens”.

An old children’s song went: “Count your blessings,/ Name them one by one./ Count your blessings,/ See what God has done./ Count your blessings,/ Name them one by one./ And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” (There is no law forbidding adults from singing children’s songs, so feel free…)

Being always thankful may sometimes seem to be asking too much, and I certainly don’t mean to make light of the really bad times when we feel close to despair. But by God’s grace hopefully we can shape our personalities over time into a basically positive mould.

A second issue raised by this story is the age-old puzzle of healing.

These ten men were “cleansed” of their leprosy pretty well immediately, such was their implicit confidence in Jesus’ command to “go and show yourselves to the priests”. Strictly, they don’t in fact ask for healing, just that he will “have pity on us”. And he doesn’t tell them he will; it just happens in their act of faith and obedience: it was “as they went” that they were cleansed.

Which leaves us wondering, “Why is healing such a rare event in most of our lives? Have we got the method wrong? Or would just a small  increase in faith make a difference? No. And no again. There is no “correct” method, and there is no “required” level of faith. Jesus tells us that faith as tiny as a mustard-seed can move mountains; but he also chastises his disciples for their lack of it.

Every healing is unique. In the Bible itself it comes in different forms; we seem to be told that if we have faith it will happen (no ifs, no buts: for example James 5:15-16), but we also know the plain reality of our experience – and there are verses like 2 Timothy 4:20, about Paul’s colleague Trophimus, who was “left ill in Miletus”. (We feel like asking, “Er, why, Paul?”)

One thing we can say with certainty is that the New Testament never tells us that the gift of healing, and miracle-working in general, is withdrawn completely from the church. This means that we should have no qualms about crying out to God for his healing grace if it’s in our hearts to do so. We may feel it right to accompany such prayer with the laying on of hands or anointing with oil or the use of tongues – but as I said earlier, there is no fixed method or magic formula.

Over my time as a Christian and as a pastor I have got involved in many long and sometimes heated discussions about miracles, including healing. But I have concluded that it is too serious and, often, too emotional, a topic to be reduced to the level of arid intellectual debate. It touches us at a deep and personal level. So – dare I put it this way? – why not give it a try if the circumstances call for it? No, there is no guarantee (whatever some Christians may say). But there is always hope. We never know what God might see fit to do; and is he not our loving Father in heaven?

Father, please help me to develop a personality moulded by gratitude for every good gift I have received from your hand; and also the faith to believe in your power to heal. Amen.