Where hope meets generosity
Proper 23C | Luke 17:11-19
Have you ever noticed that writers only tell you where a scene takes place if it’s important to the story? Of course, some flower up their prose with extraneous details about what the characters are wearing, or in the case of Moby Dick, pages and pages of knot-tying.
But for the most part, the setting is usually up to the reader’s imagination. Outside, by the lake, is probably enough for most of us to conjure a rough sketch in our minds. My lake is certainly a different lake from yours, but I have doubt that the action the writer wants me to visualize requires Global Positioning.
Now, this story has a location: the borderlands. And borderlands have a particular character to them. Some of which is obvious.
We’re used to an uncanny precision with our borders. And we put up particular border crossings. Sometimes they are patrolled and enforced. This, we ought to acknowledge, is a brand new idea in human history. A 20th Century invention and expectation.
It’s almost too hard to imagine that people just arrived on a boat at Ellis Island. Somebody wrote down a name and waved them through. And that this pattern existed for longer in American history than we’ve had laws restricting immigration.
Borders are thin places.
Maybe I’m stretching it a little, but think about it. In the Celtic Tradition, they speak of thin places where the space between our world and the divine beyond is thinner. Like a fabric that becomes more translucent.
Spending several years frequently crossing the U.S./Canada border, then living along it a decade after 9/11 reminds me just how different that space is from right here. The border is always present in the borderlands. Different worlds on either side.
These borderlands, between Samaria and Galilee, are much less precise than ours. It’s kind of a fuzzy space to be in. For some, the phrase from the Great War may seem apt: a kind of no man’s land that isn’t yours or mine, but also, not at all where anyone wants to get stuck in.
Which is exactly what happens.
Much like nobody wants the county dump in their backyard, nothing we want close to us stays in our community. We shove it out of sight and out of mind. Quite literally intending to make it someone else’s problem.
If the wind usually blows east, you put your waste on your neighbor’s to the east so you don’t have to smell it. And since we’re probably to someone else’s east, we then come to the bright conclusion that maybe we work together and offer the lovely aroma to somebody else entirely.
So we send it to the borderlands and call it someone else’s problem.
Like the Olympics are coming to town: We’ve got to pretend the homeless don’t exist! Put ‘em on a bus and send ‘em somewhere else!
Jesus knows where they are
There is a zero percent chance that Jesus is surprised to meet these ten people with leprosy. That is who lives there. People don’t stay in the borderlands on purpose. You are forced there. When you are someone else’s waste.
Nor is he likely to be surprised that they come to him for healing. People on the margins figure out who can help them and who cannot.
And I think we might still be tempted to think this is a pretty good setting for a healing story. Or to be satisfied with the idea that Jesus is hanging out in this marginal place to meet these people.
But all of it really comes together when we discover, in the end, who turns around. Who comes back to Jesus. A real-life Good Samaritan, healed by the one Jewish rabbi who stopped to heal him on a borderland road.
The action sets a slightly different tone.
And I find it a bit beguiling. Because we are so prone to see it slant.
Here’s how we might hear the sequence:
Ten people come to Jesus to be healed.
He heals them and sends them on their way.
One turns back and thanks Jesus.
Jesus points out that only one of the ten is thoughtful enough to thank him!
Then he says the familiar line about faith making him well.
If that’s what you heard, and I’m guilty of hearing it that way, we’re wrong. That is not what happens.
The actual sequence:
Ten people come to Jesus to be healed.
He sends them to the priests for purification.
As they go, they become “clean”.
One of them notices and comes back to Jesus to thank him.
And so on.
A few things jump out at me about this sequence.
- Jesus tells them to go find the priests. He doesn’t say come back here first. So they are literally doing what they were told.
- The healing takes place on the road, after they’ve left. The ten would have to notice that they were made clean. How many of us go all day before we notice what we’re wearing? Or whether we have put on deodorant? Seriously.
- How easily I assume Jesus would be miffed over a lack of a thank you. That is a soundtrack in my head that has nothing to do with this story, really. But it so easily clicks into place. Isn’t it absurd to think that Jesus would be mad about that here?
- Jesus is noting how special this one person is.
One last bit of context.
This passage comes to us immediately after the apostles ask for more faith. And Jesus gives them two ideas to help them shift their perspective from maximal to minimal. The first is the mustard seed. And the second is a teaching about doing what is asked of you and expecting a reward.
Jesus ties two concepts around action and reward together:
- Doing things because you’re supposed to, not because you’ll benefit in the here and now.
- God loves inventiveness. So God loves everyone and loves when we do what we’re supposed to do. But God loves to be surprised with something new, too.
Who doesn’t love when somebody shows up with a gift? God’s no different! [Where do you think we got that from?]
This good Samaritan embodies that with Jesus. He notices that he is healed, shows up, and gives thanks. It wasn’t necessary. In fact, it was risky! He’s disobeying a command! Just to say thank you and praise God!
And most importantly, he was “well” before he even turned around.
Opportunity and Noticing
The more I read this passage, the more enticing it becomes. And the more I’m convinced that this is all about opportunity and noticing. How we’re invited to refrain from condemnation. And how challenging that is when we are so used to making that the story.
Be honest. How many of us read that gospel and thought: this is about learning to do the right thing which is to thank Jesus?
Did you even notice that the one man thanks Jesus and Jesus turns that into praising God? So, in a sense, none of them did it right? If it’s about keeping score and enforcing the unspoken rules, then they all failed! But it’s clearly not.
Instead, the one who notices he’s changed is the one who turns around.
I don’t think Jesus is mad that the rest didn’t come back. I suspect it is quite the opposite. He assumed none would notice and none would come back. But the one who did is a Samaritan. And he gave thanks.
He also need not see a priest. Or remain in the borderlands. He can go home, if he wants. See the world, if that were better. Make friends, live life. He can do that now.
It makes me wonder how much we fail to notice.
Not with an eye of necessity and condemnation. But of opportunity and love. Notice about ourselves and what God is doing in our lives.
Where is God transforming us in our lives? Where is the hope, spontaneity, and generosity? Do we give ourselves the chance to really live?
And this is a kind of Borderland. Between a university and downtown. A sacred space between two worlds in tension. A place for weirdos, misfits, and castoffs; for people who don’t have a place.
It is also, in Jesus, a space for communing and healing; finding hope and support; learning and loving. Being a disciple, apostle, and saint. And everything in-between.