Sheringham: St Peter

What I love about the story of the healing of the ten lepers is that it feels almost accidental. We are told that Jesus is ‘on the way to Jerusalem’. He is on the way to the capital, to the place where his life will end and where ours begins. This miracle occurs en route. I wonder how often we have waited to get there, wherever there is, to get to our planned destination, and to have missed the signs and wonders of God on the journey itself. There is always the offer of ‘healing on the way’ because Jesus is always there, right by our side.

There is a sense in this story that we are witnessing something rather audacious. The lepers were not meant to speak to Jesus. As outsiders in society because of their illness, they had to keep their distance. This distance also represents their society’s view of their spiritual state, which conflated illness with sin, and which ensured that people suffering in body or mind were often permanently excluded. However, Jesus the great interrupter, breaks up this narrative of exclusion. As Pastor Chelsey Harmon reminds us:

‘So here’s this man who has multiple reasons to be at a distance. He is a Samaritan, a foreigner. He is a leper who must announce his suffering to others whenever they come close - otherwise as Leviticus states, they run the risk of becoming unclean. Even after he is healed of his leprosy, he will still be at a distance. Except, that is, when it comes to Christ.’

Jesus does things differently. There must have been hope when the man called out to Jesus, that something would happen, that something would change. Healing was on the way because Jesus heard the leper’s voice. Jesus saw him, saw his physical suffering and the mental anguish of the separation from home, friends and community, and Jesus responded.

Jesus heals ten lepers, but only one returns to say ‘thank you’. Chelsey Harmon highlights Jesus’ question: ‘The questions that Jesus asks in verses 17 and 18 are rhetorical (based on the Greek grammar). The middle question in particular is quite powerful: Jesus literally says, ‘But the nine, where?’ It would seem seem that the other nine have forgotten the journey and focused on arrival and the destination. They have forgotten where they were, who had seen past their physical and mental isolation, and who had brought them back to life. The gaze is now firmly fixed on what is ahead. It may be easy to judge them, but which one of us would want to go back to that place of entrapment, pain and darkness, when we have been lifted from those surroundings? Whatever made them not turn back can be easily seen in each one of us. The wonderful thing is that we can see that, while we may forget, Jesus does not forget us. Healing on the way is made manifest because Jesus continues to call the lepers into his presence. Jesus is still asking where the others are, not because he needs their expression of thanks but because he wants to see them again in this new stage of their life.

The voice that cries out for help and healing becomes the voice that loudly praises God. With healing on the way, the change is seen and heard by many around us. While the healing we seek may not be the healing we find in life, we see that Jesus is attentive to the needs of the lepers and they are set on a new path. And therein lies the rub. We can follow Jesus and then stop and go in the other direction. We can hear Jesus’ words and then pretend that there was no movement in our minds or the depths of our hearts. We can even feel the transformative force of the love of God in our lives and still refuse to acknowledge the source. The fact that once was, can be totally changed by God in the illuminative and disruptive person that is Jesus Christ and this fact should make us yield our position. Healing on the way moves us from standing where we were to bowing down to worship our divine Creator, as our cry of despair becomes a cry of joy. To have healing on the way, which is a permanent option with Jesus, allows us to see God and ourselves anew. Praise God. Amen.

With every blessing,

Christian

Sheringham: St Peter

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