Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

The Tenth Leper - November 25, 2007

The Tenth Leper

Luke 17

November 25, 2007

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

We began our worship this morning the way we begin it every Sunday morning.  One of the cantors from the choir sings, "In peace, let us pray to the Lord."  And the rest of us respond, "Lord, have mercy."

The cantor continues, "For the peace from above, and for our salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord."  And again we answer, "Lord, have mercy."

The cantor then sings, "For the peace of the whole world, for the well-being of the Church of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord."  "Lord, have mercy."

And as Jesus made His way southward toward Jerusalem, He was met by ten lepers who called out to Him, "Lord, have mercy."

Of course, you know where that story goes since we read it as the Bible Focus at the very beginning of the service.  Ten lepers beg Jesus for mercy, all ten lepers receive His mercy, but only one returns to give thanks to God.  Ten percent return. 

Every time we participate in worship, we call out the same thing to Jesus at least five different times.  If the incident in the Bible is any indication, I am tempted to wonder where things go from there for US.

All of us cry out to Jesus, "Lord, have mercy."  Correction:  many of us SING, "Lord, have mercy."  But standing up here with my lousy eyesight, even I can tell that not everybody even sings it.

My guess is that even fewer of us actually cry out to Jesus, "Lord, have mercy."  I am ashamed to admit before you, my brothers and sisters, that too often - and, yes, maybe even MOST of the time, I myself do not even think about what I am saying as I just sing my part on cue with the rest of you.

This I DO know:  when ten lepers said those words, my guess is that ALL of them meant it.  Even though we typically look down on nine of them, they at least got out of the gate by MEANING what they said.  They really DID cry out, "Lord, have mercy!"  Would that we ourselves knew our true condition and our only hope for salvation like they did.

Some people might say that these guys were not really doing anything all that remarkable since they were probably so desperate that they would have tried anything and anybody:  after all, what did they have to loose by asking?

Well guess what?  Genuine faith is often borne out of desperation - like with that one thief dying on the cross beside Jesus, who asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom.  In fact, I am convinced that this is one of the most common reasons why God so often allows us to crash and burn, even when we DO call out to Him - to allow our desperation to drive us to Him.

Now, being that Jesus was who He was, do you think He might have already known that most of those guys would fail to return thanks?  And yet He DID grant mercy and healing to every single last one of them.  Just the way He offered His body and blood to Judas Iscariot whom He already knew would betray Him minutes later.  Just the way He grants mercy to each and every single one of us even when we cluelessly mouth the words without meaning, "Lord, have mercy."

So Jesus heals every single one of the ten lepers.  And even the nine out of ten who failed to return thanks, even then showed faith.  You know how I know?  Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests.  But in those days, you only showed yourself to the priest AFTER you already knew you were healed.  The reason you showed yourself to the priest was so that the priest could certify you are cured:  he was the only one who was authorized to certify you.

But here is what testifies to their faith in Jesus:  they started on their way to the priests BEFORE they were healed!  They were healed by Jesus along the way!  All ten of the lepers were showing that they had faith in Jesus' healing even BEFORE they saw any evidence OF it!  Again:  score one for the lepers!

So, even though we hold up nine of them as bad examples, the fact is that they were indeed showing more faith than most of us:  they KNEW their true condition, their helplessness, they knew to go to Jesus, they were desperately sincere when they cried out, "Lord, have mercy!" and they had faith in Jesus; mercy even before they saw any sign of it!  Again, I wish that much could be said of 100% of US.

But even with that much faith in Jesus, nine out of ten of them ran off without even giving thanks.  After all, who would imagine that the King of the Universe would even care, much less notice whether or not you gave thinks?  I seriously wonder if those nine lepers had any idea how personally Jesus really did care about them.

When they failed to return, Jesus did notice and it did matter to Him - not that it got them in trouble, but that it seemed to answer Jesus' mercy by saying, "Nothing personal."  The fact is that God sent His only Son to BE personal with us, so close to us that He was called "Emmanuel', God WITH Us, so much so that Jesus is the only One who has ever given HIS life to save my own.

Anyone who dies saving my life is not somebody I had better thank, but someone I cannot help but thank, every day of my life, every way that I can think of, living my life in a way that honors His sacrifice.  THAT is why I want to be the Tenth Leper, and why we do this thing called "worship".  Thank You Father, thank You Jesus, thank You Holy Spirit.