H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian Church
18 March 2007
THE TENTH LEPER
Luke 17:11-19
I don’t think you can understand what it’s like. You’ve never been a leper, but I was. I know how it feels to
lose everything. I remember the day the priest pronounced me unclean. My wife turned away with tears in her
eyes. She went back to the home that I could never enter again. In her arms was my baby girl, the daughter I
would never again hold to my cheek for slobbery kisses. My own parents locked their door to me. I couldn’t go
back to my stall in the market place where I sold figs and dates. I was unclean, unfit for human company.
Unclean. In the time it takes to speak that word, I lost my family, my home, my job. I wasn’t even allowed in
the house of worship to plead with God, to beg God to give me back my life.
I found a place among my own kind, a little camp on the outskirts of town where the lepers congregate,
sort of a human garbage dump, a place without laughter or hope, a place where despair hangs in the air like
smoke. You breathe it in day after day, and it permeates your filthy rags and your rotting skin. We had a name
for our little leper haven. We called it Gehenna. In your language that means Hell.
We eked out a living—no, not a living—we eked out a surviving. We’d go out to the highway, sometimes
into town, and we’d beg. Most people would throw us coins just to keep us at a distance. Of course,
sometimes they’d throw rocks, instead. Not that the rocks hurt much, not nearly as much as the look of
disgust and fear on their smooth, healthy faces.
One day word reached the camp that a healer was passing through our territory. These reports of miracle-
workers came along now and then and got everybody buzzing. It’s not as if we really believed it, but it gave us
the opportunity to pretend that there was hope.
A few of us went out to the highway, where the road branches off toward the town. There were ten of us.
Old Gehazi the weeper. Eight-finger Ezra. Nathan from over at Migdol, just a kid. Ten of us, lined up a few
yards from the road. If you come too close, you get in trouble.
Late in the morning a little cluster of people came up the road. One guy talking and all the rest listening
and nodding. You could tell this guy was somebody special, at least his buddies thought so.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Jesus,” somebody said. “Jesus of Nazareth.”
So we went into our routine, all of waving our arms and yelling. “Jesus, have mercy on us! Lord, help us!
Please, help!”
And then things got strange.
Jesus looked at us—made eye contact, mind you—and then he walked over to us. We started to back
away, that’s the Law, but he beckoned for us to come closer. We gathered around him and he looked us over,
one by one, just as if we were people. He even touched me on the shoulder.
Then he spoke to us.
“Go show yourselves to the priest.”
That’s all. No magic words or potions or mumbo-jumbo.
Just, “Go see the priest.”
Which was kind of crazy, but we went. And half-way there, one of us began to scream. I think it was young
Nathan. Yeah, it was Nathan. He was rubbing the skin on his arm and he was screaming. And then he was
laughing. And then he was crying. Because the leprosy was gone. He was well.
We were all well. Everyone one of us.
We all went a little crazy, and after some dancing and back-slapping we flew off in different directions.
Some went on to the priest right then to get pronounced officially clean.
Some sprinted off to find their families. I think maybe somebody even carried the news back to Hell.
But I turned around. I wanted to see my wife and my little girl, but first I went back to Jesus. He looked
surprised and maybe a little sad that out of ten healed lepers, only one came back to say thank you. Then he
said to me, “Your faith has made you well.”
I’m the only one to whom he spoke those words. I mean, the other nine got well, too, but I’m the only one
Jesus said was whole. It makes we wonder. Maybe we aren’t all the way well until we say thank you. Maybe
there’s something missing from our wholeness if we don’t appreciate what we’ve received. I don’t know. I just
wonder about it sometimes.
Anyway, that was a few months ago. I’m back with my family, everything is wonderful. Now that I’ve had
some time to think, I’m going to try to find Jesus and see if he needs anything.
Maybe he needs some money. I’ve got a little, and he can have it. I mean, what’s money compared to what
he gave me? Maybe he needs a pair of strong hands. Or somebody to carry gear while he’s on the road. Or
anything, anything at all. Anything I can, I’ll do.
You’re looking at me like I’m some kind of fanatic or something. It’s just that I owe Jesus so much; I could
spend the rest of my life saying thank you and it would only be a drop in the bucket.
He saved me. He brought me out of Hell. I was broken and he made me whole, alone and he touched
me, unclean and he gave me a new start. He gave me back all the things I once took for granted. He gave me
back my life.
You can’t really know what I’m talking about unless you’ve been there, but try. Try to put yourself in my
place.
If Jesus had saved you—just if!—if Jesus had saved you, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to say
thank you?
If Jesus had given new life to you, wouldn’t you offer that life to him, wouldn’t you hold it out with both
hands, and say, “Here, Lord, use it anyway you need, anyway you want”?
If Jesus loved you even when you weren’t worth loving, if Jesus had brought you out of Hell and made you
whole, wouldn’t you spend the rest of your life saying thank you, not because you had to but because you
wanted to?
If Jesus were your Savior, wouldn’t you lay it all on the line for him—to the last ounce of your strength, the
last dollar in your pocket, the last breath in your body? If Jesus were your Savior, is there anything in the world
you could hold back from him?
I don’t know if this makes any sense to you. And I don’t know about the other nine lepers that Jesus
saved. I can’t speak for them. But I can speak for me, and I’m going to find a way to say thank you to Jesus,
not just with words but with my life—with heart and hands and voice.
What else can I do?
Anything less and I’d be less—less than whole.
Soli Deo Gloria!