Luke 17:11–19

20th Sunday after Pentecost

¹¹On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee.

¹²And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance

¹³and lifted up their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us."

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

¹⁵Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice;

¹⁶and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷Then Jesus answered, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?

¹⁸Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"

¹⁹And he said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well."

Ten men. They were ten men cut off from society, cut off from their families, from their friends. Left outside the city gates to suffer and to die a slow, agonizing death all alone. With no one to love them, no one to care about them, no one to even feel sorry for them. They were cursed by their illness; an ugly, hated, feared illness that literally cut them off from society and other people.

Like those suffering from leprosy, we too are afflicted with great sorrow and despair. Often the burdens of this life are too great to bear. We are left alone to suffer and no one cares; left alone to die and it no one even notices.

The Augsburg Confession describes original sin as an inborn sickness. It truly condemns to eternal wrath all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. That sin with which we are born, literally cuts us off from God and we are left outside the city gates alone to die, as the lepers we left outside the gates. That sin condemns to eternal wrath all who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. Like the sickness of leprosy, sin cuts us off from the land of the living. We are cut of from our family, the church. We are cut off from God and from his people. Sin separates us from God and it separates us from each other. Our burdens, our sorrows, our illness and disease are all part of the curse which God pronounced on Adam and Eve because of their sin,

Then one day, as Jesus was nearing their village, the ten lepers saw him and they worshipped God. Yes, they came to church that day and worshiped God. They knew that God was not to be worshiped in temples or synagogues, not in buildings built with the hands of men, but wherever his Son, Jesus Christ, is that is where God is worshipped. The church is where Jesus is present in word and sacrament. So they came to church that day and worshiped God.

They ran toward Jesus shouting, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! Have mercy on us!” There is no greater worship than to seek and receive his mercy. These men were helpless. They had no hope of becoming well again and living a normal life with their family except by the mercy of some physician who could heal their disease. And they called him Master, because they knew that he alone had power over sickness, over the forces of nature and over sin. This was God who had entered in the world to demolish sin and end the curse of death.

They had no money to offer him. They could only beg for mercy. And that is the true worship of God; to beg for his mercy because we have nothing we can pay him in exchange. Worship of God means admitting our sin and our helplessness. It means that we come as sick people before God seeking the remedy that he gives free and without charge. We come begging for mercy from the Great Physician who not only heals our diseases but heals our sinful heart. He makes us whole and restores us to health by his mercy; freely, and without charge. He bears our burdens and calls to all who are weary and heavy laden to come! He calls all who thirst and hunger for righteousness to come and drink of his righteousness without money and without charge. He calls us to lay down our burdens and our sorrows and our doubts and uncertainties at the foot of his cross so that he can bear them for us.

And bear them he did! By becoming a man he took upon himself all our infirmities and burdens and griefs and sorrows. By taking to himself the nature of man he took our sin upon his shoulders and bore our sin. He became sin for us! “He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” He exchanged his holiness for our sin so that he might be counted sinful and we be counted righteous and holy. He redeemed us from the curse of sin; that curse which gives us all the suffering, sorrow, pain, loneliness, and uncertainty by becoming “a curse for us, as it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’”

And because of our sin which he bore, he was cut off from the land of the living, just like the 10 lepers were cut off from society. He was rejected by his own family. His brothers and sisters considered him mad. He was denied by his own beloved apostle, betrayed by another and abandoned by them all. At the moment of his greatest agony and suffering his own Father in heaven forsook him on the cross and left him alone to die. Just as lepers who die all alone, forsaken, forgotten and unnoticed, so Jesus died all alone on that cross, with no one to help him, no one to have mercy on him, no one to come to his rescue.

He did so on purpose, in order to redeem back those who are cut off from God by their sin. He did it to purchase for his Father men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He poured out his blood on the cross for the whole world, and in Baptism and Holy Communion he pours it into us, much like a physician might take the blood from a willing donor and transfuse it into a sick person in order to make him well. So Jesus poured out his blood on the cross in order to pour it into us and make us well, not just physically, but to cure us from sin and death.

And the true worship of God is to receive his healing grace poured out on us through his Word and Sacrament today. The 10 lepers begged for mercy, and Jesus merely commanded them to go to the priests. (Let’s stop for one moment here. Why were they to go to the priest? Because one of the jobs of the priest in Jewish was society to examine a person and diagnose leprosy, and then if he were cured, it was the priest who was to examine him and declare him healed, much like God who by his law pronounces us sinners and by his mercy in Jesus Christ declares us righteous.) So Jesus sent them to the priests.

And they obeyed his word by faith. They still had leprosy, but on account of faith they headed toward the temple. That is true worship; receiving God’s gifts by faith. We worship God by coming to him needy and poor, with our illness and sin, and receiving his free gifts by faith.

Jesus commanded them to go to the priest, and on the way they were healed of their leprosy. By the word and command of Jesus they were washed of their disease and were cleansed. By the word and command of Jesus today we are cleansed of our sin, that terrible disease that infests our heart. By the Word of Jesus which we receive in the liturgy of word and sacrament we are made well; we are cleansed of our sin. By the command of God in the absolution, our sins are forgiven, and by the word read and preached we are made well. The true worship of God is to receive his healing in Word and Sacrament. The word we proclaim is: YOUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN! YOU ARE HEALED FROM THE DISEASE OF SIN!

That true worship of God takes place where Jesus is present in word and sacrament. That is why one of the lepers came back. As far as we know he never did get to the temple to see the priest. He knew that the true worship of God does not take place in buildings, but in the presence of Jesus Christ. So he returned to Jesus. And today Jesus is present here, wherever his word is proclaimed and his sacraments administered.

That one leper came back to thank and praise Jesus for his gift of mercy. Our response to his gifts, his grace, his forgiveness, is to give him praise and thanksgiving. We praise him in our hymns and liturgies of praise. We thank him by bringing our offerings to him. We respond in faith by praying to him. And we glorify him by confessing the great things he has done for us in the creeds and hymns of the church.

But why only one? Because the others, like so many today, come to church only to find a better life in this world. They come looking for happiness, or success, or friendship or to meet their felt needs in order to make their life in this world better. The nine when they were cured of their leprosy wanted no more. Their felt needs were met. They had come to Jesus only because they wanted a better life and now that they had it, they wanted no more of Jesus.

But the one came to church to find forgiveness and eternal life. He came to be reconciled to God and drawn into the family of God by the Word of Jesus.

And this one man was not a Jew but a Samaritan. For Jesus with his blood purchased men for God from every tribe, and tongue, and people and nation. We are purchased for God and drawn into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers and illumines us through Word and Sacrament. That one Samaritan man is our brother today, for he, like us, is a son of God. Today in our liturgy and worship we join that man in heaven who is still praising and thanking Jesus for the mercy he received and for saving him from his sin.

Then Jesus told the man to get up and go back to his normal daily life among his family and friends. Just like today, after we receive the gifts of God’s grace and respond to them with our prayers of faith and with our songs or praise and with our offerings of thanksgiving, we go back out into our daily, normal life and glorify God by our acts of love for our neighbor, by our service to one another, and by telling others the wonderful things he has done for us. We glorify God and Jesus Christ by confessing our faith and the great deeds which God has done to save us not only from disease and sickness, but from sin and death and the power of Satan. This is true worship of God in Jesus Christ.

Amen.