The story about the ten lepers is a story about faith, gratitude, and the mercy of God. Notice the lepers do not ask Jesus for healing. They ask Jesus for mercy—Master, have pity on us, they say to him. Today, we think of mercy more as a matter of kindness, a subset of justice, rather than as a principle on equal footing with justice. In fact, we often think that the principle of justice trumps the principle of mercy.
Yet, when God first reveals himself to Moses from the burning bush on Mt. Sinai, this is exactly how God describes himself, as a God of mercy. From the bush, Moses hears God say, “I have seen the affliction of my people…I have heard their cry…and I intend to deliver them by your hand” (Ex 3:7-10). Before Moses returns to carry out his role in that regard, he wants to know the name of the one who speaks. God says, “I am Who I am…a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love and fidelity” (Ex 34:6).
No wonder mercy is what the lepers ask of Jesus. By law and by ritual in those days, the faith community viewed leprosy as God’s punishment for sin. The leper was no longer holy before God. No one could touch or even support a leper for fear that the moral impurity of the disease was as contagious as its physical defilement. Thus, the leper was cut off from the faith community, and stood to forfeit for all time his or her relationship with God and with all other members. The only way a leper could rejoin the faith community was to be declared cured, and therefore clean, by competent religious authority.
To that end, the leper had available two options only—to be healed through a direct intervention by God (Ex. 15:26), or through an appeal to God’s mercy by a prophet (Ex. 15:25; II Kings 2:21; II Kings 20:7–8). The ten lepers choose the second option and ask Jesus for mercy as the more likely avenue to be made clean. Jesus hears more in their request, however. What Jesus hears is their faith in God.
Jesus acknowledges their faith by responding that all ten should present themselves to the priests. Because they trust his word, they immediately carry out his instruction. On the way, all ten realize they have been healed. Their trust in God has made them whole again. Only one, however, the Samaritan, an outcast, perceives that God is the source of his healing, and only he returns to give thanks. The Samaritan perceives the presence of God in the person of Jesus. He sees what the Pharisees failed to see, and he gives thanks.
This show of gratitude at the feet of Jesus acknowledges Jesus as more than a prophet. Jesus is the one who validates the Samaritan’s faith by calling attention to the end result, his salvation—Stand up and go; your faith has saved you—Jesus says (Lk 17:19). The Samaritan’s realization that he has been “healed” by God becomes a realization that he has been “saved” by God. His faith has made him whole in both body and spirit.
It should be noted in this encounter between Jesus and the lepers that Jesus does not require them to express any repentance or renunciation of sin before their healing. Nor does he ask them to change their ethnic or religious identity. Jesus goes further and ignores the idea that leprosy is punishment for sin or that Samaritans are rivals of the Israelites. Jesus overlooks all of this. All that Jesus looks for is faith. The lepers’ request for mercy is enough to demonstrate their faith in God and trust in Jesus. In response to their faith and trust, Jesus reaches out to them where they are and heals them.
The healing of the ten lepers demonstrates God’s unconditional love for all people regardless of their social, religious, or ethnic status. Faith and unconditional love are what God cares about. This is why Jesus yearns for us to seek him with all boldness, without fear, and without condition. “Come to me all you who labor and are burned, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). Jesus does not restrict who may seek him. Clearly, the lepers sought Jesus WHEN they were in need of healing, BEFORE they were made clean. Jesus did not say to them: Go get holy, and then knock on the door. Rather, Jesus says: Knock on the door and I will open it; seek and you will find.
This story shows that gratitude, love, and mercy are the more compelling aspects of faith. From wherever we are on our faith journey, we can approach Jesus no matter what our circumstances might be. Jesus simply looks for faith and is eager to respond to the faith that each of us can muster, however little or much that might be. We can trust that Jesus will respond to our needs with compassion. For, compassion is the natural and universal response of unconditional love, and gratitude is the natural and universal response of the one who receives such love. As the Psalmist puts it, “Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has done marvelous deeds” (Ps 98:1-4).
What do we want from Jesus? What do we ask for? What do we seek? Why do we knock? The goodness and mercy of God are reason enough to place our trust in him for our journey through life. Trust in God leads to wholeness of spirit. Here I am Lord. Tell me what to do Lord, and I will do it. Like the lepers, we express our faith in Jesus, and Jesus responds. In turn, we can trust Jesus. We follow his instruction, and we are made whole (Is 55:3). Thus, we have every reason to give thanks to God.
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