[Proverbs 4:10-23 / Galatians 5:16-24 / Luke 17:11-19]The rain came down in the great sheets. The wind was gusting. It was hard to see where I was going as I drove down Interstate 85 in North Carolina. And just as the rain was at its hardest, I entered the construction zone. Now, this was tough going. I could just begin to make out the concrete wall in front of me as the road veered sharply to the right, when it happened. A big semi in the north bound lanes ran through some standing water on his side of the road and sent a great sheet of water over the concrete barrier and all over my windshield. Just as I was entering the curve. I couldn’t see. It all couldn’t have lasted for more than three or four seconds, but I thought: “This is it. I’m going to hit that wall. I can’t see where I’m going.” When my windshield cleared off, somehow I had made it through the curve. I remember trembling the rest of the way to church.
When I got there it took a while for me to calm down. When I finally did, I got on the phone and called Cindi and told her about it. She made the comment: “The Lord was really with you.” And do you know what? That was the first I’d thought about the Lord since it all happened. Shamefacedly I hung up the phone and prayed. I thanked the Lord for his protection, which I so often took and take for granted, and I asked forgiveness for my ingratitude and for help in remembering God’s mercies and being grateful for them.
That incident has stayed with me through the years. And time and again I find myself in the company of the nine in today’s Gospel. Having been blessed, greatly blessed by Jesus, and taking it for granted. Trouble comes and I call on Him for help - and when has He ever not given it? - and when the trouble’s over, then I wander on my own way again and never stop to thank Him. Can any of you relate to that?
You see, ingratitude is only the symptom of the real problem. The real problem is unbelief, refusing to receive all that God wants to give us. Like the nine, we like to pick and choose. Jesus Christ reaches out His hand to us and it is full of blessing and we carefully pick through what’s offered there and take this or that, and then head off. We fail to see that what He’s really after is not for us to take the stuff in His hand, but to take His hand and walk with Him.
The nine in today’s Gospel picked out the gift of physical healing. Having taken that, they were content. The Samaritan wasn’t content with the healing. The healing was great, but it wasn’t enough by itself. He wanted more. He wanted not the blessings, but the person. And so he had to come back, to come back to Jesus himself. To be in His presence. To fall down on his face at Jesus’ feet and give thanks to God. The Samaritan perceived that behind the gift of healing stood a greater gift - the gift of a relationship with God, the gift of love in Jesus Christ.
We’re so content with the blessings that we sometimes miss the point. Even with forgiveness of sins. Oh, there is not a greater gift Jesus has to give than that. The Gospel began with the words: “Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem.” You know what that “going to Jerusalem” means, don’t you? Palm Sunday, the Holy Supper on Maundy Thursday, the betrayal, the arrest, the trial and the beating, and the suffering and the dying. The Lamb of God sacrificed to carry away the sin of the world. The Lamb of God who dies to make all people one. The Lamb of God whose death won forgiveness of sins for all who place their trust and confidence in His finished work. The Lamb of God whose resurrection showed that the Father had accepted the sacrifice and that the sins of the world really and truly are wiped out.
But look at what happens so often! Forgiveness is given and we say: “Neat! Great!” And then we walk away from Him - like the nine we go back to business as usual. We fail to see that the forgiveness was given to us so that we could then live in and through Jesus as a child of the heavenly Father. We fail to see that the forgiveness was not an end in itself, but was the means to an end. Through that forgiveness a life of fellowship, of communion with the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit was being opened up to us. A life that bears those fruit of the Spirit we heard about in our second reading and that solidly turns its back on the works of the works and desires of the flesh, works and desires that land us solidly in hell if we follow them. Instead, for those who walk with Christ, as the first reading said, the light grows brighter and brighter toward the full dawn.
“Were not all ten cleansed?” Jesus asks. “Where then are the nine?” Here stands the font, my friends, where Jesus today does His cleansing, His healing. Here He gives the forgiveness that He won on Calvary’s cross. But how many of those who are washed here wander away from Him? Miss out on the very purpose for which He washed them in the first place? Life with Him!
Oh, it’s always a temptation with this text to take aim at the folks who aren’t here, but let’s be honest. We too fall into the same trap. We who come to church on Sunday, even every Sunday. It’s far too easy for us to come merely for the grasping of the gift, and then to turn away from the life of communion with Christ that is the purpose and proper use of that gift. Do we walk away from this room and never thank Him for His gifts? Do we leave this assembly and live our lives as though He were not present every moment with us? Do we open His Word during the week? Do we pray to Him and live in communion with Him each day?
Look, my friends, today Jesus stands as in the Gospel reading. He is never stingy in His gift-giving. He stands and waits. He bestows on us riches beyond our imagining and deserving. And He asks: “Where are the nine?” Shall we not rise up and go to Him? Shall we not fall down at His feet and glorify God for the gifts He has given us? Shall we not then live with Him and through Him? Being His disciples indeed? He calls us. Let us rise, take His hand, and walk with Him in the power of His Spirit to whom be glory with the same Spirit and His all-holy Father, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
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