Scripture: Luke 17:11–19
Dust. Everything was dust.
As he stared down into the dust that he had slept in that night, he remembered when it used to mean something very different to him. Back before everything changed, the dirt and dust was a headache and an inconvenience. He had servants to clean the dust off of his feet. Servants to clean the dirt out of his house. His wife used to hate it when he had been on a long journey and the dust caked on his feet and expensive sandals, when he tracked it into the house.
But now, as he looked down at the dust around his feet, it had a totally different meaning. Those same feet were now cracked and bleeding, effects of the skin disease that he had suffered with over the last several years. The same as the skin on his arms. His chest. His face. Now, he often used a trick that he learned from the others in the leper camp: he would take that dust and throw it on his sores, hoping for just a little bit of relief. It never helped for long, but in the moment, the dust or mud was a temporary relief from the constant pain.
What would his wife say now? His wife that he hadn’t even seen in years. Like his children. Like his parents, who might not even be alive anymore. He couldn’t bring himself to wander close enough to Samaria to find out what had happened to them. He lived with those suffering from similar diseases, on the border between Samaria and the hated Galilee. Along with the pain of his disease, he suffered the pain of isolation and of being a social outcast. He and the other nine lepers had struck out on their own, hoping to beg enough from the pilgrims and travelers to survive. Today, like every day, they threw dust on their sores and went out to the byways to beg.
Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh talk about the difference between disease and illness. Disease is a physical malady, a biomedical reality. But illness is more. When we speak of illness, in the Biblical context or today, we acknowledge how disease has disrupted social networks, how it has created a loss of meaning, how it has impacted sociocultural conditions in a negative way. Those who suffered what was called leprosy, or any other of a host of skin diseases, would have also been impacted by the complicated impacts of their illness. They would have had social loss, forced to leave their family and their social network and live in isolation. They would have had religious loss, unable to offer worship or participate in the religious life of the day, relying on the generosity of others to survive. And, as Malina and Rohrbaugh suggest, they would have had existential loss: they would lose their purpose and meaning and vocation and acknowledgement that they even mattered. These ten lepers would have known all of this loss, all of this pain, and this complicated mess of their illness.
This interplay between disease and illness is still true today…think about a few examples:
- Consider the person who gets hurt on the job and is forced to go on disability. They lose their social network at work, perhaps their family looks down on them, or certain members of society think they are lazy and mooching off the government.
- Or consider the person who has a slow-growing but debilitating cancer. Over months and years of treatment, their physical malady is complicated by emotional health issues, growing into depression and anxiety and severe anger issues.
- Or consider the church small group who sheltered in place together during the pandemic. All of them stayed healthy and remained supportive of one another…until one of them went for drinks with work friends and ended up bringing COVID-19 to the entire small group. All of them got sick, two of them ended up in the hospital, and one unknowingly spread COVID to his elderly mother who died. The experience destroyed the small group, caused incredible resentment and guilt and grief. None of them talk to each other anymore, and few of them even go to the same church.
The physical cannot be disconnected from the emotional, the mental, the social, and the religious. It is like a tangled knot of fishing line, nearly invisible strands knotted up and twisted together.
“Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.”
There are a lot of textual issues with the King James Version of the Bible, but sometimes it gets it just right. The words here that Jesus spoke at the end of the passage are often translated in the context of disease. “Your faith has healed you.” Or even “your faith has made you well.” But the Greek word sodezo suggests that the healing is more than just physical. It could just as easily be translated “your faith has saved you.” It seems to name something more complex, addressing the complicated nature of illness and not simply the physical nature of disease. And the King James “Thy faith hath made thee whole” communicates that the healing that occurred within this man was more holistic than simply physical healing.
The way that the folks in the Two Way [sermon discussion group] named it was that this tenth leper was healed twice. All of the ten were healed physically, but the tenth received a glimpse into salvation that made him whole. Biblical scholar Margit Ernst-Habib has a similar perspective of what was happening in the story. She affirms that all ten were healed, but that something else was going on in the life of the tenth, the Samaritan man. She notices that Luke uses the turn of phrase “turned back” or “turned around,” to describe what the Samaritan does. In the New Testament, this means something more about a shift of theological orientation, a newness of purpose and direction. She writes:
It describes a movement of the whole person, initiated by God’s graceful work, a redirection of orientation toward God. Jesus’ words “your faith has made you well” refer, therefore, not just to the medical healing the Samaritan has experienced, but to the holistic healing of this human being. Healing and salvation cannot be disassociated here from another.
The Samaritan receives a second healing that is theological and existential. He becomes a new person who understands what Jesus has done for him, enters into a different kind of relationship with him, and celebrates him with intentional gratitude and praise. In the story, as in much of Luke, it is so often the outsider who understands what is really going on, and responds with gratitude and praise. The shepherds worship the baby. The old forgotten Simeon and Anna recognized the Messiah and worshipped him. The Roman centurion at the foot of the cross praised God and proclaimed Jesus’ innocence. Again and again, it is the experience of the one who sees with new eyes what God is up to, who is able to receive the second healing of salvation, and responds appropriately with praise and adoration and thanksgiving.
“Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.”
Which brings us to the relevance to the text of our own lives. To the pain of our own disease and illness. To our own yearning for healing and salvation. Rachel Naomi Remen is a medical doctor and early leader in the mind/body movement of health. She regularly counsels patients in ways that acknowledge their holistic health. Her book Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal is a collection of stories and essays about her work with patients and clients.
One of her stories is called “Kissing the Boo-Boo,” where she tells a story about a woman named Jessie, who suffered from a temporary bowel obstruction that caused severe pain. She knew the pain was something of significance, and so she managed to get herself into her car and drive herself 25 miles to the ER. She had brought a pot and a towel with her, anticipating that she might be sick when the pain overwhelmed her. By the time Dr. Remen saw her, she asked why she hadn’t asked anyone for help:
“Surprised, I asked her why she had not called a friend. She told me it was the middle of the day and everyone was working. She had spent the next day in the emergency room alone. I asked her why she hadn’t called anyone even then. ‘Why would I call anyone?’ she responded with irritation. ‘None of my friends know a thing about intestinal obstruction.’
‘Then why didn’t you call me?’
‘Well, it’s not really your field either,’ she replied.
‘Jessie,’ I said, ‘even children instinctively run to others when they fall down.’ With a great deal of heat she said, ‘Yes, I’ve never understood that. It’s so silly. Kissing the boo-boo doesn’t help the pain at all.’ I was stunned. ‘Jessie,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t help the pain, it helps the loneliness.’”
Healing is so much more than cessation of physical pain. So much more than a one-dimensional reality. Let me suggest that what Jesus offers us is not as simple as a physical check-box, an answer to our prayerful demands for what we think we know we need. I pray that we might open our eyes to all of the ways that Jesus heals us. All of the illnesses that he takes away. What Jesus offers us is a healing that makes us whole:
- Perhaps there is physical healing, like there was with the ten lepers. I don’t understand how it happens, but I have seen those who should never have been well again, walk out of the hospital with a clean bill of health.
- Perhaps there is relational healing, in addition or instead. The promise that we are not alone, like when our fathers or mothers kiss our boo-boo when we are a child. Can you imagine what those ten people must have felt when they ran back into the arms of their family and community for the first time in who knows how long? I believe that the restoration of relationships can be as healing and salvific and whole-making as physical restoration.
- Perhaps there is emotional and mental health healing, as Jesus restores us from anxiety and depression, from grief and unhealthy behaviors and thoughts. As therapists and counselors do their work of healing, I believe that they are serving as the feet and hands and mouthpiece of Jesus.
- And perhaps there is spiritual healing, like this Samaritan who understood for the first time that he mattered enough to someone like Jesus. His gratitude was like a clean MRI, or a low PSA count: a sign on the outside that something had changed on the inside. As he fell to his knees in gratitude, it was clear that he had come to understand himself in a new way, and that he was thankful to God for that conversion.
How are you in need of healing today? How is Jesus healing you even as you pray?
He still didn’t mind the dirt. This time, he felt it on his face, in his mouth, between his teeth. As he bowed down in the dirt and the mud, bowing before Jesus, he couldn’t care less. Of course, he had joy that his sores were gone, that he could return back to his family, his home, his community, his worship. But he also knew that that joy had a source! There was a reason why he had been healed, and he had to return to give thanks and praise to that source of healing and salvation. Again and again, he fell to the ground and praised Jesus. His head began to spin as he looked up to see Jesus and back down into the dirt. Up to see that face of beauty and love. Down to get another mouthful of dust. Finally, he saw the laughing face of Jesus run up to him and stop him from his manic praise.
“But where are the others? Were there not ten?” Then he looked deep into the man’s eyes and laughed, “stop and be on your way. Your faith has made you whole.” With a mouthful of dirt, the man jumped to his feet and ran. He had to find the priests. His wife. His children. And as the dust splayed out from him as he ran, he suddenly had the realization that he had never been so clean before!
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