A sermon on Luke 17:11-19 by Nathan Nettleton

How would you feel if you accidentally overheard one of your friends describing you as a bit abnormal or a bit unusual? You’d get a sinking feeling in your stomach wouldn’t you? There is a strong value system at work in us that says normal is good. If we fear being perceived as abnormal or unusual, then clearly we aspire to be perceived as normal. It might not be as marked in us as in many early teenagers whose drive to conform and be normal ends up with most of them looking like clones of their peer group, but the desire to be normal continues in all sorts of ways. And you hear people say it sometimes: “I’m sick of this, I just want to be normal.” “Why can’t I get over this and just get on with my life like everybody else?” “I don’t want to be the odd one out.” “I wish I could just deal with things the way everyone else seems to.”

In the gospel reading we heard a few minutes ago Jesus came into contact with a group of lepers. They could have been suffering from any number of skin diseases because they were all lumped together as leprosy in those days, but whatever they had, the consequence was that they were excluded from participation in normal society. Lepers were regarded as highly contagious and as probably suffering because God was punishing them for being sinful, and so either way they were to be avoided. They were required to live outside the town and not even to come near a normal person without yelling out “Unclean, Unclean,” as a warning.

Now if you’re afflicted by something that stops you from participating in normal society, whether it be something physical or something emotional or relational, whether it be something that causes others to shun you or something that robs you of the confidence or ability to step out, then probably the thing that you will want most of all in the world is for that something to be taken away. And there’s nothing wrong with that. So when these lepers approach Jesus shouting “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” it didn’t take too much prophetic insight to see what kind of mercy they were looking for. They wanted their leprosy to be taken away so that they could reenter the normal world.

Now what Jesus told them to do took a big step of faith by all ten of them. Because he didn’t heal them on the spot, he told them to go and show themselves to the priests. If your leprosy got better, you had to go and show yourself to the priest who would certify you clean before you could reenter normal society. But Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests before they were healed and it was only on their way there that their leprosy was healed. So everyone of them showed considerable faith, not only in approaching Jesus to seek healing in the first place but in acting on his instructions by walking away from him still unhealed but acting as though they were.

They came seeking to be saved from the predicament they were in. They acted in faith and as a result they were saved in the way they wished. They were restored to normality and were able to get on with normal life just like everybody else. Thanks be to God.

For most of us that’s kind of what happened to us too. We became aware that we were not the people we wanted to be and that within us were forces holding us back. We realised that we couldn’t change sufficiently without the help of a power greater than ourselves so we approached Jesus seeking to be saved from the grip of those forces and set free to become the people we really wanted to be. For some of us freedom came almost instantaneously; for others we experienced a turn around and we have been steadily reclaiming the lost ground and growing into the people we wanted to be. Thanks be to God.

BUT, that’s not the end of our story is it? Something happens after the lepers are healed. One of them, when he saw that his disease was gone, turned back praising God with a loud voice, and he threw himself down at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And, as Jesus points out to all in earshot, the only one to return in gratitude was from a group that everyone regarded as a dangerous, godless bunch, to be kept clear of – the kind of people who cause you to hurry your kids inside when they come down the road. Reference to “a Samaritan” probably sounded to Jesus’ Jewish hearers similarly as if he’d said to us, “and the only one who came back to give thanks to God was a sergeant-at-arms of the Hell’s Angels.” The only thing to be avoided more desperately than a leper was a Samaritan Hell’s Angel leper.

But the bit that really intrigues me is what Jesus says to this one bloke. He says to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

“So what?” I hear you say, “That’s what Jesus always says to people he’s healed.”

Well it is, pretty much, but it seems pretty clear from the way Jesus emphasises the difference between this bloke and the other nine that he is now saying something that is particular to this one. And when we look again we see that he does indeed make a distinction. “Were not ten made clean? Your faith has made you well.”

Ten were made clean – their disease was taken away – they were back to normal. One was made well. And I put it too you that wellness is not just the absence of disease. When you say to someone, “How are you? Are you well?” you don’t just mean, “Are you free from diseases at the moment?”

Wellness. Health. Wholeness. Integrity. These are positive attributes. We can and often do say that one person is more healthy than another even though neither has any illnesses.

And perhaps that explains the note of disappointment in Jesus’ words: “Where are the other nine?” They were happy to get their lives back to normal and once they did they had no further use for Jesus. Only one saw the possibility or the desirability of something beyond normal. You can be abnormal by being below average or above average – unwell or super well – but nine out of ten were happy with average.

Strangely enough, most of us wouldn’t be all that thrilled if we overheard someone describing us as average either, despite the fact that what makes normal normal is that it is the average and that most people are congregated around the average. And while normal can certainly be comfortable because you’re not offending anyone, not rocking any boats, when I take a good hard look around, I don’t reckon that normal looks that good. I reckon that if you’re aspiring to be normal you’ve set your sights way too low. Listen to the quiet stirrings in your own heart and the chances are you’ll find a yearning to live life at a higher level than you presently do.

And the next step into greater wellness is clear. Don’t just settle back into normal, but come back to Jesus in gratitude, in praise. Don’t just use Jesus as a dispenser of cures for life’s ills and then leave him alone. Because he is not only the one who can set you free from what trapped you in the life you didn’t want, he is also the one who can lead you into real wellness, into fullness of life, into the fulfilment of your ancient destiny.

It starts with making connection, with expressing gratitude, with establishing the relationship, and then with following him on the way. You see, it is the expression of gratitude that really gets the relationship happening. Throughout my daughter’s childhood, whenever I organised some activity with her, the biggest buzz for me was often hearing her telling her Mum about it afterwards. Because it is when she communicates the excitement and pleasure of it that I know she really appreciated it. It is what she communicates in response that builds the bond between us. If she just took it for granted and went on her way, we’d be no closer for it. She might have benefited from it, but like the nine lepers who settle for the immediate benefit, she might have missed what was really on offer. The wholeness and fullness of life that God really wants to offer us is a product of relationship, and relationships are built on an attitude of gratitude. It is a life of wellness, of wholeness, of beauty, of integrity that lies way beyond normal. If only one in ten ever find it, then living it will make us abnormal, but after all, life that’s normal is pretty average.