Luke 17:11-19 "It Happens As You Go"

Over thirty years ago, when we first moved to Texas, Kim and I visited this little church that met in a high school cafeteria. It had been recommended by a friend. I knew Kemper Crabb was one of the ministers—that’s pretty much all I knew.

We showed up that first Sunday, didn’t know where to park, couldn’t find the room where they met—finally, after walking in circles around the hallways a few times, we found the cafeteria. At this point, we’re on the edge of just running back to our car. Wasn’t much to look at. It was a couple of speakers on sticks, a mishmash of wires running to microphones, and a few rows of folding chairs. Fluorescent lights, tile floor—you know, a high school cafeteria. No beauty. No transcendence. Nothing said “church.” 

Probably the way some people feel when they show up here for the first time. I’m aware.

We were a little early and they were busy setting everything up. No one really talked to us, which was fine, we were just taking it all in. A guy handed me a little black book, said the service would be on a certain page.

Worship started and it was weird. We had never been to a liturgical church. It was straight out of the Book of Common Prayer—felt Catholic to me, not that I knew anything about that either. The music was all led by Kemper and performed on acoustic guitars and mandolin—had a Celtic vibe to it. Kinda liked the music. I would learn later that he wrote most of it. But Kemper didn’t preach that Sunday. Overall, it was just really a strange experience for Kim and me.

After the service, I gave the book back to the guy who gave it to me, he asked what I thought. I told him. (I’ve gotten a lot more diplomatic over the years.) He was clearly defensive to my less-than-enthusiastic review and basically said, “Well, this church isn’t for everyone. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Thankfully, Kemper saw this conversation from across the room and came running over. He knew me from my band and we had met a couple times at different rock clubs. I was a fanboy of Kemper and had been since I had his records as a fifteen-year-old new Christian. We talked for a while about different things related to the church service and the music. It’s pretty much the day our friendship began.

On the way home, Kim and I brought up all the things we thought were strange, all the things we didn’t like about the church—I remember pulling into the parking lot of our apartment just as we both had the same idea: We don’t like much about the church but we believed God wanted us to keep going there. Eventually, we came to love all those same things we didn’t like at first.

Have you ever done something because you thought it was the right thing to do, even though you didn’t want to? Follow through on something you started? Start something you didn’t really understand the point of starting? Something you had to do by faith, because you didn’t see how it made sense? A time when you had to walk by faith and not by sight?

We’re continuing in the Gospel of Luke, line by line, we’re in Chapter 17…

VERSE 11:

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. Luke 17:11

Jesus “set His face” toward Jerusalem in chapter 9 and He’s been traveling toward His final destination ever since, teaching and picking up new disciples along the way. When you hear the phrase “on the way to Jerusalem” you can think of it as “on the way to the cross.”

The route He’s taking doesn’t seem to be the most direct route. He’s kind of all over the place. Luke might not be giving us a chronological blow by blow but even then, this seems a lot like God leading the children of Israel around in circles on their way to the promised land. It’s not going to take Jesus 40 years to get there but He doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry, either. There’s a very important lesson about how God does things here—the shortest path is never a straight line. The same is going to be true for all of us. God calls us, saves us, and takes us through all kinds of winding, twisting turns on the way to our final destination.

VERSE 12:

And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Luke 17:12-13

Lepers. Not Leopards. That would have been a very different story. 

Ten men who had leprosy, a nasty disease. They were considered unclean by the Old Testament Law in the same way that someone who came in contact with the dead was unclean—and for the same reason. A leper was considered to be the walking dead. Parts of their body had died and were rotting, so they were in constant contact with death. They had to live outside the city from everyone else in leper colonies, where they would do their best to take care of each other in make-shift lean-to houses or caves. 

In Ephesians chapter two, when it says,

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world,”

St Paul is probably thinking of lepers. People who are literally the walking dead, unclean, unwanted, and completely helpless to save themselves. He says this is an accurate picture of all of us before Jesus had mercy on us.

The ten lepers had heard of Jesus, they were waiting for Him at the edge of town. They lifted up their voices and cried out to Him. Leprosy attacks the vocal cords, so it would have been a pathetic sound no matter how hard they tried to lift up their voices. They said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” They knew about a rabbi named Jesus who had healed some other lepers but they didn’t ask for healing directly, they asked for Him to have mercy. “Lord, have mercy on us,” has become a prayer of God’s people down through the ages. 

VERSE 14:

When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Luke 17:14

Jesus saw them. In the Gospel of Luke, seeing Jesus and being seen by Jesus is what salvation is all about. We need to picture what’s happening here. Jesus is walking with His big parade of disciples and other followers. The ten lepers call out to Him from a distance to have mercy on them. They can’t get close. They can’t follow Him into town. This is their only chance.

Jesus barely acknowledges them. All He says is, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” That’s all He says. He doesn’t heal them. Doesn’t promise to heal them. He didn’t say anything had changed.

This should remind us of the story about Naaman in the Old Testament book of 2nd Kings, chapter 5. Naaman was the commander of a pagan army and he had leprosy. He also had a Hebrew servant girl who suggested that he should go see the prophet Elisha in Samaria—that Elisha could help him. So he travels to Samaria, brings a bunch of treasure and gifts to pay Elisha to heal him—but when he gets there, Elisha doesn’t even come outside. He just sends his servant to tell Naaman to go wash himself seven times in the Jordan River and he’ll be cured. This makes Naaman furious—such disrespect! Does he know who I am? He had his own ideas for how Elisha was supposed to heal him. You know, come out, pray over him, wave his hands in the air, maybe some anointing oil. But to not even come outside! “Just tells me to go take a bath in their dirty river? Why, I oughta burn this place to the ground!” Fortunately, Naaman’s servants convince him to give it a shot—what could it hurt? When he finished washing seven times in the Jordan the Bible says his skin was a s soft as a baby’s bottom. Naaman tried to give Elisha the gifts and the treasure but he refused. Naaman became a believer in Yahweh. 

If you know the story, you know that the servant of Elisha went running after Naaman and asked for a little taste of the treasure as a reward for relaying the message—just a little gratuity. That didn’t work out so well for the servant. When Elisha found out about it, he cursed the servant and all of his descendants forever with Naaman’s leprosy. 

So, here we are on the border of Samaria with a bunch of lepers. Jesus says the same kind of thing to them that Elisha said to Naaman. “Go show yourselves to the priests.”

So, the way this was supposed to work according to Old Testament Law, if a person who has leprosy thinks they don’t have it anymore—and there’s no cure, so this isn’t something that would happen much. Or ever. At least not before Jesus started walking around healing lepers. 

It’s amazing that a provision was even made for it. Seems like the whole thing was set up just for Jesus to send healed lepers to the Temple priests and blow their minds. Because in Leviticus it says if for some reason a known leper thinks they don’t have leprosy anymore, they were supposed to go show themselves to a priest at the Temple. Leprosy was a hideous, ugly deforming disease, so you didn’t need a medical degree to know if a person still had it or not. The reason they had to go to a priest was so they could offer the required sacrifices to make them clean again. That had to happen at the Temple in Jerusalem. 

But it wasn’t going to do any good if they showed up at the Temple looking like zombies with ginger roots for fingers, missing toes, and obvious marks of leprosy all over their face and body.

That had to be an interesting conversation before they took off limping and painfully hobbling toward Jerusalem. 

“Well, Jesus told us to go see the priests. Should we go?” 

“For what? We all still look like road kill.” 

“Maybe He meant we should go see the priest, kind of like when Elisha told Naaman to wash in the Jordan River.” 

“So, you think if we go see the priest we’ll be healed?” “It’s worth a shot.”

It actually would have taken a lot of faith to have the courage to start heading to Jerusalem even though they were as sick as ever. They weren’t allowed to go into the city, they weren’t allowed around people—if they show up at the Temple with leprosy they would be driven out, maybe even killed.

But they went. They did what Jesus said, and it says, “As they went, they were cleansed.”

As they went. Not all at once. Strange, huh?

2nd Corinthians 5:7 says,

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

God sees us where we are. It’s never where we should be. God sees us and loves us when we’re still dead in our sin. It’s His love that makes us lovely. We’re like the ten lepers when He sees us—when He finds us.

Then He points us in the direction we should start walking—toward the person He’s called us to be.

None of us get to choose how God sanctifies us—how God is going to make us holy. It’s never a straight line. We always have to walk by faith, not by sight.

By the time they got to Jerusalem, they were no longer limping. No longer hobbling. Their fingers and toes had grown back. Their skin was as soft as a baby. Can you imagine? It had to feel wonderful. They had to be so excited, so filled with joy. They went to the Temple and the priest probably didn’t believe their story, “There’s no way you guys had leprosy. It must have just been a rash.” He did the prayers and sacrifices anyway. For all of them. All except one.

VERSE 15:

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Luke 17:15-16

Ah, the twist ending! Nine of the lepers were Jews but one of them was a Samaritan. Doubly cursed as far as the Jews were concerned. A leper and a Samaritan is just redundant. It seems the Samaritan didn’t make it all the way to the priest and the Temple. As soon as he noticed he was healed, it seems like he turned around and went back to Jesus to thank Him. I wonder if that caused another argument. 

They’re walking down the road and one of them says, “Hey, how are you guys feeling? Do you feel different? I don’t think I have leprosy anymore.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing! I feel pretty great!”

“Maybe we should go back and thank that Jesus guy!”

“But He told us to go see the priest, what if the leprosy comes back if we don’t do what He says?”

“Well, I hate to break it to you but I’m a Samaritan, I can’t go to the Temple anyway—I’m going to go back!”

“You’re a what? Dude! Did you guys know Sam was a filthy Samaritan dog? I knew there was something I didn’t like about him.”

So, the Samaritan goes back to Jesus to thank Him. But look at what it says, this is powerful language. He “turned back” which is to say he “repented,” with a “loud voice” (because his vocal cords were healed) he praised God—falling on his face at Jesus’ feet—this is a posture of worship. It says he fell on his face “giving him thanks”—which is the word “euchariston” (eucharist-on)—where we get the word “Eucharist.” It’s a word that’s only used to give thanks to God. The Samaritan bows before Jesus and worships Him as God. And Jesus lets him. Don’t believe anyone who tells you the apostles who wrote the Bible didn’t think of Jesus as the divine Son of God. They absolutely did.

This is quite a punchline to the story.

VERSE 17:

Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:17-19

Jesus is like, “Weren’t there ten of you guys?” Nine Jews and this guy—this foreigner. 

It’s obvious that Jesus isn’t pleased by the absence of the nine Jews. Let this be a lesson in the value of the majority opinion. Nine against one doesn’t make them right—popularity is not a measure of truth. Anyone who takes God’s side will always be on the right side of any issue. The right side of history, as people like to say. It’s always foolish to go with the mob when they try to stand against God’s Word.

They went to the Temple. They were healed. They saw the priest and offered the sacrifices but Jesus says they should have returned to give praise to God. As we’ll find next week, Jesus is where the special presence of God in the world is found now, He’s the Temple now, not that giant golden palace in Jerusalem.

The word Jesus uses for “foreigner” here is the same word that was inscribed on the gate of the Temple forbidding gentile “foreigners” from going inside. The Samaritan that came back wouldn’t have been able to go in with the other nine to be examined by the priest and offer the sacrifices. He would have been rejected. Strange that the nine Jews who weren’t rejected, instead they rejected Jesus. They were healed of their leprosy, declared clean, but missed out on true salvation.

Jesus told the Samaritan who returned to give thanks and worship Him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” That’s a misleading translation. It actually says, “Rise and journey.” I think it’s more likely that Jesus was inviting him to join them in their journey to Jerusalem—on the journey to the cross. Where he would see the true and final sacrifice that would actually make him spiritually clean. When Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well,” He’s clearly not talking about leprosy anymore—he’s talking about something the other nine did not receive. His faith in Jesus has done something for him that’s beyond physical healing. Also, the Greek word used for “well” is “sozo” (Sode-zo), which is usually translated as “salvation.” “Your faith has saved you.” His faith in Christ had saved him.

So, now he’s on a new journey, free of leprosy, following Jesus, walking toward the cross. He’ll watch Jesus die and he’ll probably be one of the people who see Jesus after the resurrection. He’ll be part of the church Jesus establishes to defeat the powers of hell and proclaim His victory over death. And remember how it all started? Jesus saw him, he cried out for mercy, Jesus told him to start walking—and he started walking. Without obedience, he’d still be sitting in a leper colony counting his fingers and toes. He wouldn’t even know what he was missing out on.

When Jesus sees you and calls you, when He tells you to do something—wisdom says to do it.

So back to my church story.

Kim and I continued to go to that little liturgical church and grew to really love it. Every Sunday we’d show up for worship and then a big group of us would go out for cheap Chinese food or cheap Mexican food. It’s where I met the guys who would be in my band Atomic Opera. It’s where I met Ryan and Chris and Joanne—and a lot of people we’re still good friends with. We grew in our faith. I had so many foundational conversations with Kemper. Before I met him the only books I had read were the Bible and comic books. He started throwing book after book at me—I read them all, at first out of the obligation of friendship but then I started to like it. Couldn’t get enough of it. I started playing music with him, he started playing with me. We were part of that little church for over eleven years. It led to everything that came next in our life. Not only Atomic Opera and a bunch of our lifelong friends. Also, playing with Kemper led to doing a few Medieval Christmas concerts at a church called CrossPoint, which led to them hiring me as music director, which led to me planting NewChurch and standing here as your pastor today. 

All because we stayed at that little church in a cafeteria when we really didn’t want to. All because we were faithful to what we believed God was telling us to do. We could have easily just not gone back. It was uncomfortable, we didn’t really know anyone—we could have come up with plenty of reasons. We would have never known the difference. We didn’t know what God was doing in our life—and in the lives of the people in that little church—by sending us there.

Jesus sees you. He’s telling you to start walking toward the person He wants you to be. To walk by faith and not by sight. To start doing the things He’s told you to do. To stop doing the things He’s told you not to do. You already know what some of those things are—the first things on the list. Ten Commandment-level things. As you spend more time in His Word, more time gathered as His church, He’ll reveal more to you. 

Ways to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Responding to God with worship and thankfulness. Prayer, praise, faithful attendance to church, faithful in tithes and offerings. Ways God wants you to be part of what He’s doing through this little church in a gymnasium. 

But it includes your whole life.

Because it also includes ways to love and serve your neighbor. Including your closest neighbors, the ones who live in your house with you. Jesus sees you, and He’s telling you to start walking toward the person He wants you to be at home, too. All those selfish emotional impulses you have are like leprosy, infecting you, infecting everyone around you, making you miserable, making everyone around you miserable. You’re not going to grow in your faith until you grow in your faithfulness. You’re not going to be healed of all those deforming, crippling habits until you start walking by faith instead of by your emotions and pride, stop following your heart and selfish desires and petty outbursts—and walk in the direction Jesus told you to walk.

Jesus sees you. In compassion and love, He sees you. Listen to what He’s telling you. Take a step of faith.

I’m going to end by telling you the same thing Jesus told the lepers. “Go and show yourself to the priest.”

The New Testament book of Hebrews says,

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16

Go and show yourself the priest. The same priest the Samaritan leper returned to and worshipped. Let Him examine you and see if you are clean. Confess your sins. Confess your faith in His promise to forgive you. Confess your trust in the sacrifice He made for you on the cross to make you clean—to make you well. Sozo. Show yourself to the High Priest, who is Jesus Christ, and receive salvation.

Hear His voice. Do not harden your hearts. Walk by faith, not by sight. AMEN.