28th Sunday: Has only this foreigner returned to give thanks?

  Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one, a Samaritan, returned to thank him. We should be grateful to God for his gifts. But, is there something else going on here? Jesus pointed to the prophet Jonah and said, “There is something greater than Jonah here.”  Lk. 11:32. The Prophet Elijah, another Old Testament prophet, was known as a great miracle worker. His disciple Elishah was even greater [i]. Elijah had fourteen miracles accredited to him, but Elishah had twenty-eight miracles [ii] accredited to him. (See, 1 & 2 Kings)  So is Jesus one upping the prophets? Sure, but there is more. Elishah cured one leper, Naaman the Syrian, who recognized the God of Israel. Jesus cured ten and only the gentile Samaritan returned.
 
Elishah and the Gentiles
Israel and Syria were enemies. Great battles are recorded in the Old Testament between these two ancient enemies. The first reading is a story about the Syrian ( read Gentile) commander Naaman. He fought against Israel in some battle and seized an Israelite girl as his slave. Leprosy, however, knows no boundaries, and Naaman contracted the disease. The Israelite girl captured in battle, told him that Israelite prophets could heal people. So he sent a message to his enemy, the King of Israel, asking to be cured of leprosy. The King read the letter and responded,

“Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?” 2 Kings 5:14-17

When Naaman lead his entourage to visit the Israelite King, the King pawned him off on Elishah. Naaman’s large entourage wound through the increasingly small streets of the capital city until it came to an unpretentious, little hut on the edge of town. He knocked on the door and an old guy, with skinny, hairy legs answered the door. Naaman was not happy. He knew that he was getting the run around although he started right at the top with the king. He demands to be healed. Elishah, the skinny old guy, said, ‘okey dokey, go dip yourself in the Jordan River seven times and you will be healed.’ Naaman was now angry. ‘Aren’t the rivers in Syria better?’  He stormed out of the city and headed for home, furious. As the he and his entourage passed the Jordan, another servant said, ‘Your worship, why not give it a shot.’ Grumbling, Naaman went down to the river, icky and green, and dipped himself seven times. His skin became brand new like a baby’s skin. This is a story of the conversion of a Gentile. Naaman testified to God,  “truly there is one God, Israel’s God.” A gentile recognized the truth of the Shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord in One.”  Dt. 6:4. In Jesus’ story of healing, he didn’t have to send the lepers to the river, instead he told them to show themselves to the priest at the Temple. Why?
 
Jesus and the Healing of Ten Lepers
There are three aspects of this Gospel story:

1. Samaritans: Just as Israel and Syria were enemies in the Elishah story, so the Samaritans and the Jews were enemies. In between Galilee in the north and Judah in the south lay Samaria. They are there still, living at the foot of Mt. Gerizim and offering sacrifice, to this very day. The Samaritans are a blend of ancient Israel and the Assyrian people. Their origins went back to the Assyrian Exile in 722 BC. They are part of the lost ten tribes of Israel and of great interest to the Christ.
2. Leprosy: When we think of leprosy, we think of Hansen’s disease, but Old Testament leprosy was a broader concept. It involved a whitening of the skin and could be Hansen’s disease or other skin ailments. It was feared because it was both terminal and communicable.

“The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp!” Lev.13:45-46

3. Healing and the Priests of the Temple

Lepers were to cry out, “Unclean, unclean,” according to Leviticus, but instead to Jesus they cried out,

 “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Lk. 17:12

 Jesus healed by touching people, or making mud with his spit, or forgiving their sins or any number of ways. Here, he complied with Leviticus when he said of ‘be healed’, he said,

 “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Lk. 17:13

 As to leprosy, Leviticus is pretty clear on what needs to be done for the leper to be restored to the community, healing is not enough. Jesus is following the law of Moses. Leviticus Chapters 13 and 14, are entirely dedicated to the laws of leprosy:

The Lord said to Moses, “This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his
cleansing.

1. He shall be brought to the priest; and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall make an examination.
2. Then, if the leprous disease is healed in the leper, the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two living clean birds and cedarwood and scarlet stuff and hyssop;
   1. and the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water.
   2. He shall take the living bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet stuff and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water; and he shall sprinkle it seven times upon him who is to be cleansed of leprosy;
   3. then he shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird go into the open field.
3. And he who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and bathe himself in water, and he shall be clean; and after that he shall come into the camp, but shall dwell outside his tent seven days.
4. And on the seventh day he shall shave all his hair off his head; he shall shave off his beard and his eyebrows, all his hair. Then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean. Leviticus 14: 1-9

That is a lot to do. When Jesus says, “Go show yourselves to the priests,” he is referring to this passage in Leviticus 14. They are supposed to go to a priest, be inspected, make a sacrifice, shave all the hair off their body, get a good scrubbing and wait seven days to be reinstated into the community.

4. What does the Samaritan leper do instead?

Two things:

• He praises God—literally glorified God—and
• gave thanks to Jesus by falling at his feet.

Samaritans don’t worship Jews, but this one did. The Greek New Testament uses the word eucharisteō to describe what the Samaritan did. Literally, he ‘eucharisted’ Jesus as Lord. He is thanking Jesus and thanking God. Jesus says,

“Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Lk. 17:19

             e. The Temple and the Gentiles: Why did Jesus call him a foreigner? Luke used the same term for foreigner that is used on an ancient inscription unearthed on the Temple Mount, called the Soreg.  The word for “foreigner”( ‘allogenēs’) occurs only here in the New Testament, but it also occurs on an ancient inscription that was in the Temple, that was actually unearthed by archaeologists. It’s called the Soreg. The Soreg was a stone inscription inside the temple, hanging on a wall that separated the Court of the Israelites from the Court of the Gentiles. It warned foreigners who were coming into the temple to worship, that if they crossed the wall and entered into the temple of the Israelites, they did so in peril of death. It said, in English translation

“No stranger is to enter within the balustrade round the temple and enclosure. Whoever is caught will be himself responsible for his ensuing death.”

 The barrier for the Samaritan in the Temple was literal and deadly. Jesus broke down that barrier. This is the story of the Gospel going out to us Gentiles.
 
Spiritual Leprosy and the Confessional
The Church Fathers’ analogy for sin is leprosy, because sin is both contagious and deadly. Sinful behavior spreads easily between human beings. For the early Church, just as lepers went to the priest of the Temple to be declared clean, so we go to a priest and are reintegrated into the community. Remember that the lepers stood a long way off. Catholics can do that by avoiding confession all the time. After healing, the leper offered his gratitude to God, the Lord of salvation. Everyone, needs healing at some point in their life. The work of the Lord continues in the work of the Church.