Luke 17:11-19 (NRSV Updated Edition)
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus's feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
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"[T]he main word that Luke uses to indicate the healing in vs. 14 & 17 is 'katharizo', “cleanse,” “make clean.” In between, in vs. 15, the major witnesses use the word 'iaomai'. But there are several ancient texts that keep it consistent at this point using the word katharizo. The significance of the word choices is that Luke's Jesus changes to a very different word for the final pronouncement, saying to the Samaritan leper in 17:19 (NRSV), “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” “Well” is the translation of the Greek word sozo, “save,” “rescue.” Especially if we take the lesser textual witnesses, Luke changes from “made clean” to “saved.” Has there been a double healing for the Samaritan? Does 'sozo' indicate a healing, a salvation, for the Samaritan that goes beyond the initial cleansing enjoyed by all ten lepers?"
- Paul Nuechterlein, from Exegetical Notes on Luke 17:11-19 on the Girardian lectionary page for this Sunday (link in comments below)
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"Not only do we have a group of marginalized lepers, but that group also has its singular marginalized person, the Samaritan. Shall we suppose that the disease of leprosy so united the lepers that they no longer were engaged by the victimage mechanism? Shall we suppose that the nine Jewish lepers did not in some fashion ostracize the Samaritan within their little circle? Would their leprosy have overcome the hundreds of years of social animosity that they carried with them in their worldviews? No. This seems to be implied by Jesus' reference to the Samaritan as an 'allogenes', a foreigner. The Samaritan, in other words, is the victim par excellence in the story, he is the victim of the victims, yet it is this most marginalized one who truly sees (not at all an unfamiliar theme in the gospels).
"When all were healed and only one returned thanking God, where did the other nine go? They made a beeline back to the social matrix from which they had been thrust, back to families they may have missed, back to the world of social respectability. They made straight for the religious dimension of the sacral mechanism, the priest, who would declare them socially acceptable. They failed to see that God, in cleansing them, had already accepted not only them, but also their fellow leper, the Samaritan.
"A new sociality had been given in the miracle that they failed to grasp and so they took this gift from God and walked right back to the system that had previously extruded them without seeing or understanding that something indeed was “bent” about the system. Nor, as mentioned, did they see a new thing had occurred in their midst, the healing of a division that went back hundreds of years. Jesus brings healing to each of us and all of us in order that we might be one in Him. Do we see any clearer than the nine?"
- Michael Hardin (source not currently available online)
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"One turned back. He saw what had happened and turned back. Could it be that becoming whole is seeing the blessing and feeling moved to thank the One who has blessed you? It's a new way of seeing that shifts the focus and one of the ten got it.
"This former leper sees that what has happened is something different. The others returned to a world based on boundaries that separate good from bad, well from sick, and the “in” from the “out”. But in coming back, this one left that world and entered a new and exciting world where all exist by grace and none are excluded. It's a new world.
"Our text says, “He fell on his face at Jesus' feet and thanked him.” His falling down before Jesus was a result of his new way of seeing. From his position he looks up to Jesus and sees everything with Jesus in the foreground. This is the perspective that gets it right. Paul said, “For me to live is Christ.” One former leper sees that Jesus brings a new way of living, a way where we each dwell in the sea of grace.
"When we see everything with Jesus in the foreground we discover that God is nothing but forgiveness, gentleness, blessing, benevolence, compassion, and tenderness. Our response to all of this, once we get it, can only be gratitude and openness to life!"
- Thomas L. and Laura C. Truby, from a sermon on October 9, 2016 (https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Truby-Proper23-2016-One-Embraced-a-New-Way-of-Living.pdf)
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"Being cleansed was a cultic matter, but this one shows that it is more than being cleansed. He has actually recovered his soul, his sense of being human. [...] And Jesus is observing this, observing that the ones who fit back into the system - well, they've been cleansed. But this one, he's seen something more than that. By his attitude, you can tell that his whole life has begun in a completely new and rich way.
"This I think is very much in line with Jesus [...] commenting about the woman who washed his feet with her tears and dried it with her hair, “I tell you, this woman, [...] you can tell that she has been forgiven because she has loved so much,” rather than, “Now she'll be forgiven, then she will be able to love.” Jesus is noticing something with delight, seeing someone come to life because their wholeheartedness has taken them way beyond what might have happened.
"This I think is something of what grace, the Gospel of Grace, is about: Jesus taking delight in us finding ourselves taken far beyond simple, perfunctory, thank-yous, and actually being able to live with enormous gratitude as we find ourselves brought to life."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYu-Gl8IU0k)
[Source of Paul Nuechterlein and Michael Hardin quotes and link to Thomas & Laura Truby sermon, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper23c/]
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