Sermon preached at the Cathedral Church of St Augustine of Canterbury on the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
Why is the tenth leper so good?
Just because
he comes back
to glorify Jesus?
Is that all?
Where are the other nine?
Doing what they are told to do!
They have been told
to show themselves
to the priests.
That is what they are doing!
Only the Samaritan turns back.
If anything,
this Samaritan leper
is being disobedient.
He's not doing
what Our Lord tells him.
And he is praised for it!
[PAUSE]
Why does Our Lord
send the lepers to the priests
in the first place?
This is standard Jewish practice.
Lepers are not permitted
to be part of Society
on the grounds of their
contagious disease.
That's a standard practice
and we do it even today!
Think of the self-isolation
that we do when we have COVID.
Of course with leprosy,
or whatever skin disease these ten men have,
it stays contagious for longer.
In order to re-enter Jewish society,
a (hopefully former) leper
has to show himself
to the priests
who administer their own tests
to see whether he is free
from the disease.
Let's be clear on this:
in order to be able to re-enter society,
it is the priests that need
to declare a man clean.
The person with the disease
doesn't get to say, "I'm all betfer!"
Even if everyone can see
that there are
no more spots or lesions
on his body,
only the priest can say
whether a man is free
from the disease.
It's the priest who holds
the rubber stamps marked
"clean" and "unclean".
[PAUSE]
So the ten lepers
go their way and,
on the way,
they are healed.
But the nine Jewish lepers
won't know that
until they are seen
by the priests.
Even if they say,
"ooh I suddenly feel better!"
or "gosh, Gerald!
You don't look blotchy any more!"
they can't say that
they are healed
until they have seen the priests.
And here's the thing.
The priests don't heal them.
It's not they who are making
the disease go away.
They are just declaring a fact.
These men are healed
through a distinct action
of God Himself.
And one man,
the Samaritan,
sees it for what it is.
[PAUSE]
For someone as hated
as the Samaritan,
it's entirely possible
that the priests
will not declare him clean,
just because he is a Samaritan.
But that's not fair.
He is clean.
He does not need
the Jewish Law
to tell him that.
It is not the Jewish Law
that saves him.
It is Christ.
And he sees
and turns back
to the One Who has done this,
Who has made him.healthy again.
This man is in utter joy
at knowing
the Source of his healing
and turns to worship Him.
And a few years after this,
a faithful Jew,
a great Pharisee,
full of the knowledge
of the Law and the prophets
will see exactly the same thing.
[PAUSE]
St Paul comes
to the same
God-given revelation
as this former leper.
We are not saved
by what the Jewish Law
does for us.
Law can only tell us
whether we are
right or wrong,
clean or unclean,
fit for Society or unfit for Society.
It is not by doing
the works of the Law
that makes us right with God.
We are not justified by works of the Law.
"Thy faith hath made thee whole."
The leper is cleansed
and made whole
by Our Lord
because he has faith
in Our Lord
and acts on this faith.
We, too, are justified
- made whole,
made right with God,
but not by faith alone
rather by a faith acting
in obedience,
in harmony,
in co-operation
not with a Law which cannot save,
but with Christ Who does save.
In this miracle,
Our Lord is completely respecting
the integrity of the Law
by telling the lepers to obey it.
Yet, through the faith of one man
we are shown that
it is the Christ that saves,
not the Law.
[PAUSE]
Our healing,
our salvation,
comes from presenting
ourselves to Christ
as we are,
all fractures, foibles
and fallibilities.
And then,
we hear the voice of Our Lady,
"Do whatever He tells you."
And we do that
with faith in Him
and in that faith
we find His healing for us
which begins with Eternal life.
That is salvation.
That is His promise.
That is our hope and joy.
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