14th Sunday after Trinity + Luke 17:11-19 and Galatians 5:16-24

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We know the story of the ten lepers well. We hear it every year on this Sunday and most years we hear it on the National Day of Thanksgiving as well. Jesus passes through Samaria and Galilee, the areas north of Judea. As He enters a village ten leprous men confront Him. Standing far off from civilization so as not to infect others, they cry out with a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” And of course He does, for Christ did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. He tells them to go show themselves to the priest because according to the Law of Moses the priests were the public health officials. They examined people for leprosy. If they didn’t have it the priests declared them “clean;” if they had contracted leprosy they were declared “unclean” and cast out. Jesus sends these ten men to the priest to be declared “clean” according to the Law. “So it was that as they went, they were cleansed,” according to Christ’s word.

They would have noticed this while they were still on the way to the nearest priest. Nine of them look down to see the evidence of answered prayer. Their flesh healed. Their lives restored. They see the mercy of Christ and they keep going. Perhaps they’ve got lives to get back to, or maybe just lives to begin. Either way, they took Christ’s mercy for granted so that it never crossed their mind to return to Christ and gives thanks. Only one sees the evidence of answered prayer and stops, returns to Jesus, glorifies God with a loud voice and falls down on his face at the feet of His Savior. Jesus asks, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” That’s when it comes out. The nine were Jews, descendants of Abraham and members of God’s covenant people. They, of all people, should have known God’s power and compassion. They knew how the Lord cured Naaman the Syrian of his leprosy by the word of the prophet Elisha. They would have also known how Naaman had returned to the prophet to give thanks to God. But none of this registered with them because they took God’s mercy for granted. Jesus points this out to us who hear the story. His own people weren’t the ones to return, glorify God and give thanks. They went their own way.

The Samaritan though submits to Christ, face to the ground in humble thanks and praise. Jesus then draws our attention to the Samaritan’s faith. “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” This Samaritan was saved by faith. He trusted Christ to heal him, which is why he initially cried out for mercy. He trusted Christ’s word that sent them to the priest. When he saw that Christ had had mercy on him and answered His prayer for healing, the faith in his heart exploded into thanks and praise, so that he returns and prostrates himself before His God and Lord. The faith which healed him then receives Christ’s word to rise and go His way. He gets up, as if rising from the dead, and in a sense He was, because of the living death of his leprosy. He rises to walk in the newness of life, not according to the diseased flesh in which He had previously walked, but in the new life which Christ has freely given him. He no longer walked by the flesh but by the Spirit.

We know this story of the ten lepers because we hear it every year. But we should also know it because it’s our own story. Christ does for us what He does for these ten men. The miracles of Jesus show us His divine power so that we listen carefully and thoughtfully to His Word. His miracles are also pictures of what He does for us spiritually. Instead of physical leprosy we are infected with the leprosy of sin. Our flesh is tainted, as the leper’s flesh, with the hereditary sin of our first parents. It’s not just our skin that’s leprous. Our very hearts that are diseased with sin so that our thoughts, imaginations, and motivations are sinful. From the sinful heart flows all our actual sins that we commit. As Christ was merciful to those ten lepers who called upon Him, Christ is merciful to all who call upon Him. St. John tells us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). To those who confess their sins Jesus speaks the absolution which removes all sins and cancels the guilt of their sins. We ought, like the Samaritan, not to take God’s grace for granted but acknowledge His mercy and give Him thanks and praise for the salvation He gives us freely by His grace and not on account of our works. Sins forgiven He says to you, “Arise, go your way.”

But which way are you to go? How are you to walk, having been raised to new life, sins forgiven, declared righteous, and saved by faith? Not as the nine who took God’s grace for granted, received what they wanted, and then went their own way. Not as those who hear the forgiveness of their sins then go back to walking according to the desires of the diseased flesh. “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh,” the Apostle writes. You have been cleansed from the disease of sin to walk according to righteousness. You have been given raised to new life to walk according to the Spirit whom Christ has breathed upon you Holy Absolution. Walk by the Spirit and suppress the works of your sinful flesh: adultery, fornication, uncleanness and lewdness, both outward and in your heart; idolatry and sorcery, chasing after false gods and trying to get them to give you what you want. Cast out hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish and ambitions. If those you harbor those in your heart you’ll drive out the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of peace. Turn aside from dissensions and heresies whose only purpose is to separate you from the truth of God’s Word. Cast out envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. In short, whatever the flesh desires that’s contrary to God’s will, fight against it to suppress it by the power of the Holy Spirit, who works in you through the Word of God.

Walking in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit who dwells in you then begins to bear His fruit in your life. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Spirit begins to bring forth these fruit in opposition to the works of the flesh. We often expect the fruit of the Spirit to be noticeable and visible right away, just as the works of the flesh are noticeable. But fruit is different from a work. The Holy Spirit’s fruit begins as a bloom, then flowers, then He brings forth mature fruit in its season. The Holy Spirit leads us to crucify our flesh with is passions and desires so that He can bear His fruit in us. If we fail to crucify the flesh, meaning if we willfully walk in the works of the flesh, Paul says we will not inherit the kingdom of heaven and disqualify ourselves from the heavenly inheritance. He’s teaching us to avoid willfully sinning. He’s also teaching us that when we sin unintentionally we aren’t to dwell in that sin and continue in it. We’re to crucify it, nailing it to Christ’s cross by repenting of it, confessing it, and believing Christ’s word that your sins are forgiven and that your conscience is cleansed.

Today, and every day you confess your sins, trusting in Christ’s mercy, He says to you, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” Give thanks to Christ for the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life then go your way, back to the duties God has given you, walking in the Spirit, crucifying the flesh, and bearing the fruit of the Spirit to the glory of God. Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.