Unedited transcript
Today’s Gospel continues directly from last Sunday’s Gospel. And here we are back on the road. on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and GalileLots of ink has been spilt as to what that might mean, but I’ve had the good fortune to come across a French edition, the French translation of the Aramaic version of Luke’s Gospel. That’s the ancient language that Jesus spoke and that people are around him spoke. and it turns out that it’s slightly different in that version but gives a very good sense of exactly where Jesus was going.
there it is: Jesus wandered in his root towards Jerusalem, a desolate region of North Samaria. now it turns out that there is a region at the borders of Samaria with Galilee one-third of which is pretty much desolate, there are no villages there. and in the next two-thirds as you head south there are some villages. so it actually makes perfect sense that that would be a place in which a group of lepers might hang out. and furthermore, because it was between Samaria and Galilee that the lepers would be mixed, people of both Jewish and Samaritan inheritance, a heritage.
so Jesus is wandering through this. and it’s interesting that the Aramaic verb for wandering is the same verb as the verb we get in Hebrew nomad; it was abra – he wandered. so there’s a wandering Hebrew through this territory. and we’ll just have a little hint as to how some of these words play out later. As he entered the village, ten lepers approached him.
actually rather bizarre that the English translation here says ten lepers who were men. it could simply say ten lepers with the masculine but it has ten lepers men. presumably, the reason it says men is to indicate that they were of mixed background, there were no women present, but these men were of mixed background, rather than give their ethnicity. and they drew near but they kept their distance, they stood back from him. and the verb, apparently, is the one of being frightened of dogs, keep the distance.
and they called out, the Aramean is: they raised up their voices, as one raises one’s voice to heaven. and they said: Jesus, rabbi, rabbuni, – and not have mercy on us, which would suggest that they’re asking for forgiveness but have pity on us, which is the word you would call out if you want to a concrete practical solution. Help me out with my car wreck, it’s that sort of thing, rather than forgive me my sins for I am terrible. so they’re calling, they’re asking him to do something. They’ve presumably heard about him; do something for us – they’ve heard that he can do things. when he saw them he said to them: Go and show yourselves to the priests. Interesting… go and show your neck to the priests – you remember the Aramaic way of saying yourself, your soul, your ass is the neck – go show your neck to the priests. Interesting he doesn’t specify which priests. so he would presumably have been perfectly happy for those of Samaritan heritage to go to the Samaritan priests, and those of Jewish heritage to go to the Jewish priests. the point was that the priests had a bureaucratic function as the local registers of health issues.
so you need it in order before you could move back into acceptable society cleansed, purified from whatever the strange skin condition, which is not the same as Hansen’s disease as we now call leprosy. Whatever that strange condition was you needed the priest as the equivalent of the local health official to certify that you could now come back into ordinary society. he said: and as they went, they were made clean. and of course, that is how faith works for Jesus. he tells them to do something, he doesn’t say I cleanse you.
He says: just go and tell the priests, go and show yourself to the priests. And they believe him, they’ve already asked for pity, and they know that he can do this. And as they go they find themselves clean, on the route they find themselves clean. that’s how faith works: as we find ourselves walking towards something that we believe is good that is coming towards us, so actually we are transformed into that thing that is coming towards us. So there’s nothing wrong. 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. now, remember that this group of people was… apparently, this was quite a normal thing, groups of lepers would hang out together so as to help each other, basically they were social solidarity groups in a difficult place; they were the rejects and they would hang out and look after each other. And apparently during that rejecting they would pay little attention to who was a Jew, who was a Samaritan because they shared their rejectedness. So this one when he saw that he was healed so he’d head off with them, turns back and praises God with a loud voice. he realizes something wonderful has been done to him, and he comes back to Jesus, he prostrates himself at Jesus and thanks him. in fact, he’s very exaggerated, he acts as one would towards a king or towards God. this is a very very extravagant behaviour. and he was a Samaritan, in other words when people were cleaning he was the kind of person who they would want to be separate from.
And then Jesus asked; and in the Aramaic version it’s perfectly clear that Jesus is asking him. he says: weren’t ten of you healed or cleansed? The nine others, why have they separated themselves off and not come back and given thanks.
Then he turns to other people: this stranger… And the word is a tough word, it might be like a heretic, this outsider, it’s allogenous, this other. it’s a tough word. this other has come back. he was the only one among them who came back and gave glory to God. so it’s interesting that in the Aramean version those who set themselves apart and don’t come back to give thanks, they’re just heading off towards getting their cure – perfectly legitimate. but the same verb was setting themselves apart, is the same verb that gives us Pharisees – those who separate themselves.
The suggestion being that these people, once they’re purified, are perfectly happy to go back into belonging to the system where all the old ins and outs will function normally, whereas the Samaritan, one of the outsiders, has perceived something much bigger than that, what has happened. he’s not being put back into any system, he’s been brought to life by this, which is why he’s been able to come and give a completely wholehearted act of thanks to Jesus and to God. there’s been such a change in his life that he’s broken free of having to go along with what the others are doing. he’s now able to step out not concerned with whether he’s part of the group or not and come to give thanks. and so Jesus says to him: get up and go, your faith has saved you. Actually, it’s your faith that has given you your life.
And it’s interesting here that this is not just something the same as the others. he’s definitely saying something more here, at least again according to the Aramaic version. any of them have been cleaned, being clean, being cleansed, was a cultic matter; but this one shows that it’s more than being cleansed, he has actually recovered his soul, his sense of being human, his neck has been brought to life.
Jesus is observing this observing how the ones who fit back into the system… well, they’ve been cleansed. but this one, this one has 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 him with her tears and dried with her hair: I tell you that this woman, it must be because she has loved so much that she has been forgiven, you can tell that she has been forgiven because she has loved so much, rather than now she’ll be forgiven then she’ll be able to love.
This Jesus is noticing something with a delight seeing someone coming to life because their wholeheartedness has taken them way beyond what might have happened. this I think is something of what the Gospel of grace is about: Jesus is taking delight in us finding ourselves taken far beyond simple perfunctory thank-yous a lot and actually being able to live with enormous gratitude as we find ourselves brought to life.