Welcome, grace and peace to you my friends in Christ. It seems fall has finally arrived, and it’s wonderful to be back in community with all of you. After the business of the summer, and the almost chaotic start of back-to-school festivities, it’s comforting to be back in the rhythm of routine. From the predictable certainty of falling leaves, to the return of familiar faces at work and school, to  the highly controversial return of Pumpkin-Spice everything.  There is a comfort in returning to the beginning, especially when we are filled with the hope of a better year.

But for some of you, feeling hopeful may seem particularly difficult. Between the visits to the doctor and specialists, to the time spent on hold with the insurance company, to the hours spent worrying about the news that hasn’t come, sometimes there isn’t enough time for hope in our lives. If feeling hopeful seems to be just one more thing for wellness your to-do-list, this time of healing is for you.

Throughout my years of chaplaincy, I have often sat with people in the midst of their pain.  Physical, emotional, spiritual, I often met people on the worst day of their lives. From the diagnosis that couldn’t be true, to the treatment that didn’t work, to the bill they couldn’t pay, to the life they couldn’t save. It was somewhere in these ashes of despair that I heard God’s people clinging to whatever theology they could find above the dark waves of grief.

“I must deserve this.”

“God will never give me more than I can bear, so I must bear this.”

“God only gives his toughest battles to his toughest warriors.”

“This suffering must be part of His great plan.”

While the trained theologian may scoff at these confessions, even I have reached out for these beliefs in the midst of suffering and grief.  Looking for meaning, looking for a reason, looking for a “why”, those old sayings would pop into my mind and heart as I tried to weather the storm. When my father had his stroke, when we lost another pregnancy, when I received that unexpected hospital bill. I know what it feels like to be tossed by the waves of a relentless storm—reaching out for whatever feels like an anchor in the chaos of that cold, dark, storm.

It’s one thing to be on the other side of suffering, but when you are wading through the waters of chronic physical, emotional and spiritual pain, I understand how we might abandon the uncertainty of hope. Too tired to swim, too tired to pray, too tired to be thankful, too tired to see the healing already taking place, I know what it feels like to wonder if your suffering is part of some divine plan.

Here in this space….before turning to our gospel story of the lepers, I want to take a moment to reflect on two of these theologies of suffering.

“I must deserve this.”

The salvific work of Christ makes it clear that we simply do not get what we deserve. In fact, the good news of the gospel is that we are all recipients of his grace and mercy, irrespective of merrit.  We hear of this love in his parable about the vineyard workers, who all receive the same payment at the end of the day (Matthew 20:1-16). And we hear of this same loving grace in John, who opens his gospel with the revelation that “from (Christ’s) fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷ The law indeed was given through Moses, yet grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:16-17).

Even St. Paul proclaims this love in his letter to the Romans, saying “…For there is no distinction, ²³ since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴ they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:21-31).

Wherever you look in the New Testament, you will find echoes of Christ’s sacrificial love for us—not because we have earned it, but because his love and grace is bigger than anything we could imagine. No where do we find Jesus threatening his followers with suffering, illness or disease. When the sick are brought to him, he doesn’t subject them to a historical review of their public or private sins. No my friends, he heals them as an act of love. Jew, Gentile, sinner, saint, all are beloved and covered by his grace.

“God will never give you more than you can bear”

I hear this “passage” quoted often, but you won’t find it in any bible. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul promises these early Christians that “…The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NIT). I am not sure about you, but I really don’t hear anything about suffering as a badge of spiritual honor in there.

While we may never know how a passage about temptation became twisted into a theology of suffering, it’s essential that you know that God isn’t testing your abilities. There is no spiritual prize for suffering more than your neighbor, or weakness in asking for help. Rather, scripture makes it clear that we all have our limits, and sometimes our pain exceeds our ability to cope. One may only reflect on Christs’ plea in the garden or lament on the cross as evidence of his psychological and physical limits. When he cries “God my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34, see also Psalm 22), I hear the voice of someone whose suffering has exceeded their ability to cope on their own.

Luke’s Ten Lepers

Returning now to Luke’s story of ten lepers being healed, I wonder what theologies they held on to in their suffering? Was their affliction a punishment, a test, or the work of some cruel puppet master in the sky? We may never know what haunted these men in the small hours of the night, but we know that lepers were completely cut off from the lives they knew once the legions of leprosy began to appear.

I believe we all know that lepers were cast out of their communities, to live in desolate and isolated communes. But have you ever imagined being legally, socially, and physically separated from everyone you love? Gone are the days of hugs from your children,  family meals gathered around the table, or representation in your government.

Under Levitical law, lepers were required to tear their clothes, uncover their heads, and cry out everywhere they walked, “Unclean! Unclean!” For those who watched Game of Thrones, you are probably imagining the scene where a religious zealot marches a humiliated queen through the streets of her kingdom, as the cruel nun rings a bell and shouts “Shame, shame, shame!”

To become a leper was to become a living ghost—forced to live outside the city walls, relegated to the margins of society with nothing to look forward to but a slow, agonizing decline.

It is within this extreme isolation that Luke chapter 17 brings us. We find ten men bound together not by culture or friendship, but by a shared misery. Among them is a Samaritan—a man who, even on a healthy day, would be despised by the other nine Jewish lepers. However, shared suffering has a way of tearing down cultural walls, providing a lifeboat for shared survival.

Remembering that the law required these men to live in isolation, it’s incredible to know the good news of Christ couldn’t be kept from their camp of isolation.  And so, filled with desperate hope, they cried out from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

Even though the waves of physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering had pushed their “lifeboat” into the unknown darkness of a deep and terrible storm, they didn’t name a specific type of healing. Rather, they asked simply for mercy. With whatever small flame of hope that still burned within, they cried out to the graceful healer for mercy.

Imagine if those bad theologies had kept them tethered to the sackcloth and ashes of their dreadful existence? Imagine if the voices of a well meaning grandmother, a poorly informed pastor, or an ill-placed bumper sticker stopped them from seeking the mercy they desperately needed.

“I must deserve this pain. I must have done something to deserve this cancer, this miscarriage, this broken mind, this endless grief.”

“God never gives us more than we can bear, so I must be able to overcome this crippling anxiety and depression on my own”

“God only gives his toughest battles to his toughest warriors, so I must be weak and incapable. What a poor excuse for a Christian?”

“This suffering must be part of His great plan, so why try another treatment?  Why not just accept my fate, roll over, and be done with it?”

“Why choose hope and ask for mercy?”

Well, why not my friends? If you believe in the seaworthiness of your own ship, then continue sailing  into the unknown. Trust in the setting of your sails, the resolve of your crew,  the holding power of your anchor, and the confidence of your mind. But if you are willing to leave the familiar setting of your secluded camp beyond the walls, if you are willing to cross the distance and cry out for the healer’s mercy, if you are willing to go in faith, filled with the knowledge that his merciful healing is already taking place—then these altars of healing have been prepared for you.

Now, there is a second part to this story that I simply want to touch. While it  is easy to look at this story and judge the nine lepers who didn’t return. But if we are honest with ourselves, their reaction is tragically human. If you had been separated from your family, wouldn’t you also run towards home without another thought? They were clean! They could finally go home, kiss their spouses, hold their children, and reclaim their lives. They weren’t necessarily selfish; they were just distracted by the very blessing they had received.

But Jesus asks a question that should echo in the heart of every believer today: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?”

All ten experienced the power of God. All ten were cleansed, but only one man—the outsider, the Samaritan—turned around, fell at Jesus’ feet, and gave thanks. And because he did, he received the second part of the blessing, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” Your faith has made you, “σῴζω”(sozo).  

The Greek word sozo, is so much more than “cleansed.” Sozo is to be healed, to be made whole, to be saved, to be delivered from suffering, to be restored. While all ten received physical healing, only the Samaritan was restored.

Church, let us not be part of the missing nine. Don’t let your prayers be loud when you are in trouble, only for your worship to become silent when you are blessed. When God answers your prayers, heals your body, fixes your finances, or restores your family, don’t just rush back to your routine. Turn back. Lift your voice and let your praise be that guiding light to others. It’s a dark and stormy world out there, but thankfully there is healing for us all.

May you come to these altars and receive the healing and restoration, you may not even know you need.

Amen