The Long Walk Back

Well, good morning again, my fellow encouragers. Last week we stood on the Jericho road with a man who fell among thieves, and we said that Christ is the Samaritan who stoops down to bind him up, and the inn is the church where he’s carried to be cared for. Pardon given once, and care that goes on. Hold onto that this morning, because our gospel sets a second story right beside the first, and the two of them talk to each other.

Here’s the thesis, and I want to say it plainly before we go a step further. All ten lepers were cleansed. Every one of them. But only one was made whole, and the difference between cleansed and whole is the whole sermon. That difference is what churchgoing is for.

You know, all ten were cleansed. The skin came clean, the disease lifted, the flesh knit back together. That mercy fell on every one of them alike, and not one of them earned a drop of it. They stood afar off and they lifted up their voices, and that was the whole of what they could do. Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And he did. He sent them off to the priests, and as they went, they were cleansed. Pure gift. Grace all the way down.

But only one came back. Only one, and to that one alone Jesus says thy faith hath made thee whole. Cleansing was given to ten. Wholeness was given to faith. Let me say that again, because it’s easy to slide past. Cleansing went to all ten men without exception. Wholeness went to the one who turned around.

So the question this morning isn’t whether you’ve been cleansed. You have. If you’re baptized, if you’re a Christian at all, the mercy has already fallen on you. That part’s settled. The question is a harder one. Are you one of the nine walking away with clean skin and a light heart, or are you the one who stopped in the road and turned clear around?

Now some of you are already thinking, well, then I’d better try harder. I’d better be more grateful, screw up my will and make myself the tenth man. And I want to head that off, because Saint Paul heads it off for us in the epistle. He doesn’t tell us to grit our teeth. He tells us to walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. The walk. Not a heave of the will on a Sunday morning, but a whole manner of life, a going-along, step after ordinary step.

And notice how Paul draws it. The works of the flesh are many and scattered, and it’s an ugly, sprawling list. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, on down through wrath, strife, seditions, the whole tangle. But when he turns to the good, it isn’t a list at all. The fruit of the Spirit is one thing. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. All of it grows together off a single vine, and that vine is the Spirit’s own planting. The flesh scatters. The Spirit gathers into one.

And here’s the part that matters for the tenth leper. Paul says they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. Have crucified. Past tense. Done. We can’t crucify the flesh from the outside in. We can’t do it by our own force, no matter how hard we bear down. What we can do is reckon ourselves Christ’s, count it true, and live inside a thing that’s already been accomplished for us. The gratitude Paul’s after isn’t a mood we manufacture. It’s a fruit that grows.

So look again at these two men, last week’s and this week’s. The wounded man on the Jericho road couldn’t even ask. He was half dead in a ditch, past speech, past reaching out. The Samaritan came to him unbidden. This week ten lepers stand afar off and lift up their voices. Different situation, same order of things. In both stories the mercy comes first, free and undeserved, before anyone’s earned a thing.

But mark the difference, because it’s the point. The wounded man is carried. Lifted onto the beast, brought to the inn, laid down and cared for. He receives. The leper who is made whole comes back on his own two feet. He turned back, Luke says, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. One is carried in. The other walks back. And that walking back, beloved, that’s what the inn is for. That rhythm of returning, coming back again and again, week after ordinary week, to the altar and the pew, that’s exactly what the one leper did while the nine went on their way and never looked over their shoulder.

Now think about how that goes in real life. Think of somebody laid up sick. Down with a fever, flat on the back, and you know the prayers come easy then. Lord, if you’ll just get me through this, I’ll never miss a Sunday, I’ll mend that old quarrel, I’ll be a different man. We’ve all prayed that prayer. I’ve prayed it. And then the fever breaks. You’re up and around by Thursday, back at the desk by Monday, and by the next Sunday the whole thing’s gone clean out of your head. That’s the nine. Not wicked men, mind you. Just men who got well and forgot who made them well.

The one leper is the man who, halfway home and already feeling the health come back into his own legs, stops dead in the road, turns clear around, and walks all the way back to say thank you. And that walk back is the hardest walk there is, because nothing’s forcing it anymore. The disease isn’t driving him now. Only gratitude is. And that walk back is the one we make every single week to this altar.

Micah strips the whole thing down to the bone. Not thousands of rams, not ten thousands of rivers of oil, not the firstborn laid on the fire. He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. There’s that verb again. Walk. The very walk Paul commands. And the Psalmist asks who shall climb the hill of the Lord, and answers, the one with clean hands and a pure heart. That’s the moral condition for coming up to God, and here’s the wonder of the gospel. It’s the Samaritan stranger, the outsider, the one nobody expected, who unexpectedly meets that condition when he turns back to give glory to God.

And here’s the mercy underneath the whole command, and I don’t want you to miss it. What God requires, God gives. Augustine prayed it plainly, that God would grant what he commands and then command what he will. The demand was a gift long before it was ever a demand. Look at our Collect. Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command. Make us to love it. We don’t even generate the love. He works it in us. Grace all the way down.

And here at last is where the sermon comes to rest, at this table. The word Luke uses for what the Samaritan did when he fell at Jesus’ feet is eucharisteo. He gave thanks. That’s the name of the very thing we’re about to do here. Eucharist. Thanksgiving. When you come up to this rail in a few minutes, you are doing precisely what the tenth leper did. You are the one who turned around.

Gratitude fades fast when the trouble lifts. It’s easy to pray in sickness and go slack in health. And the remedy isn’t to squeeze out more feeling. The remedy is to come back. To return. To keep giving thanks in health the way we did in trouble.

So, my encouragers. If you’ve been cleansed, and you have, then turn around. If your prayer has gone forth to meet Christ, then come to this altar and let it rest here. If you would be made whole and not only made clean, then come, give thanks, and count it true.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.