Welcome to Nassau Church

Our second scripture lesson comes to us from Luke’s gospel, chapter 17, beginning with the 11th verse.
Hear the Word of God.

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.
As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him.
Keeping their distance, they called out, saying,
“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

When Jesus saw them, he said to them,
“Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
And as they went, they were made clean.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed,
turned back, praising God with a loud voice.
He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.
And he was a Samaritan.
Then Jesus asked,
“Were not ten made clean?
But the other nine, where are they?
Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Then Jesus said to him,
“Get up and go on your way;
your faith has made you well.”

Just off the highway in Elgin Illinois are the headquarters of the Church of the Brethren. It’s tucked in a beautiful wooded area close to the highways’ exit and within the complex of offices and administrative workrooms sits the chapel.
I visited this chapel about six years ago and I’ve never seen such a sacred space. Without exaggerating – it was astonishing and quite unexpected, for in the middle of a contemporary denominational headquarters, is a chapel of ancient stone; dark and cool; silent and welcoming; holy and simple. Standing at the entrance of this chapel is like being transported into another time; for it’s a small, rustic, rough-hewn sanctuary our ancestors would have worshiped in.

As you look up front toward the pulpit, you are immediately drawn to the small squares of beautiful stained glass windows, set into the stone. Being about 1 foot by 1 foot, and settled back into the stone about 1 foot, the colorful glass is thick and chunky; it catches the light and holds onto it.

You can’t help but be drawn in, to walk forward down the center isle; and that’s when the extraordinary happens; when you become aware of all the other small windows that come into view, beside you, above you, surrounding you. Unless you=re standing at a particular angle, the windows and symbols are hidden from view, but once you step farther into the sanctuary - the windows are revealed; the symbols are discovered. Each individual window holds a Christian symbol: fish and loaf; Bible and cup.
I have rarely seen anything so thoughtfully designed for the glory of God. The gifts of God, for the people of God were everywhere. The wheat and cross, the boat and net. A holy place, tucked between a freeway and the woods, where once you take a step forward in faith, something comes into view that was not there before. Something comes into view that was not there before.

So it was with the lepers. As Jesus steps forward into their village, something comes into view that was not there before. The lepers, approaching, yet keeping their distance, call out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
Jesus approaches, not keeping his distance. He sees them, meets them, and in his inevitable way, transforms their vision of the world and themselves.
Something comes into view that was not there before.

Jesus knew in their approach, however tentative, something would come into view that was not there before. And what came into view was the radical power of Jesus’ pastoral care; a healing unleashed, in the form of a cleansing, so therapeutic, that it gave ten lepers the key to purification and therefore a means to be restored to the Temple - a return to their spiritual home. The Book of Leviticus mandates that lepers Ashall wear torn clothes and let the hair of their head hang loose, they shall cover their lips and cry, "Unclean, unclean." They shall remain unclean as long as they have the disease; and shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:45-46)

By the laws of Leviticus, lepers are to be separated from family, work, and sanctuary; and are forced to live as those who mourn - except the death they mourn is their own; they live as those who have died. As Jesus directs them to go and show themselves to the priests, he quite literally returns them to the land of the living.
Something comes into view that was not there before: one of them turns around. One of them, when he sees his healing comes back, praising God with a thunderous voice, falls on his face to the dirt and offers thanks and thanksgiving. His thanks isn’t a tidy little speech but a stammering babble of praise and a puddle of tears in the dust; it’s a splutter of cries and a fall-on-your-face kind of gratefulness. It’s been said that praise is “the jazz factor” of faith, well this man’s freedom has found its voice and is having its debut at Jesus, feet.(1)

And what on earth came into view that compelled this sole Samaritan, this lone foreigner, to discover what the others did not? Here is a man of the wrong race, wrong religion, wrong worship in the wrong place. The major point of contention between Jews and Samaritans was the proper place for the worship of God: for the Jews, Jerusalem in Judea; for the Samaritans, Mount Gerizim in Samaria.

The nine Jews make a B-line for Jerusalem. Only the Samaritan relocates worship in the presence of Jesus - the restorer of life. Only one recognizes that the place to worship God is at the feet of Jesus of Nazareth.(2) Only one returns for the doxology and it is indeed doxology time: Praise God from whom all blessings flow! It’s time, as Gerard Manley Hopkins said, to “deliver the doxology, early now, long before death; give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, give it back to God.”

“But weren’t there ten? I’m sure there were ten. I thought I had counted ten,” Jesus says, sounding a little playful. “Where are the nine?” Well, it’s perfectly obvious where the nine are. The nine are doing what Jesus told them to do. They are literalists, God love them; they are doing their duty as commanded, found their cleansing on the road, and seem to think that staying on the road is the just the thing. Like Forrest Gump with a football, they have scored a touchdown, crossed the goal and go right on running, clear out of the stadium, where the celebration happens without them.

Barbara Brown Taylor says that the question among us is not “Where are the nine?” but “Where is the tenth?” “Where is the one who followed his heart instead of his instructions?” Doesn’t the church resemble a dutiful procession of cleansed lepers who are “doing the right thing by the temple?” Where is the one who wheels round to return the wildness of love?

You see, Jesus requires obedience, but he loves our jazz; the jazz of our answering gladness; when our hearts break into praise and we fall with abandon at the feet of Love. (3) At the feet of Love our wounds and afflictions, our brokenness and loneliness, are seen and discovered, recognized and acknowledged. The Word becomes flesh and dwells among us.

When it’s too dark to see, our God steps forward, and something comes into view that wasn’t there before - like stained glass tucked into a holy place; like the jazz of our answering gladness. And when we finally see what God has prepared us for,
we pause, turn around,
and fall at the feet of our Savior –
thanking and praising,
that we belong to him,
and he to us.
Thanks be to the God of the lepers.

1 Paul D. Duke. “Down the Road and Back.” The Christian Century, September 27, 1995.

2 Dennis Hamm. What the Samaritan Leper Sees, CBQ 56, 1994, pp. 273-287.

3 Paul D. Duke. “Down the Road and Back.” The Christian Century, September 27, 1995.

4 Dennis Hamm. What the Samaritan Leper Sees, CBQ 56, 1994, pp. 273-287.

Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission