Where Are the Nine?

This week many people will be going “over the river and through the woods” to grandmother’s house. Instead of a horse with sleigh that knows the way, it’ll be planes, trains, pick-up trucks, and automobiles that won’t stop for “doll or top,” for this is Thanksgiving Day. (OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS, originally the NEW ENGLAND BOYS SONG ABOUT THANKSGIVING DAY was written by Lydia Maria Childs as a poem, but later became a popular song for Thanksgiving.)

Hopefully most people will have a safe and pleasant holiday, a holiday that is unique to America.

Sadly, Americans have become less thankful as our prosperity has increased. It’s like we’ve become entitled to God’s blessings and don’t need to be grateful. Instead of giving thanks we spend too much time whining and complaining, and it seems that Christian people have joined the chorus of whiners the most. Instead of going “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house” to join in giving thanks, we go to grandmother’s table to talk about all that is wrong.

On the other hand, maybe our lack of thanksgiving for our blessings is not unique to our society at all. Maybe there have always been ungrateful people; people who felt entitled to their blessings instead of feeling blessed that they have them.

What do you say? Let’s go to the Bible, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll learn something about ourselves and the society around us. The stories are literally thousands of years old, but they have stood the test of time and are still as relevant in the twenty-first century as they were in the first.

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. This would be his last journey; for once he was in the city he would be arrested, tried, convicted, and executed by crucifixion on the orders of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. But lots of things happened on the road to Jerusalem, and a great deal of the teachings of Jesus—in particular his parables—come to us on the way to the center of worship for the people of Galilee and Judah. Between Galilee and Judah was the region of Samaria—a different people, a different center of worship, and a different way of worship. There was great animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans. Many of them hated each other for no other reason than their ethnic background. Prejudice is a terrible sin, and it extracts a great price.

Somewhere in the region between Samaria and Galilee, Jesus and his band of rag tag followers—twelve disciples, at least three women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna, and others who traveled either part of the way or all the way with Jesus— entered an unnamed village.* As they arrived at the entrance to the village, ten people with leprosy approached Jesus. These ten took responsibility for their illness and kept their distance; they didn’t whine and complain about the law that tried to keep people safe from this horrible illness.

Here’s the law: “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:45-46) It was bad enough to have this flesh eating disease, but having to live away from family and friends and perhaps to die alone made it even worse. Plus there was the indignity of having to cry out, “Unclean, unclean!” Obviously most people avoided any contact with these people struggling with this horrible illness that took their physical health, caused them great emotional stress, and brought on them the great indignity of having to yell out to people that they were, not only ill, but unclean as well.

The word about Jesus was spreading throughout the country-side as merchants and other travelers went from village to village telling the amazing stories about this man, this unusual rabbi, Jesus from the town of Nazareth. So the ten lepers outside of this village had heard about him, and now word had reached them he was on the way. This was their chance. They knew there might not be another. (There wouldn’t be. He left there and went on to Jerusalem where he was executed.) “Today is the day of salvation.”

“They called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’” It is interesting to note that they didn’t ask Jesus to heal them; they asked him to have mercy.

Jesus gave an interesting response, “When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’” Why? Why didn’t Jesus just say, “Be healed,” and let them go back home with their disease gone. We go back to the law, and the law required a priest to declare a leper clean. (Jesus said, “I came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it.”)

So they went. Were these ten desperate? Yes. Were they willing to try most anything to end their horrible ordeal? Yes. So when Jesus said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” they didn’t quibble about it, they went.

“And as they went, they were made clean.” Praise God! Amen! Hallelujah! The sick have been cured. Their skin is without the ugliness of the flesh eating disease. The great ordeal of being separated from family and friends has ended. No longer do they have to go through the indignity of yelling out to any passersby, “Unclean, unclean!”

What a day! It was a day to rejoice and give thanks! Bring on the turkey and the pumpkin pie.

“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.”

Yes! He knew what Jesus had done for him through the power of God. He turned back as he was declaring praise and glory to God shouting with a loud voice; for he wanted everyone to hear and know. He fell at Jesus’ feet and thanked him for making him, not only well, but “clean.” And oddly enough, he was a Samaritan, a foreigner, a man who was despised for being born into the “wrong” family in the “wrong” place.

Wait! What’s missing here? “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?’”

“Where are the nine?”

Sitting around Thanksgiving tables whining and complaining.

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