Ten were healed of their skin diseases, but
only one was saved. Ten were declared
clean and restored to society, but only one was said to have faith. Ten set out for Jerusalem to claim their free
gifts as they were told, but only one turned back and gave himself to the Giver
instead. Ten behaved like good lepers,
good Jews; only one, a double loser, behaved like a man in love.
There is a lot going on here. […]
There is a lot going on here. […]
I am one of the nine, but it is the tenth
leper who interests me – the outsider, the double loser, who captures my
imagination – the one whose disease I fear, whose passion confounds me, whom I
may not see at all because he does not need a priest to certify his cure.
Where are the
nine? Jesus asks, but I know where they
are. Where is the tenth leper? That
is what I want to know. Where is the one
who followed his heart instead of his instructions, who accepted his life as a
gift and gave it back again, whose thanksgiving rose up from somewhere so deep
inside him that it turned him around, changed his direction, led him to Jesus,
and made him well? Where are the
nine? where is the tenth? Where is the disorderly one who failed to go
along with the crowd, the impulsive one who fell on his face in the dirt, the
fanatical one who loved God so much that obedience was beside the point? Where did that one go?
Not that I am likely to go after him. It is safer here with the nine – we know the
rules and who does what. We are the ones upon whom the institution
depends. But the missing one, the one
who turned back or was turned away, or turned against – where did he go? Who is he, and whom is he with, and what does
he know that we do not know? Where are
the nine? We are here, right here. But where, for the love of God, is the tenth?
What has become apparent is that I know how
to be obedient but I do not know how to be in love.
--Barbara Brown
Taylor, The Preaching Life
Image source: https://redeeminggod.com/sermons/luke/luke_17_11-19/
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