What is joy? It’s one of those easy questions to ask but a somewhat hard thing to define. If I take an old school approach I turn to Webster’s dictionary. There I find, “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something good or satisfying; keen pleasure.” Okay. That sounds good. But how do I attain it? I think we all want to feel joy but it’s not something you can just get with a formula and calculations. While there are things you can do increase your chances of feeling joy, often it just happens unexpectedly. You can’t guarantee that it will happen. I think we’ve all felt joy doing something or being some place. Then sometime later we try to recreate it but it doesn’t work. Or perhaps it does work but with declining returns. Joy is something we want but can’t really get our hands on; and certainly can’t control.
I think that helps to prepare us to engage what is going on in our gospel reading for today. In his typical style of withholding essential information until just the moment when he decides to reveal it, Luke holds off telling us the ethnicity of the one leper who returned to give thanks to Jesus. We’re well into the story before we learn that the only character who is praised was a foreigner. That is jarring. But we’re okay with that because that’s the way good storytellers often do things. What we’re not okay with, but what Luke seems to have done, is to yank the logic of the story out from under us as well.
You’ll remember that for these last several chapters Jesus has been traveling to Jerusalem with a (possibly large) group of followers. He’s talking and teaching along the way. He also eats meals in various places. He gets into some controversies with members of the Pharisee sect. As the gospel reading for today begins, he’s back on the road. We’re told that he’s traveling between Samaria and Galilee. So far so good.
Jesus has entered a village and is approached by ten lepers. Leprosy could refer to any number of skin conditions. Some of them were contagious and deadly. Everyone diagnosed with leprosy was separated from the healthy population. People with leprosy would often band together into groups apart from the rest of society. Since their condition may be contagious they knew they could not come into close proximity with others. We understand perfectly then when we’re told the ten lepers cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” They’re keeping their distance. Here, though, Luke is leading us down a false path. That Jewish people would recognize Jesus and call him master is something we’d expect. So our minds automatically, yet incorrectly, make the assumption that all ten are Jewish.
Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. Luke continues to allow our assumption to go unchallenged. Yet he is pulling us into a trap. Both Jews and Samaritans had priests. In both cases priests were the ones who were to make examinations of people with leprosy. Only a priest could declare a person cured. The only difference between Jews and Samaritans in this regard is that Jewish people would go to Jerusalem to be examined by a priest, and Samaritan people would go to Samaria to be examined by one of their own priests.
Again, Luke is allowing the story to develop before us with our incorrect assumptions intact. The story continues as we’re told that as the lepers went on their way they were cured. That was a great thing to happen to them! Then we’re told that only one of them returns. That one, despite not being examined by a priest, knows that he is no longer contagious. So this time he comes right up to Jesus, falls at his feet, and gives thanks with a loud voice.
But there is where Luke pulls his trick of giving us the detail that the man was a Samaritan. We realize that we made a reasonable, but incorrect, assumption. We might be a little annoyed at being tricked like this, but that’s just what Luke does. Then, almost at the same moment we realize we’ve made a mistake, Luke also yanks the logic out of the story. Jesus says, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
At the same moment that we’re surprised that a foreigner, who shares neither religion nor nationality with Jesus, is the only one who is being thankful, we’re also a little puzzled with Jesus. Didn’t he just tell them all to go and show themselves to the priests. As the story is told, the Samaritan realizes his cure along the way. So presumably the rest are still on their way. They are directly obeying Jesus’ command. They are following orders. Yet now Jesus seems upset that they haven’t disobeyed him and returned with gratitude. Plus, if they did have a contagious disease, is it not smart to get an expert opinion before going back into contact with people?
It is the Samaritan who is, in a sense, being disobedient to Jesus. It is the Samaritan who is putting people’s health at risk. Yet Jesus commends him for it! What is going on here?
When I encounter things in the Bible that don’t make sense I turn to the experts. Over the years I have amassed an arsenal of commentaries written by experts who pour over the Bible’s stories for their whole lives. They almost always have insights I can use to make sense of what is going on. True, sometimes they are stumped. Some things they cannot decipher no matter how hard they try. But even so, they can usually make some educated guesses. So how do they handle this breakdown of logic in this story?
Let’s say – not very well. Many just ignore it. Friedrick Schleiermacher, a famous highly influential German theologian from centuries ago, concludes that the story is “negligently told.” (Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8, Pg. 297)
That’s not much help! No matter how much logic and brain power you apply to this text it leaves you baffled. But George Arthur Buttrick has what seems to me to be the right idea. He suggests that the story is not negligently told at all. Instead, it is expertly told, just as all of Luke’s gospel is. And Luke has deliberately shaped the story so as to trip us up in our assumptions of the nationality of the lepers, and then almost immediately afterwards, logic drops out from under us as well. Why? Because Luke wants us to realize something that logic cannot analyze.
I started off asking what is joy? Now I ask, what is gratitude? You can teach a child to say thank you. A child may obey you in it and learn to express gratitude. But is that really gratitude or is it just social conditioning? I’m sure we’ve all said thank you after receiving a gift, when our real thoughts are that we can’t wait to throw away or donate the item as quickly as possible!
But what is real gratitude? What is that deep feeling of thankfulness, and even joy, at receiving something? It is always something unexpected, and something that makes us feel like we are forever in debt to the person who gave it. We feel completely undeserving of it.
Perhaps all of the lepers who were cleansed felt thankfulness and some gratitude to Jesus. But it is only the Samaritan who is so overwhelmed with gratitude that he disobeys Jesus’ words and comes back, disregarding boundaries of safety, and throws himself at Jesus’ feet.
I don’t believe this story is intended to be a racist story. I don’t believe Luke is criticizing Jews and uplifting Samaritans as if they were somehow better. But Luke is making use of the general Jewish disdain for Samaritans. He is showing that God’s grace can appear in outsiders and in unexpected places. God’s grace is not the property and privilege of a select group. God’s grace is not logical. It is not controllable. It is not predictable. It is God’s sovereignty.
Try not to be too jealous when it appears that God’s grace is coming to others who seem less worthy than you think you are. Do not become distressed that you cannot use logic to manufacture joy or gratitude within yourself. Luke has told us a story that breaks the rules of proper storytelling to show us that God is not bound by the rules.
And ultimately, whether we ever feel like we’re receiving God’s grace or not, here is the ultimate truth. Death is the end of us. That is fact. That is logic. That is the rules. But it is God’s promise of irrational, illogical, impossible, and overwhelming grace, that says that death is not the end. Eternal life is grace.
That is our hope, our dream, our striving, and our joy. It is God’s promised joy for us all.
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