It was an awful disease to have back then. You were confined to be at the margins of society; hidden away in caves. Jesus passes by and ten come out to ask for healing and all 10 are healed and one returns to offer thanks.
Now there is much to process from this healing. One question that came to me for this story is who is in our cave? Who do we avoid and put into a cave to pass by? To not hear what they have to say, as if they are unclean and not worthy of being in our light. Because we know we all have caves we mentally put people in. This way they are in darkness and out of the way. We don't have to acknowledge or look at them or listen to what they have to offer.
I know I do it. When I was in CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) it was one of the things my supervisor pointed out to me. He could observe and see who I thought was worthy of listening to and providing healing to. Those are hard words to hear, but I think it is important for us to ask the question and begin exploring it. It helps us to recognize whether this is a rational thought or if it is out of fear.
Just think of the fear people might have had in Jesus welcoming and sending these unclean people calling to him. Back then they thought leprosy was contagious and that the person who had it had done something to deserve this link with dead skin and being removed from the community. This could be heart wrenching for families and hard on the people who had the disease. Loved ones would bring food and water yet stay as far from them as possible. The stigma of this has carried on well into the modern world where we keep those people far from us.
Next is the faith of these ten. They beg Jesus for healing. He doesn't give them instant healing, instead he sends them to be checked by the priests. They go when they are sent. They don't stand there questioning why they aren't being instantly healed. Instead they trust that Jesus sending them has already made them well. It is a tremendous amount of faith in what they have heard about this man that leads them to walk away. Walk away from the prison of being labeled unclean, walk away from the stigma of people announcing they are unclean as they walk along, walk away from being held as different and other.
We all come to places where we need this faith. Where the hurt someone else has caused has made us feel less than we really are. We feel unworthy and forget we are not bound by someone else's act of harm. We are stronger than we imagine, because there is a strength within we find when we can let go of the labels real or imagined that others put on us because of an incident. We can find healing and hope through support from others and sharing our story instead of keeping it in the cave within us to fester and rot away at us. Strength comes when we can speak about it.
In a book called The House of Lost Secrets the author Anstey Harris describes her main character as having a panic attack because of a secret she has never talked about. She lets it out to strangers and finally she can start healing and speaking about the event which has caused a lot of trauma and kept her from healing and her relationship with her best friend changes.
Lastly, the Samaritan is the only one who comes back to give thanks. Now most often we look at this as if the other nine should have come back as well. But there is another point we must think of because we are in Luke's gospel who uses the Samaritan as the example of faith. This is what is meant here. Why haven't the other nine come back to see that the one they think the least of is here thanking God for what was done for them. We are back to the cave.
Jews thought the Samaritans were not following the way of God. They didn't come to worship in Jerusalem and they had their own place of worship and their own traditions. They were unclean. In a cave because we can't see that they are exactly like us. Yet, this is the one who comes back to thank Jesus for what has been done. He realizes who Jesus is and the blessing of what God has done. We might learn something by looking at this person of faith.
I hope we learn something about the caves of people we pass by. Those we keep in the dark and don't allow into the light. These are the people we should be looking to for an example of faith. We just might be surprised by what we find in that cave and maybe we will learn what God has in store for us.
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