Healing for the disease that threatens us most

Sermon for Trinity 14

Galatians 5:16-24  +  Luke 17:11-19

Today’s Epistle and Gospel have us thinking about diseases. I know, disease is already on our minds, but, while it’s hard to believe with the current hype, many diseases have threatened and still threaten the human race besides COVID-19. Bacterial diseases. Viral diseases. Fungal diseases. Genetic diseases. Some are fatal, some aren’t. Some cause much suffering, some cause little, and some cause none. Some are contagious in one way; some are contagious in another way; some aren’t contagious at all. Why do such diseases exist? The truth is, they all exist as secondary infections, caused by another disease, a primary infection that infects every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth, a disease that always causes suffering, a disease with a 100% mortality rate. It’s the disease of the flesh—the sinful flesh, sometimes called Original Sin, that we all inherited from our parents, and they from theirs, all the way back to our first parents, Adam and Eve. It’s the disease of our very nature, which includes both the lack of something and the presence of something. It includes the lack of true fear of God, love for God, and trust in God. And it includes the presence of evil desires, desires that run contrary to God’s will, desires that are always self-serving.

You can’t see this disease, not the disease itself. But you can always see some of the symptoms it produces, some of its “works.” St. Paul writes in the Epistle: the works of the flesh are obvious: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, murders, drunkenness, debauchery, and things like these. Just how deadly is this disease of the flesh which produces such symptoms? Again, Paul answers, I tell you ahead of time, just as I told you in the past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. “Will not inherit the kingdom of God.” That means this disease isn’t only deadly for our bodies, but for our eternal souls.

God, in the Old Testament, taught the people of Israel many things through object lessons, through visual aids and symbols and external rites. In order to teach them—to teach us! —about this extremely deadly, unseen disease of our flesh, the disease that’s behind every actual sin we commit, He used the visible disease of the flesh called leprosy. A person’s flesh would visibly become deformed and discolored and would sometimes rot away. Not only was it ugly, not only was it painful, but God’s own laws forced lepers away from society, away from the temple, away from their fellow citizens, away from the worship of God. To be isolated from society and from worship—we’ve gotten just a tiny taste of that over the last six months, haven’t we? You know how the quarantines and isolation have affected us all. Imagine being a leper, not just confined to your house, but kicked out of your house and home and city. What a terrible lesson God was teaching through that outward illness, a vital lesson that we all absolutely have to learn, that the disease of the flesh is the disease that threatens us all, that threatens us most.

The ten lepers in our Gospel had been living with that disease and its imposed isolation for we don’t know how long. But then they heard of a man named Jesus who could heal disease, and who was good and merciful and always ready to help any who came to Him. In fact, Jesus abounded in all the fruits of the Spirit mentioned in the Epistle: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and temperance. He was the only man on earth who had all those good fruits, and none of the works of the flesh. A perfect man. A man without the disease of the flesh, since He wasn’t born in the natural way, of a man and a woman.

The little bit of the Gospel that the lepers had heard was enough to kindle faith in their hearts. See how powerful the Word of God is! See what a powerful thing faith is! Although they suffer outwardly, they don’t despair. Instead, they have the faith and the courage to seek help in the one place where it is to be found. Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! The cry of the needy. The cry of faith.

And He did have mercy on them, once again, with a unique response. Go show yourselves to the priests. Why? Because the Law of Moses required it of those who were cleansed of leprosy; the priests were the ones designated by God to pronounce a leper unclean in the first place, and then to pronounce him clean and to perform the rites for ceremonial cleansing required by the Law. But the ten men weren’t cleansed at that very moment. They had to take Jesus at His word. They had to demonstrate more faith. And they did. They started off toward the priests who could examine them and get them back into society again, hoping in faith that they would be healed by the time they got there.

They must have been checking their skin every so often as they journeyed. At some point, they realized they were healed. But at that point, at that very moment of joy, the flesh took over again for nine out of ten. Their bodily flesh had been healed, but the disease of the flesh, their original sin was still there, urging them away from the God who had healed them, pressing them back to their own life, their earthly life. The faith they had shown just moments before shriveled up and died. Only one of the ten continued to battle against his diseased sinful flesh. Only one believed in Jesus, not just as a healer of the body, but as the true God and Healer of the soul.

And he was a Samaritan, Luke tells us, as Luke is often the Evangelist who points out Jesus’ mercy to the Gentiles, and the faith of the Gentiles contrasted with the unbelief of the Jews. Just as in last week’s Gospel we encountered a Samaritan showing his faith-righteousness by his righteous deeds, so today it’s a Samaritan who shows his faith by his deed of returning to give thanks to God at the feet of Jesus.

Jesus’ reaction is significant. Were not all ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there none found to return and give glory to God except for this foreigner? He was not pleased with those nine who gave in to their diseased sinful flesh and decided they had more important things to do than to give thanks to God for the great gift they had received from Him. He knew that the faith worked by His Spirit would produce thankfulness to God through the same Spirit. And notice, Jesus didn’t just expect them to give thanks to God wherever they were; He expected them to return to where He was to give thanks to God. People often think, “Why, I can give thanks to God anywhere, anytime. God is everywhere. God hears my thanks. I don’t need to go to church to give thanks to God.” It’s true, you can give thanks anywhere, anytime, and God will hear it. But if God has established a place on earth where He promises to be present, then He also expects that you’ll go and give thanks to Him there. And where has Jesus promised to be in a special way? Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. Or, This is My body. This is My blood, referring to the Holy Sacrament administered in His Church. Yes, the parable of the ten lepers teaches us, among other things, that God wants us to gather together for worship, to seek His mercy and to give thanks to Jesus for the great healing He has granted in the place where His Word is preached and His Sacraments are administered.

The one man in our Gospel did that, and Jesus gladly received his worship. He said to him, “Rise and go. Your faith has saved you.” How had it saved him? It saved him in three ways, actually.

First, it saved him from his leprosy, because it brought him together with Jesus. Second, it saved him from the condemnation he deserved because of his diseased sinful flesh and because of all the actual sins it had led him to commit. It saved him from condemnation, because it united him to Christ, the Mediator, the perfect man, who would give His innocent, undiseased life on the cross as payment for the world’s sins, and so through faith the man was forgiven by God and accepted as a son of God. Finally, his faith also saved him by keeping him from being dragged by his still-diseased flesh back into the works of the flesh, including thanklessness and self-centeredness. It kept him close to Jesus, and so it continued to support the New Man who walks in the Spirit.

As I said at the beginning, all of us are infected with the disease of the flesh, lacking by nature true fear of God, love for God, and trust in God, and inclined toward evil. Now, this disease isn’t like COVID, where people want you to assume you’re infected even if you’re asymptomatic. Because, with this disease, no one is asymptomatic. Again, the works of the flesh are obvious. In addition to the ones Paul mentioned in today’s Epistle, we could add nastiness, snobbery, worry, apathy toward God’s Word, and ingratitude.

God’s Word to mankind is, “You’re infected! You need help! And you will find it in Christ!” In him there is forgiveness, both for your actual sins and for the disease of original sin. That healing takes place immediately. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved!

But having sought and received His merciful forgiveness, understand that you still carry around the diseased sinful flesh, the “Old Man,” as Scripture sometimes refers to him. Your sinful flesh is never healed. It’s always godless, always proud. Your flesh is always fickle. Your flesh is always forgetful of the benefits of God. Your flesh is always thankless. It doesn’t need to be healed. It needs to be crucified, daily. It needs to be drowned daily and die—signified in Holy Baptism! —until it is sloughed off entirely when you die, never to plague you again. There is a warning in today’s Gospel not to receive God’s grace in vain. You have died to sin. How can you live in it any longer? How can you go back to thanklessness and serving yourself first? If you belong to Christ, then you have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. Don’t let them rule you! Don’t let them drag you away from Christ!

Instead, keep returning to Jesus for mercy. Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!, as we say every week in the Kyrie, and we mean it, don’t we? Keep returning to Jesus in thanksgiving. We do that in our Divine Service, too, but not only here. Let your thanksgiving lead to walking daily with the Spirit, rejecting the filthy works of the diseased flesh and thinking constantly about how the New Man can arise daily, how to apply the fruits of the Spirit to the situation at hand. Don’t think of the fruit of the Spirit as something you have to produce from yourself. He is the one who produces it in you. Think of it as something that the Holy Spirit has given you in order to put it into practice. Where can you put love into practice? Or joy? Or peace? Patience? Etc. Use these things, apply these things in your daily life. But always with a cry for mercy on your lips, and always with thanksgiving, on your lips and in your heart.

In this life, you won’t be rid of the disease that threatens us most, the disease of the flesh. But in Christ you have the healing of forgiveness, and by His Spirit you have the help you need in your daily struggle against the Old, thankless Man to hold onto faith, to hold onto Christ, and so also to live a life of thankfulness until we’re finally freed from every form of disease and trouble in the life to come. Amen.