More Than a Heeling

Looking at Luke 17:11–19 and Micah 6:1–8, we consider what God truly desires from us. The ten lepers were all healed by Jesus, but only one turned back to thank Him. His response reminds us that following Christ is about more than receiving His gifts. It is about recognizing the Giver. As sin can numb our consciences, repentance calls us to turn around, walk humbly with God, and allow Christ to make us whole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg3D9ooBQBM

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More Than a Healing

Good Morning. Our Old Testament lesson takes place in a courtroom, where Israel is on trial. This time, it’s not just idolatry (worshiping false gods). It’s ignoring their relationship with God and acting like sin won’t damage it. And if they sin, they can simply offer God some little “sumpin’-sumpin’” and make Him happy again.

This idea, if I do something God doesn’t like, I can just make it up later, repeats itself over and over through history. I sin, I punish myself, or do some work of charity, and God will be happy. Micah is the “stand-in” Prosecuting Attorney, and he puts his reader in the hot seat, grabbing us with an important, but simple question: What does God want from you? Do you know? Do you care?

His question in verse 6: With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself (present myself) before God on high?  But he doesn’t let us answer. Instead, Micah presses the question by listing increasingly impressive offerings.

“Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?” Good Start! But is a cow what God’s looking for? Maybe more!! “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?”

Well, he’s God, so he probably doesn’t need those either. Finally, he reaches the horrifying extreme represented by the false gods surrounding Israel: Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  The false gods of the people surrounding Israel always craved child sacrifice, but the true Lord abhors it. God is the giver of life, and isn’t impressed by how much we sacrifice. Instead, God tells them plainly what He desires.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of you.

To do justice, To love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Be Just in your life. Be kind to everyone. Walk humbly, and daily with God at your side. This is the kind of life that grows out of a changed person. A person who cares about others. A person who has learned compassion.

And that brings us to the ten lepers. Leprosy is one of the Bible’s Great Pictures of spiritual decay, as the disease causes nerve damage. Eventually, someone with leprosy can lose the ability to feel pain! And as unpleasant as pain is, it has a purpose. Pain tells you something’s wrong. You touch something hot and pain tells you “Pull your hand away!”

You step on something sharp and pain says, “HEY, deal with this wound!” But if you can’t feel the pain, you don’t know you’re injured.

There is a spiritual equivalent, Sin. Sin can make us numb. The first drink, the first bet, the first hour lost doomscrolling on a phone, (for those who know what that is) they all register. You think, “How did I waste my time or money doing this?” At first there is guilt, or at least awareness.

But do it enough times, and the same act stops registering. Not because it becomes less destructive, but because we’re less able to feel the damage it does to us. We can look fine, and still be spiritually dying because we have become numb to what once bothered us. Spiritual leprosy makes us comfortable with things that destroy us, and we stop thinking it’s wrong because the pain stopped a long time ago. The ten lepers didn’t have that luxury.

Nobody could hide physical leprosy. The disease cost them nearly everything: family, work, worshiping with the rest of God’s people.

So when they see Jesus, they cry out: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.

And Jesus heals them. All ten. Jesus’ grace did not depend upon how thankful they were going to be afterward. Another great example of Jesus’ love and compassion for complete strangers.

And He didn’t say, “I’ll heal you if you promise to come back and say thank you.” Nine of them went on their way. One turned around. And that one was a Samaritan. He comes back “praising God with a loud voice,” falls at Jesus’ feet, and gives Him thanks. And Jesus asks:

Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?

Nine lepers received something from Jesus and went on with their lives. One received something from Jesus, rejoiced, and realized that Jesus Himself was more important than the gift Jesus gave.

Nine received new skin.

One recognized the One who had given him new life.

Nine wanted what Jesus could give them. …

One wanted Jesus.

This story also gives us a wonderful illustration of the meaning of Repentance. Repentance is not an emotion, it’s not “feeling bad” about having done something. Repentance involves turning around.

It’s recognizing that the direction I’ve been traveling is not the direction I should keep going. It’s letting God reach the places we’ve grown numb, all the things Paul lists in our Epistle lesson like sexual immorality and drunkenness and jealousy and fits of anger, and saying, “Lord, there is something here I have grown numb to, help me to see it.”

That’s the Christian life. Not becoming better behaved or cleaner on the outside while staying numb underneath. It’s letting Christ reach places we’ve grown numb, and “turning around”/repenting, when we see a need to change.

The Samaritan was walking in the same direction as the other nine, toward the priest, toward his old life. But as he walked, he realized The Healer mattered more than the healing. So, he stopped, he turned around, and he went back to Jesus.

Do we mostly seek God so He can fix our circumstances, comfort us, solve our problems, and then keep walking like the nine? “Thank goodness that ordeal is over, now I can continue what I was doing!”

Or do we turn around, come back, and fall at His feet, not simply because our circumstances changed, but because we recognize what He’d done for us, and most importantly Who He is. 

And when we turn toward Him and walk humbly with Him, He doesn’t just declare us clean and justified. He begins to make us whole. He begins the work of sanctifying us.

He begins to reach the areas that have gone numb, so that our lives begin to reflect the One we’re following. We can do justice and love kindness because we have seen His Justice, and even more, His kindness and mercy toward us. Which brings us back to Micah.

What does God require of us? Not that we pile up religious activity to impress Him. He calls us to live differently because we are walking with Him:

Do justice. Love Kindness. And walk humbly, daily, in a relationship with God.