When the leper who is an
alien (an enemy, a Samaritan) in Jesus’ land comes back with thanksgiving
because he is healed, Jesus defines faith. Jesus says, “Your faith has made you
well.” The evidence of healing and of faith is gratitude.
Luke 17:11-19
The ten lepers heed Jesus’
command to go show themselves to the priest. They simply obey. The physical
healing is described in a passive way: “they were made clean.” Nothing the
lepers do is named as the cause of their being made clean.
The Torah demanded that newly
healed lepers be inspected by priests trained in detecting whether the diseased
person was still a risk to the community (Lev. 13). Only in setting out, in
obedience to Jesus' command, do they discover themselves healed of their
affliction. Thanks to Jesus, the road to Jerusalem becomes for them the road to
salvation, which in its most original sense connoted well-being and healing in
the here and now.
Despite their worship of the same
God and their reverence for the same Torah, the divisions between Jew and
Samaritan were often greater than those between Jew and gentile. Samaritans
were thus considered by Jews to be inferior, both in terms of their worship and
their lineage. Yet Jesus makes no distinctions—the healing he offers is for
all, without distinction. . .
It is the Samaritan, the one
thought to be inferior, who alone among all the others, thinks to return to
Jesus to express his gratitude. Jesus. . . applauds the Samaritan for his
faith, which has “made you well.”
For Luke's community, then, it is
faith which saves, not only from disease and physical isolation, but from that
spiritual isolation which would separate the members of the Christian community
into “superiors” and “inferiors.” Neither distinctive culture, nor worship
style, nor ethnic background matter to Jesus, but only gratitude, the gratitude
motivated by a faith flowing from one's own encounter with the Lord Jesus. – Lisa
Marie Belz
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
The story of Naaman, the enemy of Israel, called upon to do
a simple thing in order to be healed shows again the scriptural emphasis on
heeding the wisdom of those who are not held in high esteem. The enemy is the
teacher.
It was through Naaman, after all,
that the army of Aram successfully raided Israel, taking as booty Israelite
captives as their slaves (5:1–2). Nonetheless. . . Israel's defeat by its
enemies becomes the unanticipated occasion of the healing of an enemy of Israel
by Israel's own God, through the agency of an Israelite prophet, and the
cleansing waters of the Jordan, Israel's major river. While Aram may be
stronger than Israel militarily, it has neither God nor prophet who can cure
its military heroes from their leprosy. . . Naaman is made to be dependent upon
Israel's largesse for a cure.
Naaman is too proud, of course, to do a simple thing. In the
same way, many of us find it too difficult to get healthy by following the common
advice: exercise enough, eat fresh foods, get rest, and pray. We prefer
something more complicated––perhaps in keeping with the self-esteem of a
general like Naaman. But his servants urge him to trust the instructions of his
enemy’s prophet.
Thus the great and mighty warrior
prince Naaman . . . is made to recognize his human limits as the tables are
overturned and the defeated are exalted to a position of honor as healer, wise
counselor, and unique agent of the God of Israel's universal salvation. – Lisa
Marie Belz
2 Timothy 2:8-15
When we are called to “get over ourselves” and instead
embrace struggles as teachers, we come to learn what Paul urged his sisters and
brothers in Christ.
From personal experience, Paul
knows that hardship can indeed bear positive fruit, which is why he can insist
that “The saying is sure: if we have died with him [Christ], we will also live
with him.”
. . . This is not ordinary life, bios, but divine life, designated here
and throughout the New Testament as zoe.
Christian life is not about warring over wordy doctrinal disputes. . . it is to
be about sharing in the life of Christ for the entirety of one's life. – Lisa
Marie Belz
Lisa Marie Belz, an Ursuline Sister from Cleveland, Ohio, is assistant professor of
religious studies and graduate ministry at Ursuline College, Pepper Pike, Ohio.
Homily
Service 40, no. 11 (2007): 22-32.
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