ONEFAMILY Outreach

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ONEFamily Outreach exists to "Connect Kids to Community and Communities to Kids." Have you considered having a mission week for your church? This is one of my favorite "in-depth" ways of reaching out with the Great News of Jesus Christ. Activities can include:

Interactive and participative praise concerts for children, youth, and families;
Morning staff studies on "Authentic Leadership" and "Building a Culture of Intentional Courtesy"
Brown-Bag Luncheon Studies for your community focusing on our scriptural call to justice;
In-service for your volunteers or teachers on reaching today's youth and families with the vibrant, living, message of Jesus Christ;
Evening parent seminars based upon two of Jerry's recent books: "Significant Conversations: Helping Young People Live Meaningful Lives," and "The Deepest Longing of Young People; Loving Without Conditions."
Local networking with other area groups (secular or faith-based) regarding prevention and intervention strategies for high-risk and incarcerated youth;
Humorous and thought-provoking school assemblies (secular or religious, elementary through high school).

ONEFamily Outreach is primarily supported by your donations and by trainings, workshops, retreats and concerts.

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The Samaritan Leper

Luke 17:11-19

Proper 23c

Luke 17:11-19

[Lk 17:11] While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. [12] As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; [13] and they raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” [14] When He saw them, He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were going, they were cleansed. [15] Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, [16] and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. [17] Then Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine – where are they? [18] “Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” [19] And He said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.” (NAS)

Luke 17:11-13

Ten leprous men who stood at a distance

There is much more to this story than the “ungrateful nine.” Their lack of gratitude is barely worth noting as it is so representative of the way of man.

What is truly worth noting – and truly exceptional – is the incredible stretch that Jesus made to help these ten lepers. That is the eternal lesson here: God’s incredible and continual compassion to a hard-hearted and often ungrateful people.

Let’s see how hopeless the situation was for the ten lepers:

They were lepers and as such had been chased from their families and communities who lived in dread of this disease.
They were sinners in the eyes of people their time. These people believed that disease was tied to sinfulness. Many believed that if you were “right with God” bad things would not befall you. It was a “blame the victim” mentality that still seems prevalent with diseases like AIDS and alcoholism or situations like poverty today.
They were refugees. They apparently did not belong in Galilee or in hated Samaria. Their plight made them rejected by both nations. They banded together in a community that shared only misery, hopelessness and rejection. Sorrow was their only bond.

Into this situation came the Prince of Peace; the only Son of God Most High. He brought light to the darkest place on earth with no expectation of gratitude or worship. He loved them – not for his sake – but freely for theirs.

What God of myth or human creation is so compassionate? He provides healing in the darkest place to people who lack gratitude or even simple decency.

Do I love like that?

Will this week find me touching others misery, hopelessness and rejection, even if (in turn) they reject me? Do I love so liberally or do I have a hidden price in the back of my mind?

“Lord, quicken my heart for those places. Help me love without expectation of worship or reward.”

Luke 17:14-16

[14] When He saw them, He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were going, they were cleansed. [15] Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, [16] and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan.

And he was a Samaritan.

Ultimately, this story is incorrectly interpreted if we think it is about the ten lepers. Instead, we must realize it is about you and I. By all rights, we are the unclean lepers as far as God should be concerned. We wear the filth of a lifetime of personal sin, generational sin and corporate sin. We are the outcasts who teeter on the border of life and death. We are the rejected ones and are only cleansed because God irrationally came to us.

The greatest downfall of religion is when the religious forget their own sinfulness. Too often we think of ourselves as the Messiah sent to save lepers. However, true religion begins only when see ourselves as the unclean and hopeless lepers in need of Christ. And not only as lepers, for the only leper who “got it right” was the one who was both leper and Samaritan. He should have been doubly rejected by the Son of Israel’s national God; thrice-rejected if you remember the rejection that Jesus received at the hands of the Samaritans in Luke 9:52-53:

Luke 9:52-53

[52] And He sent messengers on ahead of Him, and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Him. [53] But they did not receive Him, because He was traveling toward Jerusalem.

The Son of God held no grudge, recognized no borders, and carried no prejudices. That is the example we are called to follow.

It would be hubris to think that I was Jesus to the lepers. I must strive to remember that I am just a leper and a spiteful Samaritan one at that. It is only in the attitude of gratefulness (what the Gospel writers termed “Eucharisteo”) that I will find myself – and my true healing – in Jesus.

My place before Christ is a place of humility and gratitude. That is where I will finally discover the faith that heals.

Luke 17:17-19

[17] Then Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine – where are they? [18] “Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” [19] And He said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.”

“Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.”
I feel such sorrow in this story for the nine because they would never know what made them well. It wasn’t an intermediary who cleansed them (the priests who, by law, Jesus sent the lepers to so that they could be declared clean). It wasn’t the ritual that cleansed them. It was their faith that cleansed them and had they only known this; they would have carried this treasure for eternity.

How sad it is to go through life without knowing what can free us and what can make us whole. How incomplete we are when we think we will be well only if we have the right car or house, know the right person or practice the correct rituals.

How sad when we don’t realize that the attitudes of gratefulness and humility before God are our greatest assets.

They are assets available to us despite our circumstances, possessions, or positions. Here’s the point of the story: Even the lowest leper, the Samaritan Leper, can have joy if he only embraces the attitude of gratefulness and humility [eucharisteo] before God.

Copyright Notice

Scripture Quotations noted from NASB are from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION of the bible. Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

The New Testament Greek Lexicon based on Thayer’s and Smith’s Bible Dictionary plus others; this is keyed to the large Kittel and the “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.” These files are public domain.

The Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon is Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Lexicon; this is keyed to the “Theological Word Book of the Old Testament.” These files are considered public domain.