It’s tempting to moralize out of this text.  There is the urge for every preacher to read this text to the congregation and then begin the scolding lesson.  With high moral authority, the preacher admonishes: "You ought to be more thankful for what you have!”  That’s how my mother used to put it.   “You ought to be more thankful for what Jesus has done for you!" or "Don't be ungrateful like so many people, be more like the one who came back to return thanks to the Lord!”

In fact, this text has its usual, annual outing on Thanksgiving day in the lectionary, where it is placed so that it can be used in this way.  No question about it, we all have plenty of room for improvement when it comes to expressing thanks and praise to God.  We all could do better.  But I’m not so sure that’s the intention of Luke in this text, especially given the common themes around the last, the lost and the least which we’ve been discovering as we’ve looked at these passages that are found only in Luke’s gospel and not the others.

These lepers, they were all the same.  Their infected skin, grafted them together into a small, contagious community all their own.   An island of the outcast.   Cast out from every public place, because they were reasoned to be ritually, spiritually unclean.  Ten lepers, disfigured and thus easily identified . . . and excluded.

These ten, all covered with sores, rotted flesh pulling from their withered limbs.  The same.  All ten out here…”on the way” to Jerusalem.  Unable to occupy any populated area.  The same.    All of them crying out as Jesus happens to walk nearby.  “Have mercy on us!”  They are without individual identity.   They are ten.   They are unified in their unclean state.

The healing is a simple one, really.   Jesus does not touch them.  Does not tell them they are healed.   All he says is, “show yourself to the priest.”

This is the only way back for them.   The only way they might have their identity back, their homes and families back, their place in the larger community back, their place in the Temple back.  If a priest declared them clean after an appropriate examination, they would be able to fit back in.

As they were on their way, they were made clean, Luke tells us.

But here is where they are no longer “the ten,” as they are healed.  You see, when they were leprous, when they were sick, when they were unclean, when they were outcasts, they were the ten.  But the moment they are healed, something divides them.  They become the nine and the one.

Why?   You ever wonder?   

This is where we often assume that it is an attitude of gratefulness that divides them.  One who is grateful, returning to his savior, and giving thanks for his healing.   Nine who are no where to be found, assumed to be ungrateful. 

But that’s not exactly true.   The nine are not “no where” as we might first assume.   Where would they be?  That’s the question Jesus asks, after all.  “Where are the other nine?”   Well, where are they?    Right!—the temple. 

Showing themselves to the priest as Jesus had directed.   Getting their life back.   It’s too much of a jump of logic to assume they are ungrateful.   Some might have been, others might have been ecstatic.  We don’t know, because they weren’t there, with Jesus.  They were in the Temple.  The nine who went on their way and did what Jesus told them to do weren't necessarily being ungrateful.  They were doing the normal thing in such circumstances.  Surely they would thank the priest who declared them clean and give thanks to God, perhaps with an offering in the Temple.  That's just the way things were done, and everyone knew it.

But this one, the one who returns, Luke makes sure to point out, this one is a Samaritan.  You understand?   Luke wants us to know that this one is divided off from the ten not simply by a desire to express his thanks, but is divided off because he cannot go to the temple.   He doesn’t worship in the temple.   He isn’t of the faith.   You see, sick, they are all outcasts.  All ten.   But as they are healed, they become nine reclaimed, and one still outside.   The Samaritan, the foreigner is the one who comes back, because he has no where else to go.  Who will proclaim him healed?  Who will see his youthful, new skin and tell him that he is no longer unclean?

That’s precisely what Jesus does.   As the Samaritan shows himself to Jesus, in effect, he was showing himself to the priest!  Jesus is the priest.  In Hebrews, Jesus is referred to as the priest above all priests. 

 Hebrews 7:23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

 26Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

As priest, Jesus commends the man’s faith, declares him whole and sends him straight home.  And by home, I mean he sends him to his family, his community.  Sends him to where he belongs.  Home is where one is loved.  He is well, and he is welcome to reclaim his life.

So as we think of the other unique stories we’ve visited in the gospel of Luke, the stories of the last, the least, the lost, might we begin to see and hear this story with new eyes and ears?   Jesus Christ, not only as healer who offers compassion even when doing so is in direct conflict with the law, but Jesus the priest to the unclean, the outcast, the foreigner?

I mentioned earlier Scripture that defines Jesus as the ultimate, holy priest.  Scripture also teaches us that we, the church, participate in the work of God as the body of Christ until Christ returns again.   1 Peter tells us:

 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

We are the body of Christ, and as such, we are the priesthood of all believers.  And as such, our ministry is called to reflect the ministry of the ultimate priest, Jesus.  As Jesus was priest to the unclean, the outcast and the foreigner, are we willing to be priests to the unclean, the outcast and the foreigner?

Are we ready to live out the role of priest to those in our midst who live beyond the boundaries?  Who are the one in ten who might otherwise be lost?   Wait a minute, one sheep of a heard of 100?   One coin from a pure of ten?   Where have we heard that?  Does that sound familiar?   From last week’s text, Luke 15?  Remember? Remember the rejoicing when one is found?   When one is claimed?   When one is returned to where it belongs?  

We might have missed that if we hadn’t been reading these unique stories in the gospel of Luke.

Ten lepers.   Nine sent home, clean and restored by the priests in the Temple.  One sent home, clean and restored by the holy priest of the unclean, the outcast and the foreigner.   The Lord of the last, the least and the lost. 

Next week, two men go to the Synagogue to pray.  One is a righteous man who belongs to the religious congregation.   The other, a defeated, confessing sinner.   We’ll be asking why we think Luke included this story when no other gospel writer thought to do so.