Luke is careful
to give us just enough geographic information to alert us that the disciples are
navigating between two treacherously non-Jewish territories. We don’t know the name
of the city; we aren’t given any clues since it is apparently not pertinent to
Luke’s storytelling, nor are we privy to even an approximate location of Jesus and
disciples.
• Luke records that the lepers approached, but stood “at a distance.”
What was the written/unwritten rules pertaining to lepers during this period of
Israel’s history? How far away did these lepers stay from the populace? (Cf.
Torah’s sayings.)
• What is the core of gravity in this narrative? What part of the story receives
the greatest emphasis? Assuming that Luke could have told the story in a variety of
nuances and settings, what particular slant does he choose to give the story of the ten
lepers? Is the story about the healing of ten lepers?
What must these lepers have felt
in their marginal existence? Shamed? Carrying the stigma of having been cursed by God?
Laughed at? Butt of jokes? A project? An object lesson, the “fool” from Hebrew
and Egyptian Wisdom literature? A charity case? Sub-human? Rejected? Despised? No dignity?
Proof that God selects some for higher purposes while condemning others to a meaningless
existence?
• What might have been their experience? Never touched. No hugs,. No interaction
with children-laughing, arguing, wrestling, jostling? No human being will ever be close to
them? Living in the dumps. Homeless. No kisses. No embraces. No feeling in their
appendages-if in fact, Hanson’s Disease is the implied “leprosy.”
• The one who returns to worship really stumbles into grace, I think, because he
knows only too well his heritage-and what he is not-and thus, healing is a surprising, not
expected gift to him.
For a sample, please
refer to this week's sermons
