Luke 17:11-19
Rediscovering Passion
James Sledge October 10, 2010
When I do pre-marriage counseling, I try to prepare couples for the nearly inevitable progression that happens with most serious, long-term relationships. There is a beginning that is filled with wonder, with joyous discovery and a deepening passion that causes everything else to recede. It’s the sort of passion that produces such lines as “I only have eyes for you.” And that is true to some extent. Nothing else is so wonderful. Nothing else is so important. And so nothing else is in clear focus. Nothing else quite gets full attention.
When people are experiencing the full throes of “in love,” logic and reasonableness sometimes take a holiday. People will spend hours on the phone even when they have things they need to do. They will engage in all sorts of extravagant behaviors, from acting in ways they would have previously thought silly and foolish to lavishing their beloved with expensive gifts that require cutting expenses in other places.
But almost without fail, the throes of “in love” begin to wane. Over time, as couples settle in for the long haul, as they set up a home together, as they marry and have a family, the passion diminishes. It’s natural. That initial intensity is hard to maintain, and lots of other things, sometimes other passions, compete for attention. Children, careers, hobbies, causes, and so on all vie for their share.
Sometimes couples realize they’ve come to take each other for granted, that their life together is mostly about routines. There may not be any big conflicts and the relationship may be comfortable enough. There is care and concern for the other, but all the passion is gone. Some relationships begin to falter at this point. Small things can grow into big conflicts and couples may find themselves wondering, “Can this relationship be saved?”
I think that relationship with God can go through a similar sort of progression. People can move from a passionate relationship to one that is comfortable to something where the relationship gets taken for granted and is mostly habit and obligation. Blessings from God are merely what God is supposed do, and troubles in life feel like God failing us.
I wonder if nine of the lepers in our gospel reading today hadn’t fallen into this sort of relationship with God. I’m assuming that they grew up in the faith and tried to live good lives. They went to synagogue, kept the law, made standard Temple offerings, and attended the big religious festivals. But after all this, they found themselves suffering with leprosy.
We need to realize that leprosy in the Bible is not the horrible disease of leper colonies, not the illness portrayed by Hollywood biblical movies such as Ben Hur. Leprosy in the Bible is a catch-all term for any skin disorder, some serious and some less so. Things we would call a fungal infection, psoriasis, or eczema would all be termed leprosy. But regardless of the severity, all of them got you labeled “unclean.” And when you were unclean, you couldn’t have contact with others without rendering them unclean. And so leprosy would make life difficult. Besides physical discomfort, you weren’t going to be invited over for Passover dinner, or any other dinner for that matter. You wouldn’t be welcome at the synagogue or Temple and so on.
Given all this it is hardly surprising that when these ten lepers hear about Jesus and his reputation for healing, they go to see him. They keep their distance from Jesus as the Law mandated for “unclean” folks, and they plead for help. Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priests. Priests had to certify that formerly unclean people were now clean, and so Jesus’ command implies the promise of a healing, and the lepers head out immediately. All ten believe Jesus can heal them, and all ten are in fact healed. But one returns to Jesus, praising God and throwing himself at Jesus’ feet in a grand show of thanksgiving. And he was a Samaritan.
Samaritans believed in God and the Law of Moses, but they were regarded as heretics by Jews, as well as being a despised ethnic group. They were outsiders in every sense of the word, and I suspect that explains why this Samaritan is praising God and running back to thank Jesus. This Jewish rabbi, Jesus, had healed him, a Samaritan. The other nine, presumable all Jews, seem to take God’s blessing more for granted, and they simply return to their daily lives.
I suppose the Samaritan returns to his old life as well, but before he does, he receives something the others don’t. All are healed, but Jesus tells the Samaritan that his faith has “saved him.” Our translation says it has “made him well,” but I pretty sure that’s a bad translation. Luke has used two other words to say the lepers were “made clean” and “healed.” But Jesus singles out this Samaritan and tells him his faith has saved him. This may not be a get-to-go-to-heaven saved the way some of us hear that word, but it is a restoration, a renewal much bigger than simply being made well.
This Samaritan has a passionate experience of God while the other nine do not. As an outsider, he seems to have an advantage. He finds it easier to get excited about what God has done for him. And I fear that we church folks are often more like the nine than this Samaritan. Sometimes our faith has lots of routine, and not much passion.
How do we become more like the Samaritan and less like the nine? I think the answer depends on who you are. If you are more like the Samaritan to begin with – and by that I mean that you’re not a longtime church person, that you’re new to this in some way – then you may actually have an advantage. Like a young person falling in love for the first time, it may be easier for you. But as with falling in love, you will need to do certain things. You will need to spend time with God, with Jesus. That means prayer and reading the Bible. It means doing things with God, which is another way of saying finding spiritual practices and activities that suit you, things you and God enjoy doing together.
But what about the rest of us, those who’ve been around God for a long time and have gotten in some pretty deep ruts? Well, what would you tell couples who had lost their passion in a marriage? I would suggest that first they need to create some space for passion. They need to push some other relationships and activities off to the side, to get rid of some of the busy, stretched-too-thin lives many of us lead so that there some room for passion.
And then you have to fall in love all over again. Like young lovers, you spend time together and find new things you enjoy doing together. You begin lavishing the other with attention, gifts, and little extravagances. You want to do things that you know the other enjoys, and you happily cut back on things for yourself in order to do so.
Of course falling in love is a two way street. The other must move toward you as well. And in Jesus, God does that with remarkable passion, even to the point of risking death. Too often the Church has depicted this in the language of contracts and formulas. But dying for another is the language of love. “I would die for you” is a line for a love song.
A Samaritan, surprised to discover how much Jesus loved him, found himself in the throes of passion that left him yelling, singing, and throwing himself at Jesus’ feet. And Jesus says this passion is a sure sign of something more than a healing, a sign of renewal and restoration, of being fully alive.
Jesus, let me know this passion. Let me be fully alive in you.
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