Free At Last, the senior sermon of Lane Skyles, Class of 2005, given in Christ Chapel on November 17, 2004

Luke 17:11-19

On Monday November 4, 2002, I was called out of my 8 o'clock class here at the Seminary. It was a note from my son at home saying, "you need to come home because mom is sick." I immediately got in my car and headed home. Upon arriving I found Margie doubled over in bed hardly able to move. After we discussed her illness we decided we needed to take her to the emergency room where the doctors diagnosed her with pancreatitis. For those who don't know what pancreatitis is, I didn't before she got it; the pancreas is what secretes acids into your stomach to digest food. Pancreatitis occurs when the pancreas gets stopped up and continues to secrete the acids. So the pancreas backs up and begins to secrete acids into your body cavities effecting major organs. We checked her into the hospital on Monday evening to run tests and so they could start replenishing her potassium levels. Monday night was a sleepless night. She was throwing up all night and in a huge amount of pain. The medical staff arrived Tuesday morning and began running blood tests and also put her on a morphine drip because of the pain. When the test results came back Tuesday afternoon her situation had worsened.

Wednesday morning they took more tests and the situation had gotten so bad that they moved her to ICU. When the Dr. showed up on Thursday morning and read the test results from Wednesday evening, he looked as if he had seen a ghost. After he discussed some options with Margie I pulled him out in the hall and told him, "you've got shoot straight with me, what is going on?" He told me that her case was severe and if things didn't change, soon, her liver would start shutting down along with her kidneys and other major organs. She would have permanent organ damage and might even die. So I began to pray even harder. I knew my family and friends back home in Houston were praying, this Seminary community was praying and my church here in Austin was praying. That day at 12 noon, Margie was sleeping and I was dozing off next to her and all of the sudden I saw God touching her pancreas thereby making her well. I sat up and asked God, "was that you?" It took me thirty minutes to settle down but when Margie woke I was so happy that I told her, "God is healing you." And although I was overflowing with joy, much to my dismay, these prophetic words were somehow lost in the slow steady flow of a morphine drip…My sister showed up at 3p that day and I told her "thanks for coming but God is healing Margie." At 5 o'clock that afternoon they came and took more tests. The results came back in the morning and her situation had improved. Her condition continued to improve until 10 days later when she walked out of the hospital…God still works in our world, today!

Come to find out, when I returned to school one of our brothers here at the seminary had the same type experience on the same day Margie was healed. This brother was praying in the early morning and saw Jesus in Margie's room. The room was black and white until Jesus bent over and kissed her on the forehead at which time the room began to change to full color. Her condition improved later that day. God still talks to God's people…

In this morning's Gospel we find Jesus healing 10 lepers in the same miraculous manner. As he approaches a village, 10 lepers stand at a distance and cry out to him, Luke 17:13 "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" The scriptures tell us that Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests and on their way they were "made clean." In the time of Jesus, lepers were required to live outside of the community because they were ritually unclean. The reason Jesus sends the lepers to the priests is because only the priests could certify that they were clean and could then return to the community. The kicker of the story is, only one of the 10, a Samaritan man returns to GLORIFY GOD and to thank Jesus. What is so crazy about this is that as we know the Samaritans were enemies to the Jews. The other nine, it is assumed are Jews just as Jesus was. Why did only the Samaritan return? For starters, it is an indication in the Gospel of Luke that the Jewish community will be resistant to the Gospel while the Gentiles, the non-Jews, will receive it openly.

So what happens to this man who returns to Jesus? Jesus asks him, Luke 17:17-19 "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well." Before, Luke tells us that the 10 were made clean but this Samaritan man gets a bonus for coming back; instead of only being made clean he is also "made well." The Greek word used here is sodzo, which literally means "I save," a word used in many other places in the bible to indicate salvation. In Luke Chapter 19, Jesus goes to the house of Zacheus the tax collector and once at his house, Zacheus tells Jesus that he is going to give half his money to the poor and will return the money to anyone he had defrauded, 4 times as much. Jesus then says that salvation has come to this house for the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.

So Jesus had given the nine men a temporary solution to their problem by making them clean, he provided this one Samaritan a permanent solution by giving him salvation. The nine were freed from the chains of loneliness because they were now able to enter and to interact with society. The Samaritan was given much more; He was freed from eternal bondage…Glory be to God!

Every time I read a parable of Jesus, I immediately associate myself with the underdog in the story. In this story, I associate myself of course with the man who returned to give thanks. "Oh I'd never not thank Jesus! I am always appreciative." But how many times have I witnessed his miracles and not given thanks? And how many times have I missed out on the miracles of Jesus? He sends the miracle of rain that gives life to the land and we complain about getting our feet wet; a healthy child is born to us and we complain about how tired he makes us, we are given the capability and the support system to participate in a (3) year Seminary degree and we can do nothing but complain that we don't have enough time to do the homework…

Ya know, the further away I get from Margie's miracle, the less thankful I become. I don't know what it is about human nature but the first two weeks after Margie's healing I was telling everyone what God had done. I didn't care what they thought of me. But as time went on I started second guessing myself. I started saying that maybe that was a coincidence that Margie was healed at the same time I thought I saw a vision. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me….I've become the nine who did not return….So what's the answer? The only answer is to try to be like our Samaritan friend and recognize the miracle that God really did heal Margie. That God does still move in our world. That each day there are miracles going on all around us…That God does still set us free.

Because you see, I don't want to simply be made clean; I want to be made well…to be saved…I want to be like this Samaritan man who I imagine is in the middle of the street; the other nine running on, but he stops; turns around. Everyone is watching; everyone is listening. The man looks at Jesus and Jesus looks at him. And the man says the same immortal words as was spoken by Martin Luther King Jr., "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last…"