LUKE 17:11-19: 11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
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From a 2022 sermon, two years after I retired.
Do you know the difference between an SVT and a DVT? Both can appear in your leg, and in that way, they are quite similar; but they are, in other ways, very different. An SVT can be painful and annoying and last a long time; but it is very treatable and is no big deal; whereas a DVT can cause some pain, or it can kill you instantly without warning and without symptoms. That’s how they are very different. But they are similar in that they are both caused by a clotting of the blood. SVT stands for ‘superficial vein thrombosis,’ and DVT is short for ‘deep vein thrombosis.’
I learned all that at 3:00 one morning when I woke up with a pain in my lower leg. I had a little pain there the night before, and now it was back and more intense. Along with the pain, there was a lump and it was red and it was warm. I wondered to myself if it might be serious. So, I looked around a bit on the internet, and that is where I started to learn about SVTs and DVTs.
From what I learned it looked like the less serious clot, and if that was the case it could wait until my annual physical, which I had already scheduled, and would be in a couple weeks. However, there was something about it that indicated it might be the bad kind of clot, which made me more than a little uneasy. In 1970 my grandfather, at an age younger than I am now, and also in otherwise good health, fell over dead in the middle of a conversation from a blood clot in his heart. What I was now reading about blood clots, sounded like what might have happened to him. So, I decided to not wait the two weeks, and not even two hours. I woke my wife and told her I was going to the Emergency Room at the hospital. This took her by surprise because she had been sleeping and was not aware of any of this until then.
After a blood test, the ER doctor said yes, there was indeed some clotting going on somewhere. She didn’t think it was a DVT, but she could not be sure. She ordered an ultrasound on my leg; and after the results showed it was only a surface clot, she told me how to treat it and sent me home. That was over a month ago, and it’s getting better, but it takes a while for an SVT to go away completely.
Conversations with our friends these days usually get around to health issues, because it seems we all have something going on. And I have had several things to talk about. Since retirement, I have had a second hip surgery; which went really well; two cataract surgeries which were easy; and emergency eye surgery for a detached retina, which wasn’t easy and didn’t go very well. A year later I am still struggling with my vision and still not sure how that will all turn out. The eye problems have been especially frustrating, because I was planning on using my eyes quite a bit during retirement. But the healing has had some complications, and some of the distortion will never get better.
In the above reading from the Gospel of Luke, there are ten men who are dealing with a significant health problem. They were lepers, says verse twelve, and having leprosy in those days was far worse than all my problems put together. The faces and hands and feet of lepers were often deformed, and they had to be isolated from the community for the rest of their lives. There was no cure.
We’ve all been sick. Usually it is only for a few days at a time; but for some, the condition is chronic, and for others, the problems are life-threatening. For many, these health issues do not get serious until you are old, but sometimes even the very young get sick and die; and for everyone, illness is always a possibility. We should, then, all be interested in what happens when Jesus meets some sick people; and what they do, and what he does.
I have preached on this story many times over the years, and every time I have spoken of it as a lesson in gratitude, which is the most obvious theme. Ten lepers are healed, but only one returns to give thanks, and Jesus wonders why.
However, this time, when I was reading and re-reading the text in preparation for this sermon, I noticed something different, something more in addition to the gratitude theme. Perhaps because of what I have been going through, what jumped out at me this time was how this is also a story of illness; and more specifically, how illness can be a teacher. Illness, and any other kind of health issue, if we pay attention, can teach us all kinds of things about life and death, about Jesus and about faith, and yes, of course, about gratitude. (continued…)
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A PRAYER I FOUND THAT I AM USING: Almighty God, who hast restored light to my eye, and enabled me to pursue again the work which Thou hast set before me; teach me, by the weakening of my sight, to remember that whatever I possess is thy gift, and by its recovery, to hope for thy mercy; and, O Lord, grant that I may use thy blessings according to thy will. Amen.
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