“Your faith has saved you.”

These words, which close our gospel today, are a mantra of sorts for the Jesus we meet in Luke’s version of the good news.  We hear them here after Jesus cures the ten lepers and only the Samaritan come back to say “thank you.”  But he says the same words to two other people elsewhere in the gospel: the sinful woman in chapter seven who bathes his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair, and the blind beggar outside Jericho in chapter eighteen.  Whenever I think about salvation I always remember the wise words of Michael Casey: “In theory salvation is desirable.  At the level of feeling it is different.  It is humiliating to be saved . . . Nobody applauds the one who is being saved . . . the hero is the rescuer.”  So let’s put these stories together and look at what these three non-heroes have in common and what they might teach us.

All three are broken, and it is their brokenness that identifies them: sinful woman, leper, blind beggar.  Gender, sin, poverty, illness, the inability to see . . . conditions which in their society, and even in ours, that dictated that they would live a life marked by deficit.  And because of this, they were ostracized.  (At first I thought, “Well, at least the ten lepers had each other.”  Then I thought about that a little more.  They were forced to live far from town behind tall and thick walls to keep society safe from them.  They were stuck living with people they didn’t choose – some, like the Samaritan, who were their sworn enemies.  And they felt physically crummy.  Being together probably wasn’t such a comfort.)  But back to being ostracized.  The sinful woman goes to a Pharisee’s house where Jesus had been invited to dine;  there she was pointed at, whispered about, and judged.  The blind man sits by the side of the road, begging for information and for sustenance.

All three are humble.  We meet plenty of people in the gospels who don’t know they need Jesus.  That’s not the case with these three.  Each knows that his or her soul and/or body is somehow diminished, and each wants to be whole.  The leper and the blind man just happen to be on Jesus’ route, but both call out to him loudly: “Have pity.”  The woman seeks Jesus out but doesn’t say a word.  Her actions carry the message.

All three are given a mission after they are forgiven and healed.  The leper is told to “stand up and go.”  Jesus says to the beggar: “Have sight.”  The woman hears: “Go in peace.”  See the world around you.  Be in it.  Bring shalom, reconciliation.

And, of course, all three believe Jesus can save them.  They not only have faith, but they act on it.  They live out of it.

These are our forefathers and foremother in faith, our models, our guides.  Broken, ostracized, humble, missioned, faithful.  In need of saving and knowing it.  And wanting salvation or healing or wholeness or whatever you want to call it so badly that they are willing to sacrifice plans and pride, turn around in their tracks, and ask for it.

It’s Thanksgiving.  We’ve probably already uttered our personal words of thanks to God for our lovely home, plenty of food, family and community and friends who love us.  But perhaps what this gospel is calling us to – and what is much harder – is to be thankful for whatever it is that’s broken.  What sin humbles us again and again and again?  What choices or characteristics or circumstances separate us from others?  What disfigures us in body, mind, or spirit?  What consumes us so that we do not see?  For these things we can be grateful – if they drive us to God and cause us to call out, “Have pity.”  If they send us out in compassion for others.  If we have faith in Jesus, our savior.  “Stand up and go;  your faith has saved you.”  Amen.  May it be so.  Thanks be to God.

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