The Ones You Least Suspect

[A reflection on the readings for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 12, 2025, which may be found at https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/proper-23c/]

Leprosy and conditions like it were a serious matter in the ancient world, and even today those conditions cause widespread misery. Classic leprosy is a neuropathological affliction, killing the nerves' ability to transmit pain from affected areas back to the brain, so small cuts and scrapes, which normally get noticed and treated, are overlooked and frequently begin to fester, leading to multiple conditions. Other disfiguring diseases with similar progressions get lumped in, and the result is a series of progressive amputations and disfigurements and in the worst cases sepsis. It was so feared that sufferers even into the current age are shunned and live apart, depending on each other or compassionate souls that brave the fear of the condition to minister to them.

Needless to say, remissions and cures are very rare to non-existent. Today, there are treatments and education that help the afflicted manage the condition (again, depending on the availability of resources), so it can be a grim existence. Today, however, we have (in Track 2 if you pay attention to these things) the Old Testament story of a leper named Naaman from Syria, and in the Gospel an account of nine Jewish and one Samaritan leper. The disease was similar even if their situations were not. Naaman may have been managing his disease better due to his social standing and resources, but the ten in the New Testament story were society's outcasts, truly miserable.

In both cases, the God of Israel has mercy on them and relieves them of their afflictions. Naaman consults the prophet Elisha, who relays God's instructions, which are seemingly silly to Naaman, but in reality are a test of his faith. Likewise, in the New Testament, God is more direct when Jesus proclaims the healing and sends them on their way. Notably, the Samaritan is the only one who turns back to thank Our Lord, again, a demonstration of the faith he had in Our Lord's power and acknowledgement of Who He really is.

What is noteworthy, and Jesus points this out in several places, a saving faith can be found outside the context of a favoured people. Indeed, Jesus spent much of His ministry debunking the concept of a favoured people, stating that while Israel had a favoured spot, grace was by no means limited to Israel and many times was not found in Israel due to lack of faith. Many times He expressed how notable it was when people outside the confines of Israel showed faith, the Centurion, the Syro-Phoenician woman, the Samaritan woman at the well (whom some of us name St. Photini), and this lonely outcast Samaritan leper.

What we need to realize is that our narrow worldviews are not God's, that our preconceptions are not His ideas, and often what we consider His will is manifestly not so. Often it is the one we least suspect, the outsider, the foreigner, the marginalized, to whom God shows greater favour, and our blindness to it betrays a blindness to the mercies and wonders of God, itself a sickness much greater, more pervasive, and way more deadly than leprosy could ever be. Perhaps it is time to realize that we too are leprous foreigners and in humility call upon God for healing from our condition. St. Paul writes much about having faith in God's mercy to heal us, and the blindness brought on by our sin is the most urgent of these ailments. Let us then ask to be relieved of our blindness, and once we are, learn to give thanks for what we see.