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The story of Naaman the Syrian, a gentile, in 2 Kings 5 is a delightful story of contrariness.

Today’s first reading picks up from when Naaman washed himself in the Jordan as directed by Elisha. Before this Naaman and his retinue had arrived at the prophet’s house expecting this underling of the king of Israel to bestow on him due attention and a deed of some consequence. Elisha did not go out to him; he merely sent a message with what to do: go wash seven times in the Jordan, a river considered by the Syrian to be no more than a muddy creek. It seems in all things he expected some degree of grandness, of pomp and circumstance. He concedes to the direction only at the goading of his own servant, who points out that if he would happily do a great thing then he should also be able to do a little thing. After this bathing Naaman returned to Elisha, but this time he is changed in spirit as well as in body; he goes in to stand before the prophet, and to beg a favour. His offer of a reward is rejected, but his plea to be gifted with Israel’s soil on which to worship God from his own place is granted. This is one of only two accounts in the Hebrew Scriptures of people being healed of leprosy, Miriam, the sister of Moses, in Numbers 12 being the other. Her account is, however, of a different sort, while Naaman’s being a gentile gives it a certain importance in its use for criticism against Jews in the gospels. The healing from leprosy is the connection to today’s gospel reading (Luke 17:11-19). Luke is very careful to give a geographical context to this story, and more attention should be paid to it: Jesus is travelling between the lands of Galilee and Samaria, thus between two peoples with a mutual animosity, the Jews and the Samaritans. They actually also share the same faith in the one God, and share the Law (the five “Books of Moses”), but the Samaritans’ heritage as an admixture with gentiles made them repugnant to the sensibility for purity among Jewish leaders returning from their Babylonian exile. In Luke’s narration no mention is made of the ethnicity of any of the lepers until one turns back to thank Jesus. This action seems to have caught the attention of later readers, perhaps through their not understanding the depth of the animosity between Jews and Samaritans, so that the story is often used in children’s liturgies or catechesis as if its purpose is to promote the importance of saying thank you. Look instead how Luke tells the story. This is his third mention of Samaritans. In the first a Samaritan village would not accept Jesus because he was going to Jerusalem. In the second, a Samaritan was portrayed as the true neighbour of the brigands’ victim, who was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. This time, as Jesus is to enter a village (we are not told if it is Jewish or Samaritan) he is approached by ten lepers who, in accordance with the Law, keep their distance even as they speak with him. They are told to present themselves to the priests, a step necessary to be declared free from leprosy and fit to return to their normal lives. What the declaration that one at least was a Samaritan (and somehow easily identified as such) draws out is that this single group is of a Jewish and Samaritan mix. Here in the quasi no-man’s land between the two territories those in adversity from both groups appear to form a community. This appears to be the more salient point: here in adversity former enemies live in unity. In their own way these lepers already embody the message of the Gospel.

Rev Dr Barry Craig – Homily Help Liturgia – Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C