A sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 23
October 12, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR
Readings: 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c; Psalm 111; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19
One of the first things we bought when we moved here was a big jug and water dispenser. I soon became a regular on Fountain Street, filling up this jug with Hot Springs water. I once met a woman there. She pulled out what appeared to be hundreds of milk cartons and orange juice pitchers and water bottles, and she started talking. She asked if I lived in Hot Springs. I told her I did. She told me she had come down to this fountain for decades, and she was glad I found it because it just might save my life. She said, “I don’t go to the doctor anymore. This is healing water. I drink it; I take a bath in it; I only use this water from Fountain Street.” She told me she would clean any cuts or sores she had with it, and they would heal right up. It was miracle-working water. She planned to live to 150, and she thought she could as long as she had this water and her crystal necklace. But she confessed that she was worried. She was worried that if too many people found out, the spring would dry up. She worried, and she told me not to tell any of those out-of-towners about it. This was a secret for the in-crowd only. I hated to tell her that the secret–at least the secret of the water’s existence–was already out.
We have a couple readings today about healing. We read about the healing of Naaman, the Syrian general, in our Old Testament reading. In the gospel we have a reading about the healing of the ten lepers. One leper, the Samaritan, comes back to give thanks. Jesus says his faith has made him well, or whole–or his faith has saved him.
When the Bible talks about healing, we usually interpret it as a medical cure. And physical cure is usually part of it. The lepers today are healed. Leprosy was a sort of catch-all term for any kind of skin disease the community feared was contagious. This skin condition clears up. Praise God. But whereas we tend to limit healing to a physical cure alone, the Bible’s vision of healing is much larger. It means wholeness. It means being complete. It’s not only about our physical bodies, but about our spiritual lives, too. And the only way we are truly complete is by being reconciled, or reconnected, to our God. Healing is ultimately about that: Being reconnected to God through Jesus Christ. Healing, in the vision of the Bible, is far less about physical cure, and far more about our connection to God and our participation in what God is doing in the world.
That’s true for today’s readings. With our modern ears, we tend to hone in on the physical healing bit. The skin condition cleared up. But that is the least important thing that happens. The more important thing is that these people are restored to the community. They are reconnected to God, to their families, to their friends, to their towns, to their very sense of self. They are reconciled. For people in Jesus’s time, that’s the emphasis.
With that in mind, we can see that there is a jagged edge to each of these readings, something in them that challenges even us–we modern people who, unlike the woman on Fountain Street, are very happy to visit the doctor in search of a physical cure. In both of these readings, those healed included people outside the normal community boundaries. In the Old Testament, it’s this Syrian general. He’s the one who led the conquest of Israel. He has a slave who is a captive from Israel, and she somehow has enough love in her heart to tell him where he needs to go to find his healing. (She could have, like the woman on Fountain Street, kept that to herself; she could have thought healing was only for the in-crowd and not for oppressors. Who could blame her?) In the gospel reading, it is a Samaritan who returns to give thanks: A Samaritan who is kept at arm’s length, the enemy of the community. The Samaritan, from the community that the disciples wanted to call fire down on because they did not welcome Jesus right in the previous chapter. These are outsiders, and yet the promise of healing, the promise of connection, the promise of healing is for them, too.
The woman on Fountain Street told me not to tell anyone. But the Gospel says the exact opposite. When healing is on the table; when reconciliation and reconnection to God are on the table; when communion and community in the Body of Christ are on the table, we have to tell everybody. There is room for everybody. Even the outsiders are told to come in–connection to God is for them. Even the foreigner is told to come in–membership in the Body of Christ is for them.
Even the enemy– Even the person who has led our loved ones away captive–is healing really for them? Yes. Even the person who represents everything we hate in the world–is healing really for them? Yes. Even the enemy is brought to the waters of spiritual grace, where reconciliation with God is possible, where forgiveness is offered, where love is abundant. It’s all for them, too, just as it’s for us. Even the enemy is brought to the Body of Christ, where they, alongside us, can participate in the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s for them, just as it’s for us.
In our world of tribalism, of division, of polarization, this seems like a bridge too far, like something too difficult. We are tempted to be like the woman on Fountain Street; healing for the in-crowd only. But in the middle of all of that stands a cross, with the Son of God nailed up, arms stretched out to welcome all in a divine embrace, and he’s calling: Come unto me, all ye. All ye. All ye. Friends. Enemies. Companions. Strangers. Old. Young. White. Black. Rich. Poor. Republican. Democrat. Gay. Straight. If you came over on the Mayflower. If you waded across the Rio Grande. The arms of Jesus are stretched out for you, and the invitation is for you. Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. And grace. And love. And life. And the healing of your souls.
The call has gone out from the cross and into all lands. The invitation once cried at Calvary has echoed around the world. The blood shed at Golgotha has covered the whole earth. And it has arrived here, even in Hot Springs. And if we cannot embody that kind of radical welcome and hospitality; if we, as the Body of Christ, the Episcopal Church in this place, cannot live into that kind of invitation–if we cannot do that in the Name of Christ, let’s close our doors tomorrow. Because the grace and love and life and healing from God are not just for us. They are for all, because Jesus is for all, and there’s room at the cross for all. For you. For me. Even for our enemies.
Storied Grace 