YOUR FAITH HAS MADE YOU WHOLE

Christ Declaring the Jubilee for the Poor, the Sick and the Oppressed

A HOMILY FOR THE FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

INTRODUCTION

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, as we gather on this Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, our hearts overflow with gratitude for the mercies of God poured upon His Church. In these past weeks, we have rejoiced to witness new souls drawn into the fold: conversions born of grace, baptisms that seal men and women into the death and resurrection of Christ, and the quiet but radiant work of the Holy Spirit transforming lives among us. These are not small things, but the very signs of the Kingdom breaking into our midst.

We taste these mercies under the crisp, comfortable air of autumn, when the earth itself seems to pause and breathe, the leaves beginning to turn, and creation reminding us of the beauty of endings and beginnings. As the year wanes, Christ’s life in His Church waxes strong, and we rejoice together at His faithfulness.

And in this same week, the calendar of the saints has lifted before our eyes the luminous examples of our forebears. St. Matthew the Evangelist, who left his tax booth to follow Christ, teaching us the power of obedience and the pen of the Gospel, proclaiming Christ’s salvation to the world. St. Ninian of Scotland, the first apostle to the Picts, whose missionary zeal lit the northern isles with the light of Christ and converted our ancestors to the One, True God. St. Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, who wove together learning and holiness, shaping the English Church into unity and discipline, linking our Patrimony with the Ancient School of Antioch and Nisibis. And St. Mar Zaia, a jewel of the East, who bore witness in the ancient Church of Mesopotamia that the Gospel is for all nations, and that Christ’s mercy transcends every tongue and tribe.

These saints, scattered across time and land (Syria, Scotland, England, Mesopotamia), are bound together in one communion of love and witness. They remind us that our calling today is not different from theirs: to love God above all, to discipline our lives in the Spirit, and to bring the good news to those yet afar off. Their lives are living commentaries on the very Scriptures we hear today, showing us that liberty in Christ is no abstraction, but a life lived in gratitude, faith, and mission.

So let us take up their example, rejoice in the gifts Christ has given to our parish and diocese, and open our ears and hearts to the Word of God for this day. For He who cleansed the lepers, who proclaimed liberty in the Jubilee, and who has filled our Church with grace, is the same Christ who calls us now to thanksgiving, holiness, and love.

SCRIPTURE

THE OLD TESTAMENT READING: LEVITICUS 25:1–18

And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, and for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.

THE EPISTLE READING: GALATIANS 5:16–24

Brethren: I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

THE HOLY GOSPEL: ST. LUKE 17:11–19

At that time: It came to pass, as Jesus went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go, show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

SERMON

I will say these things to you now in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Beloved in Christ, the Word of God today is woven around a single theme: liberty. From the Law of Jubilee in Leviticus, through the freedom of the Spirit in Galatians, to the Samaritan healed and made whole by Christ, the Lord of mercy, all the readings proclaim the same Gospel: the Lord delivers His people from bondage, restores the outcast, and gives a joy and peace not of this world.

THE LAW OF JUBILEE AND THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM

In the Old Testament reading this morning we heard of the Jubilee year, when debts are forgiven, slaves are freed, and every man returns to his inheritance. “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” This was not merely economic policy; it was sacramental pedagogy, a shadow of the freedom that was to come in Christ.

St. Paul, speaking to the Galatians, shows the true Jubilee fulfilled: “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh… and they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” The Jubilee trumpets have sounded not from Sinai, but from Golgotha. Christ has set us free from the tyranny of sin, that we might walk as sons and daughters of God.

St. Ephrem the Syrian wrote that “The Spirit makes the desert bloom, and the wilderness become like Eden, for He restores what Adam lost.” This freedom is not license, but the liberty of love. St. John Chrysostom reminds us: “He that serves God is free, though he be in chains; he that serves sin is enslaved, though he be on a throne.”

THE TEN LEPERS AND THE GRATITUDE OF FAITH

In the Gospel, the ten lepers cry out to Jesus from afar: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” He bids them go to the priests, and as they went, they were healed. But only one, a Samaritan, returns to give thanks.

Here we see the sad truth of human ingratitude. Nine receive the gift, but only one worships the Giver. And that one is a stranger, a foreigner, a man despised by the Jews. As the Celtic St. Columbanus once preached: “The stranger who comes in faith is more our brother than the kinsman who departs in unbelief.” Gratitude is the fruit of true faith, the mark of the one who has been made whole.

St. Isaac the Syrian wrote: “Thanksgiving is the dwelling of the Spirit; whoever gives thanks in all things, there the Spirit dwells.” The Samaritan did not merely receive cleansing of the skin, but healing of the soul. Christ says to him, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

ENGLISH WITNESSES

That great Caroline Divine Jeremy Taylor reminds us that thanksgiving is “the rent we owe for the great house we dwell in, which is the universe.” Richard Hooker taught that “All good things, be they temporal or spiritual, are God’s, and therefore to be received with thankful acknowledgment.” Our fathers the Nonjurors, suffering exile and loss for conscience, still prayed with joy, bearing witness that liberty of conscience in Christ is dearer than earthly power.

C.S. Lewis, in his Letters to Malcolm, says: “Gratitude exclaims, very properly: How good of God to give me this. Adoration says: What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!” T.S. Eliot, in Little Gidding, wrote of the fire of divine mercy that purges:

“Who then devised the torment? Love.

Love is the unfamiliar Name

Behind the hands that wove

The intolerable shirt of flame.”

The poets remind us that thanksgiving is not shallow sentiment, but the trembling recognition of mercy received, undeserved and yet overflowing.

A DEEP REFLECTION: THE RETURN OF THE ONE

A Liturgical Poem for the 14th Sunday After Trinity

Ten walked the road with trembling tread,

Their flesh defiled, their souls unclean;

They lifted cries of faith half-fled,

Between despair and hope unseen.

The Master spoke, the Word went forth,

The priests would see, the law would prove;

And healing, silent, swept the earth,

A gift unearned, a boundless love.

Nine hurried on with quickened pace,

To claim their share, their portion due;

Yet one beheld the Giver’s face,

And turned to walk a narrow new.

He fell before the Lord of light,

A stranger healed, a foe made friend;

Thanksgiving crowned his broken plight,

And faith was found at journey’s end.

O soul, thou too art one of ten,

Cleansed by the mercy thou didst crave;

Yet wilt thou join the faithless men,

Or fall before the Lord who gave?

For healing flows, yet hearts grow cold,

And mercies fade like morning dew;

But gratitude, more pure than gold,

Becomes the heart forever true.

The Jubilee resounds abroad,

A trumpet sounds, the captives free;

The Cross of Christ, the staff and rod,

Proclaims the year of liberty.

Return, return, O sons of clay,

Each debt forgiven, each chain undone;

The night dissolves, behold the day,

The Spirit’s fire, the risen Sun.

The flesh is husk, the Spirit seed,

The law is shadow, Christ is bread;

The works of sin are wounds that bleed,

But life is where the Spirit led.

O let the heart be crucified,

Affections nailed, desires restrained;

For where the Spirit shall abide,

The fruit of heaven is obtained.

O stranger soul, O foreign name,

Thy faith is counted, not thy race;

For grace is gift, and not our claim,

And mercy shines on every face.

The far are near, the near estranged,

The first are last, the last are crowned;

Thus Christ the boundaries rearranged,

And in His love the lost are found.

Return, my soul, return again,

Fall at His feet with thankful breath;

The narrow road is worth the pain,

The Cross the path, the Life through death.

For one day near my Father’s throne

Is better than a thousand far;

To rise, forgiven, not my own,

But whole in Christ, the Morning Star.

PERSONAL APPLICATION

Beloved, we are those ten lepers. We cry out for mercy, and Christ has heard us. In Baptism, in the Eucharist, in daily mercies, He has cleansed us. But how often do we forget to return, to fall on our faces, to glorify God with thankful hearts? The call of today is simple and profound: walk in the Spirit, crucify the flesh, and live in the liberty of Christ. Be like the Samaritan: thankful, humble, worshipful. For thanksgiving is the beginning of holiness, and gratitude the seed of joy.

COLLECT 

O God, who hast proclaimed liberty to thy people through the death and resurrection of thy Son, and hast made us free by the Spirit to walk in newness of life: Grant that, like the Samaritan healed, we may ever return to give thee thanks, and with joyful hearts proclaim thy mercy; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.