Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

LIFE IN GOD’S NEW NORMAL

Luke 17:11-19 
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C 
Analysis by Robin Lutjohann 

11On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? 18Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

“We are freed to live not for appearances or status, but for thanksgiving and mercy. In Christ, life is no longer about being “normal” – it is about being new.”

DIAGNOSIS:  Our Dying Normality

Step One:  Initial Diagnosis (External Problem) – The Agony of Abnormal 
Ten people live with a skin disease that causes others to ostracize them. Their cry – “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” – comes from a place of profound isolation. All they want is for their life to go back to normal, for others to see them as “normal.” 

We too know what it means to be isolated, labeled, quarantined – whether by illness, poverty, racism, gender identity, or other social factors. We too know what it means to long for things to go back to the way they were, or for others to see us as normal. 

Step Two:  Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem) – The Rush to Normal 
But why have these people been cast out in the first place? Because their family and neighbors fear what is not “normal.” So, when Jesus heals them, quite understandably, nine out of the ten people eagerly follow Jesus’ instructions to be seen by a priest and receive the status they thought they had lost forever: “normal.” 

We too are eager to reclaim “normal” after a disruption. After illness, we just want our bodies back. After a pandemic, we just want routines back. After upheaval in our families or churches, we just want stability again. And in that rush, we may settle for the shallow comfort of what is familiar rather than opening ourselves to the new thing God is doing. 

Step Three:  Final Diagnosis (Ultimate Problem) – Deadly Normality 
We are not told what happens next for the nine. Only that they do not return to give thanks. Presumably, they have attempted to resume their normal lives. Yet in their comfort, perhaps a certain complacency has snuck in, growing with time. When they were abnormal, they were quick to cry out to God. Now that everything is right with the world, there is no need for connection to the Healer. The latter is taken for granted, and perhaps quickly forgotten. And in the forgetting of the One who gives life, there is an embracing of death. 

We too forget the One who restores us. Like when we are sick, then healthy again, and at first, we brim with gratitude and zest for life – yet soon after, we’re cursing the driver who cuts us off in traffic. In our rush to be “like everyone else,” we betray our desire to be gods ourselves: self-sufficient, unbothered, unmarked by mercy. We use God for what we want, then discard God when we no longer need help.  What will God do with us?  

PROGNOSIS:  The Newness Beyond Normality 

Step Four:  Initial Prognosis (Ultimate Solution) – Jesus the Disruptor of Normal 
Jesus does not simply restore the lepers to society. He offers something more radical. Only the tenth person, the Samaritan – the ultimate outsider – is able to see it. Perhaps because he has no other place to go. To him the Lord says, “Your faith has saved you.”  

Jesus disrupts the world’s obsession with normalcy by drawing us instead into wholeness. On the cross, he himself is cast out, crucified outside the city gates, so that we who live at the margins might be drawn into God’s own life. His resurrection is the divine verdict that “normal” is too small; God is bringing about something new. 

Step Five:  Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution) – Faith That Sees Beyond Normal 
The Samaritan alone perceives that healing is not just about skin but about salvation. His faith sees beyond normalcy to the Giver of life. Faith is not content with fitting in again; it clings to Jesus, who offers a new identity as beloved, forgiven, and made whole.  

Through the Spirit, our eyes too are opened to see Christ as more than a means to our ends, but as the One who is our end, our beginning, our everything. 

Step Six:  Final Prognosis (External Solution) – Life in God’s New Normal 
“Get up and go on your way,” Jesus says – not back to business as usual, but forward into a new creation. The Samaritan embodies a life of gratitude, praise, and witness.  

So do we, when faith reorients us from nostalgia for the past to participation in God’s present mission. We are freed to live not for appearances or status, but for thanksgiving and mercy. In Christ, life is no longer about being “normal” – it is about being new.