SERMON 12OCT2025  “Rise and Go”

Every Sunday, we gather as a church to worship. We sing praises, listen to God’s Word, bless one another, and are touched by His grace. Then, after our cuppa and warm conversations, we step out through the church doors and the culture of worship begins to meet the culture of everyday life.

From Monday onwards, each of us returns to our daily routines. Some go to work, some tend to their homes, others care for grandchildren or travel back and forth to hospitals. We watch the news and hear the world’s stories. We read the paper, listen to the radio, scroll through our phones and through all of these voices, we’re constantly hearing what the world says matters.

Culture is not far away; it’s the atmosphere we live in. Like the air we breathe, it influences how we think, what we desire, and how we live- often without us realising it. Sometimes, we are simply carried along by its flow: the culture of speed, where everything must happen now; the culture of screens, where we’re connected to many but feel deeply alone; and the culture of individualism, where self-fulfilment is the highest goal. And before we know it, we begin to live as if there are two separate worlds: one inside the church, and one outside.

Do we live in a split reality: worship on Sunday, real life the rest of the week? Has the holiness and grace we encounter on Sunday stay locked within these walls?  Do we simply switch it off and on again, as easily as swiping to another screen with a flick of our fingers?

Yet, right in the midst of this culture, in the stories and struggles of our daily lives, God is at work. The gospel does not belong to any one culture, yet it enters into every culture and transforms it from within. Now, let us hear through the Gospel how God is already at work in the world—the story of God’s mission. We see this mission taking shape in today’s passage.

On the Border: Where worship meets the world

So, where do we see this mission of God? Right here, in Luke chapter 17. Our passage begins at verse 11, Jesus is travelling between Samaria and Galilee. But this boundary wasn’t just geography. It was a divide created by religion and culture; separating the pure from the impure, the insider from the outsider, the acceptable from the unacceptable.

And Jesus stands right in that space. In that precarious place where inclusion and exclusion meet, Jesus encounters others who live on the edge. Ten lepers.

These are people pushed to the margins in every way. Leprosy has isolated them from community. Society has treated them as the living dead. Yet, Jesus meets them there, right on that boundary. And this is what happened.

Ten lepers stand at a distance. They can’t come close. So they had to raise their voices. “Jesus! Master! Have mercy on us!” This cry wasn’t just for pity—it was a plea for covenant love, for God’s grace, for inclusion back into community. It’s the same cry we make today: not just ‘fix my problem,’ but ‘see me, include me, restore me.’

Ten of them were together is remarkable since lepers usually lived alone, but these people had found each other. There were Jews among them, and a Samaritan too.

Jesus’ response is striking. He doesn’t heal them on the spot. He doesn’t declare, “Be clean.” Instead, He says: “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” It’s a strange command. They haven’t been healed yet—why go to the priests? Because Jesus isn’t just healing bodies, He’s making a way for them to return to community. Under the law, priests were the ones who decided who was clean, who could return home, who could re-join life. So Jesus sent them to the priests, back into the world with their healing, so others could see what God had done.

And for the lepers? Trust was everything. They had to start walking toward their restoration before they could see it, moving toward community while they were still isolated. And the text records it simply: ‘As they went, they were cleansed.’

On the way. As they went. In the process of obedient walking, healing happened. All ten were made clean. Their skin was restored, years of suffering ended. Ten were healed. But here’s the thing, only one returned. He comes back praising God with a loud voice. And he throws himself at Jesus’ feet in thanksgiving. And here, the text reveals his identity: “And he was a Samaritan.”

Of the ten, the one on the outermost edge. The one doubly excluded by the Jews. Jesus asks: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” There’s disappointment in this question. He gave the same grace to all ten, so where did the nine go? Perhaps they went straight to the priests, doing exactly what He told them.

But they forgot. They forgot to return to the One who healed them. To kneel before grace. And then Jesus speaks to that one person, the Samaritan who returned: “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Listen to these words carefully. Not ‘stay here.’ Not ‘remain with me.’ But ‘Rise and go.’

He came back in gratitude, and now he’s sent out in mission. Healed, yes. But more than that: saved, restored, and commissioned.

So what does this story teach us?

Jesus didn’t stay in the safe centre, He positioned Himself on the edge, between Samaria and Galilee, where the excluded gathered. The church, too, is called not to remain in comfortable safety, but to move toward the boundaries, the places of isolation, exclusion, and marginalisation in our world.

And when Jesus healed those lepers, He didn’t just heal bodies. He reopened the door to community. They could return to society, to family, to normal life. The gospel restores what was broken. It brings people back in. Even while Paul is in chains, he declares that “the word of God is not chained.” This good news of restoration cannot be held back; it reaches out beyond any walls.

Look at what that Samaritan did. He came back, not just in gratitude, but to worship at Jesus’ feet. And then Jesus sent him out: ‘Rise and go.’ See what’s happening here? He’s both the one who returned and the one who is sent. This is the church: we gather in worship, then we are sent out in mission. Thanksgiving becomes mission. And we don’t go alone, God is already at work in the world, in culture, in human stories, in our daily lives. Worship is not the end, it’s the beginning. The door we walk through today is not just an exit. It’s a gateway.