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In this inspiring video, Fr. Philip (Hall) explores the limitless mercy of God through the powerful story of Jesus healing the leprous Samaritan. See how God’s love transcends barriers of ethnicity and belief, offering hope and healing to all. Learn the importance of living Eucharistically and giving thanks for the blessings we receive.
This is a sermon recorded on January 21st, 2023 at the All Saints of Lincolnshire Orthodox Christian Church, Lincoln, England.
Archimandrite Philip:
One of these lepers was a disgusting leprous heretic, a Samaritan, someone hated for his ethnic background and perverted religion as they saw it and the Lord Jesus healed them all. He didn’t ask about their belief, He didn’t ask them about anything. They came to Him, they begged for mercy, He healed them all.
All of these lepers, all of them unclean, all of them with this dreaded horrible skin disease and one of them a heretic, as well. He healed all of them without asking any questions, but then only one of them came back, the outcast of outcasts, the leprous heretic Samaritan, the despised heretical foreigner, came back falling at the feet of Christ and thanking Him.
Now all of humanity suffers from spiritual leprosy. Me, you, almost everyone, unless you are a great saint. Some of us are Orthodox lepers, some of us are lepers who believe differently. St. Paul lists the symptoms of the spiritual leprosy in Colossians today: “earthliness, fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, idolatry, anger, wroth, malice, slander, foul talk, lies”. We don’t have to go very far, even looking at our own selves to see that we’re guilty of all of that type of leprosy, going right into us, disfiguring us, making us not so much in the image and likeness of God.
All of us, spiritual lepers, Orthodox, heterodox, atheist, of any religion, can come before God and ask His loving kindness and He will heal. He will make whole, He will renew each one of us, as St. Paul says, after the image of our Creator make us look to be, spiritually, what we’re meant to be. Make us actually what we’re meant to be. And then what? Well, we must learn to live Eucharistically. We must learn to live thanking God all the time, recognizing that this is something that God has done to us and not something we’ve done to ourselves.
We have been healed, made whole, made back into the image and likeness of God, beautiful, no longer leprous, no longer scaly, no longer missing spiritual bits of ourselves, our spiritual toes and feet and fingers, no longer blotchy with leprosy, but whole, pure, beautiful, as who are meant to be, cleansed. Then, living Eucharistically, living thankfully, counting our many blessings and the most blessed one of all is the salvation from our God.
We can then fall time after time at our Savior’s feet praising God for all that He’s done for us. And do you know what? There will be other people either side of us, we must not let that one Samaritan who came back be alone at the feet of Christ and when we come to the feet of Christ and we bow down in thanksgiving, we’ll find to either side of us extraordinary people, some Orthodox, some heterodox, some right believing, some gentiles, some Jews, some barbarians, citians, slaves, free, men and women, who realize what God had done for them and came back and gave Him thanks.
Some of them will be the most unlikely people that you will suddenly discover are your brothers and sisters in Christ. So thank God for that too, because God’s Mercy is not limited, He doesn’t say: “Oh, there’s a barrier here, that heretic leper, ‘I’m not going to do anything for you!'” He came, he asked of mercy and received healing and was made whole and came back thanking God. Yeah, go and do likewise! Your prayers, God bless you! Amen!
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