We are all the eleventh leper

The Rev. Gary Smith SJ

By The Rev. Gary Smith SJ

"And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him . . . . Jesus said, “Ten were cleansed, where are the other nine?” (Luke: 17:17)    

Part of my ministry on the streets and jails of Portland, Oregon is spent at an addiction recovery residence, and at any given time, about forty men live there, accessing the program which can lead to health and sobriety.  I live there two nights a week. I’m available for counseling in the evening with individuals in the program. Part of the commitment of the recovery residents is to assist in a kitchen which daily prepares and serves meals to hundreds of  street people living in adjacent streets and cheap Single Resident Occupancy hotels (SROs). This facility is a place of healing, where addicts not only seek sobriety and freedom from liquor and/or drug dependency but also have the space and help to confront the inner demons of darkness and blindness which have dominated their lives. For many their addictions have nearly killed them and ruptured family connections and friendships. All are familiar with acquaintances who never beat the disease, dying in drink, dope, and despair.

One evening, U., a resident, stuck his head in my office door. “Can we talk?”

He was articulate, a skilled professional in life outside of the residence, clean-cut, and personable. He had sized me up for weeks, me, the Jesuit priest. Watching me, wondering about me, asking about me.

It was time.

He sat. Then he looked down, like he was studying his hands. In silence he held this position for at least two minutes. Interiorly he was crossing over into the country of self-disclosure. Never an easy walk.  Finally, he looked up. He said something like this:

“Father, I came tonight because I need to get off my chest before you and God the terrible stuff I have done, even as I want to express my gratitude to God for a profound kind of healing in my heart. I am sort of like that leper who came back to thank Jesus for the healing of leprosy. That grateful guy was Number Ten. I’m Number Eleven. I finally came back. You should know that I have totally screwed up my life. I drank myself out of my job, my wife, my kids, my beliefs, my own self-worth.  I have lied, cheated, and betrayed good friends. I have hung out with consummate losers, cheated and ripped off honest people, and woke up in bed with women I did not know.  I should have died a couple of times because there was so much alcohol in my blood.  I have been blind beyond blind. You get the idea.

"Since I have been here there has been gradual healing. I asked God to help and forgive me. I am here now with you because my sense is that I have been forgiven even as I know I will need to claim my life of sobriety daily. I’m late coming to God. But I need to say thanks for a strength that is not of my own making.”

U. stopped. He put his head into his hands. He wept silently; a man touched by the healing clarity of God.  And now a man submitting his thanksgiving to the Higher Power who had seen him, hovered over him, breathed on him and brought him back to life. As I reached across the table and held his hand, I thought of the passage of the prophet Ezekiel: “And I saw you struggling in your blood as I was passing, and I said ‘Live and grow like the grass of the fields. And you developed, you grew . . . your time had come, the time for love . . . and you became mine.” (Ezekiel 16:6-9)

We talked, the night sounds of the Portland streets occasionally drifting in.  His brother and sister AA members would be more insightful about the slings and arrows of drinking, because they had been there, done that, so they could talk the talk with him.  I told him that I was there that night for another reason. This: I shared with him my story of God’s healing love, and that even amid my blindness and sickness God was always in the hunt and offering forgiveness and hope and an escape from my own species of leprosy of the heart. God offering a way forward.  Toward hope and sight and healing. I knew addiction; knew it in my own family.  I knew my own stupid decisions; my life was full of them. I knew the search for wholeness. I knew healing and growth.  And I knew the thanksgiving of the returning healed leper.

U.’s grip of my hand grew stronger as I spoke.

We are all the Eleventh Leper.  We all know and remember our broken encounters on the way to God -- encounters with the world, with people, with ourselves. It is often a trail of tears, full of sad and bad decisions. At some point, we realize what dummies we have been and how we have hurt others and ourselves. We played the game of holding one hand out to God and keeping the other hand behind our back. And then, through a mysterious epiphany, we were moved to -- and sought -- forgiveness and healing. And it happened. We stood before it all, even as our souls knelt. In thanksgiving. Welcome back, Number Eleven.

It is a river of grace, these moments of contrition and healing and thanksgiving; one that overflows, inundating the  landscape of our consciousness and sanctifying our lives of decision-making.  The grace of God is dedicated to the growth of the individual human spirit, to the healing of the past mistakes, and to enabling us to claim a future of hope, wherein we can share the best of ourselves with the world.