I read an article in the newspaper this morning about a group of homeless  people, I think in Fairfax, Virginia, a rather wealthy suburb of Washington D.C. They don’t live on the streets but rather in their cars. They all work but do not make enough money to afford housing. They have formed a community of sorts where they sleep in a Home Depot parking lot and watch out for one another. Their destitution is what brought them together but their faith and humanity create a connection and a responsibility that rules their everyday lives.
    I thought about them as I read through today’s gospel story of the healing of the ten lepers. Their terrible, deadly, contagious disease ostracized from the rest of their society. Luke makes a point of telling us that they were not all Jews…one was a Samaritan. Now Samaritans did not associate with Jews at that time. But together they have created a rather unlikely community because of their destitution and rejection by everyone else.
    When Jesus comes along they cry out to him from a distance because they were forbidden from approaching anyone. Jesus goes against the conventions of the time. He talks to them, He is aware of their terrible plight, and He offers them healing. All the Jews go to show themselves to the priest for validation, but the Samaritan, the non-Jew, simply returns and gives thanks for his cure
One of the things this gospel teaches us I think it that as human beings, our brokenness, our need, our frailty is what connects us to one another. When we recognize our neediness, we also recognize how we depend on one another and on our God.  St. Paul says in his letters that ‘in our weakness is our strength’. The ten lepers came forward and asked for the mercy of God. In their weakness and brokenness, they discovered the strength and power of God’s healing love.
Next Saturday morning we will be celebrating the Communal Celebration of the Sacrament of the Sick. It is an opportunity to come before God in our need and ask for His healing, just as the ten lepers did today.
    When we are broken and weak God brings us healing and hope.