NOTES for Luk 17:12-19

To the Samaritan leper who returned to thank the Lord, Christ says that his faith has saved him. It did not simply give him the possibility of being healed; it saved him. All ten lepers were granted the miracle, but only one of them understood that it happened by Christ's will, because He wanted it. And he received it as an undeserved gift and returned to thank Him. For this Samaritan, God ceased to be a faceless and distant force that sometimes helps people. He became for him the One who heard his plea. Unlike the others, what happened became for him a personal meeting with God face to face. This is the saving faith that the Lord saw in him.

Of the ten who were healed, only one understood that a miracle had happened; only one was filled with gratitude and therefore believed. Is it accidental that out of ten there was one? We know that nothing in the Word of God is accidental. This proportion is certainly not accidental either. There are sociological studies showing that for a society to be stable, ten percent of its members must be believing people. The rigor of such studies can, of course, be questioned, but looking at today's reading one can understand that there is indeed some truth in this.

Not everyone is capable of faith, only those to whom such a manifestation of the Spirit has been given (1 Cor. 12:9). The rest, seeing a miracle, and even more than that, experiencing it themselves, will find natural causes for it. And this tenth part is that salt of the earth, a pinch of which is enough to make food tasty. Moreover, official statistics of confessional affiliation, of course, have no relation to this "golden section," because in principle they cannot reflect the true faith of respondents.

And one more thought comes to mind while reflecting on all this. The Lord calls us to give a tithe from what we have received. That is, of everything we have acquired, nine-tenths may remain within the circle of ordinary household needs, but one-tenth must be sacred. So too, perhaps, with us: one-tenth of people, those who truly believe, are an offering to God.

The paradoxical nature of God's Kingdom penetrates the most hidden areas of human life. Today, at the center of the paradox is faith. This may be the most difficult word in human language, because we almost always use it for the wrong purpose. For example, when the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, it turns out that they are asking for the wrong thing. They could move mountains even with an insignificantly small faith (a "mustard seed" is clearly something very small). But what could be more important? After all, Christ says many times to different people, "Your faith has saved you." This also happens with the healed Samaritan leper: the miracle of healing itself happens to all ten, but "faith saved" only him. And what kind of faith could this heretic have? The others went to show themselves to the priests, which was exactly what their faith required. In both cases, by "faith" Christ clearly means not quite what the disciples mean by it, or what you and I usually mean.

As the Savior's words show, the question of faith is directly connected with the question of spiritual life as such. What does it mean to increase faith? How did the disciples themselves understand an increase in faith? They must have meant something connected with the confidence they experienced when, at their Teacher's command, they preached the Kingdom and joyfully saw that not only people, but also spirits obeyed them. In those days, this sense of power was usually associated with faith, with its presence or absence. Jesus, however, is speaking of something somewhat different. He speaks of faith as a spiritual state. Precisely and only a spiritual one. After all, any manifestation of inner strength in a person is a natural phenomenon as much as a spiritual one. Here there is not only the spiritual impulse as such, not intention alone, but also nature and the psyche, which also respond to spiritual influence. But Jesus speaks only of the spirit. Only of the will. Only of intention.

Spirit is not nature. Quantitative measurements are impossible here. Spirit, or will, does not come in larger or smaller amounts. If the will is not fragmented, if it is not scattered through inner, psychological space or outer, physical space, it has absolute force. Not in the whole universe created by God, of course; only the will of the Creator Himself has that kind of power. But at one concrete point, it certainly does. That is why faith the size of a mustard seed is enough to move a mountain from its place. Faith here is not inner strength, and certainly not conviction about anything at all, but the fullness of relationship with God. It is that same fullness which, when directed toward creation, becomes the source of an infinitely powerful force, if only it is fully concentrated on something specific. But reaching that kind of concentration is not easy. No psychological techniques will help here.

This concentration is a derivative of that fullness of the life of the Kingdom which, in principle, has been opened after Christ's coming to everyone who seeks. It is the same fullness whose experience lets a person serve without counting merit: we have done what we were supposed to do; we are only servants who do not deserve a reward. It is the fullness in which one understands that every sin is absolutely destructive, and that, although sin is inevitable in the fallen world, complicity in it is always an existential catastrophe for a resident of the Kingdom. It is the fullness that is possible only in the Kingdom and without which there is no Kingdom. The fullness for which alone it makes sense to live.