In the bustling rhythm of modern church life, in which clergy juggle sermons, pastoral visits, and administrative duties, the call to personal holiness can sometimes feel like a distant echo. Yet the story of Jesus healing 10 lepers in Luke 17:11-19 invites a pause. It may not seem immediately obvious, but St. Ambrose, that great fourth-century bishop of Milan and guide for St. Augustine, used this story to connect the ministry of Christian clergy, their spiritual health, and the administration of the sacraments of our Lord Jesus.
Ambrose delivers a poignant warning that seems to demand perfection: “See what you do, O priest, and touch not the Body of Christ with a fevered hand. First be healed that you may be able to minister. If Christ bids those who are now cleansed, but were once leprous, to show themselves to the priests, how much more is it fitting for the priest himself to be pure.”[1]
This jarring image can unsettle us. We prefer to think of our priests with hands uplifted in pristine vestments, not shaking with the fever of sin or distraction. Yet the Anglican tradition, in Article 26 of the Thirty-Nine Articles, offers a crucial truth: even when ministered by “evil men,” the sacraments are effective because of Christ’s promise, not the minister’s virtue. They are the sacraments of Christ, not the priest.
How do we hold together the call to holiness on the one hand and, on the other, the recognition of sin, the daily need for grace, and that these gifts are from God, not our priests? The story of the 10 lepers not only provides the key but reveals a path to a deeper, more thankful faith for us all, clergy and lay alike.
The scene in Luke opens in a kind of no man’s land between Samaria and Galilee. Here, ten lepers—men ravaged by disease and isolated by the ritual law of Leviticus 13-14— stand at a distance. Their cry, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” is the timeless prayer of the broken, the Kyrie Eleison that has echoed through Christian liturgy for centuries.
Jesus’ response is not an immediate touch, but a word of command that requires faith: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” This directive echoes the Mosaic law for ritual reintegration (Leviticus 14). The healing occurs as part of their obedience: “And as they went, they were cleansed.” This is a profoundly sacramental moment. The lepers act on the authority of Christ’s word before they see any evidence, and grace flows in the faithful response.
But here the story splits. Nine of the lepers, seeing their skin become clean, continue on their way. They are doing exactly what Jesus told them to do. Yet one of them—a Samaritan, a double outsider—stops in his tracks. The Gospel uses a powerful verb: “He turned back.”
This is the pivotal moment. He doesn’t just send a thank you note; he returns to the source. He comes back to Jesus, “praising God with a loud voice,” and throws himself at the Lord’s feet. The Greek text tells us he was “giving him thanks”—eucharistōn. His response is fundamentally Eucharistic.
Jesus’ final words to him reveal the ultimate point: “Your faith has made you well.” But the Greek word is even stronger: “Your faith has saved you” (σέσωκέν σε, sesoken se).
Nine were cleansed. One, because he returned in grateful faith, was saved. This crucial distinction between a received benefit and a transformative relationship is the key that unlocks the tension between Ambrose and Article 26.
When Ambrose commands the priest not to touch the Body of Christ with a “fevered hand,” he is drawing directly from this Lucan theology. For him, a “fever” is a symptom of a systemic illness. Spiritually, it represents the disordered passions—lust, anger, pride, and, most pertinently, ingratitude.
The nine lepers who did not return are the archetypes of the “fevered” soul. They received the ultimate healing yet lacked the fundamental virtue of gratitude. A priest afflicted with such a spiritual fever—a soul caught in unrepentant sin or simple spiritual apathy—is existentially out of sync with the healing, saving reality of the Eucharist he celebrates. His ministry risks becoming a hollow ritual, a functional transaction devoid of the relationship it is meant to mediate.
Ambrose’s argument is not about earning grace, but about ontological congruence. The minister must, in his being, reflect the reality of the mystery he celebrates. Ambrose’s use of the Levitical command is brilliant. The priest in the Old Testament inspected and declared the leper clean. Ambrose argues a fortiori: if the one who declares cleanliness must be ritually pure, how much more must the one who handles the very source of purity—the Body of Christ himself—be spiritually pure and whole?
His message, “First be healed that you may be able to minister,” is the core of this vision. The priest must first be a recipient of grace before he can be a minister. He must first be the Samaritan leper—prostrate at the feet of Jesus, filled with thanksgiving—before he can stand at the altar and offer the sacrament of grace to other sinners. For Ambrose, the worthy celebration of the Eucharist is impossible without the priest’s life being a continuous act of eucharistia.
If we stopped with Ambrose, however, we could be left in a state of spiritual anxiety. Is the Eucharist valid only if my priest is a saint? This is where the wisdom of Article 26 provides rich and essential teaching.
Written in the context of Reformation-era debates, Article 26 addresses this fear directly. It states that even when “the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments,” their wickedness does not invalidate the sacrament. Why? Because “they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ’s, and do minister by his commission and authority.”
The article powerfully affirms that the sacraments are “effectual, because of Christ’s institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.” This is a pastoral safeguard for the laity. It assures us that the grace of our baptism, the reality of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, and the forgiveness in absolution do not depend on the secret holiness of our pastors. The sacrament is a gift from Christ to his Church.
In relation to Luke 17, Article 26 affirms that the word of Jesus, “Go show yourselves to the priests,” had the objective power to cleanse all 10 lepers as they went. The healing was real and effective for all 10, regardless of the ingratitude of the nine. So too, the sacraments, as commanded by Christ, have an inherent power to confer grace by virtue of his promise, not the priest’s virtue.
Article 26 does not give ministers a license to sin. It ends by insisting on church discipline, that “inquiry be made of evil Ministers, and that they be accused … and finally, being found guilty, by just judgment be deposited.” It balances two truths: the objective validity of the ministry and the subjective call for holiness and accountability in ordained ministry.
So, how do we reconcile Ambrose’s fervor with Article 26’s assurance? We see them not as contradictions, but as two complementary truths held in creative tension by the story of the 10 lepers.
Article 26 protects the objective gift: It assures us that the cleansing power of Christ’s Word in the sacrament is real and reliable for all who approach in faith. It is the guarantee that the “cleansing of the 10” is effective. The sacrament is Christ’s gift and the article assures us that God’s grace is never held hostage to human failing.
Ambrose exhorts the subjective response: He calls the priest—and by extension, every Christian—to be the “one who turned back.” He insists that the goal is not just cleansing, but the salvation that comes through a Eucharistic life of grateful worship. Here is the unambiguous call for holiness of life.
The priest, therefore, has a double vocation. He is the steward of the objective gift (Article 26), and he is called to be the prime example of the subjective, thankful response (Ambrose). He must ensure the sacrament is validly offered for the people, and he must also lead the way in the eucharistia, the thanksgiving, that is the proper response to that gift.
We are all the 10 lepers, cleansed by the word of Christ in baptism and sustained by his Body and Blood. The challenge is to avoid the path of the nine, who received the gift but disappeared into business as usual.
Let us, instead, be the one. Let us be a people—clergy and laity together—who continually turn back, who fall at the feet of our Savior in awe and gratitude. For it is in this Eucharistic return—this movement from merely being cleansed to being truly thankful—that we, and those who minister to us, are healed of our fever and made fit to handle the things of heaven. In the end, Ambrose’s purity and Article 26’s grace both find their fulfillment in a single, saving action: a grateful heart returning to its Lord.
[1] St. Ambrose of Milan, Concerning Widows. Chapter 10.
Simangaliso Magudulela is a lay minister at St. John’s Church, Johannesburg, and holds a B.Th. from St. Augustine College of South Africa.
