I wonder whether the moral of all this is that it's better to be myself even if that self is frighteningly bad, than to be artificially good. It seems to me that it's those people who dare to be themselves who begin to approach sainthood, while those of us who try to be good for God's sake, miss the point. The point is that God loves us as we are, not as how we'd like to be, and certainly not as how we think he'd like us to be. And that means I'm avoiding God, because he's where my real self is. Outer shells of goodness can keep God out just as much as outer shells of sin.
Goodness can be like armour, and sometimes it's just as hard.
Rather than working so hard at being good, perhaps Christians should relax and be themselves. And trust God to keep them right with him, rather than distrusting themselves so much that they're afraid almost to breathe. In today's gospel story ten lepers spotted Jesus from the distance they were forced to keep between themselves and other people in case of infection. They called out to him, presumably in desperation and as a last resort, for there was no hope for lepers in those days. Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests, in accordance with the old Leviticus law.