Luke 17:11-19 is the story of the healing of the ten lepers and the thankful Samaritan. It is a unitary composition, since the saying of Jesus in verses 17-18 makes sense only inside the story.[1] It is an ideal scene because it embodies a truth, the reminder of gratitude, in a metaphorical situation, which arises out of the symbolic character of the story.[2] It is a story of genuine faith unfolds right before the eyes of the disciples. Yet the one whom Luke proclaims faithful is distinctly an outsider. The point is the contrast between gratitude and ingratitude, between Jews and a Samaritan, and between the miracle of healing and the eyes of faith. I would now like to explore this story of Luke, in which the final pronouncement discloses the meaning of the story.
This text revolves around praise, a concept that permeates the gospel of Luke from beginning to end. There were joy and gladness and rejoicing around the births of John the Baptist and Jesus (Chapters 1 and 2), and at the very end of the gospel we learn that the apostles are in the temple praising God (24:53). Thus, Luke gives the reasons for joy. God has appeared among us in Jesus. He invites us to praise by the appearance of Jesus. He invites the reader to grow closer to God through our acts of praise. In moments of obvious visits from God, we will not have to remind ourselves to praise or even encourage ourselves to be grateful. Rather, praise will gush forth spontaneously.[3] However, not everyone shows this kind of involuntary and spontaneous praise — a reality that provides the dramatic tension in the story of Jesus and the 10 lepers. This healing story opens the door for a discussion of a deep healing of mind, body, and spirit. God wants to make us well in a deeper sense than most of us realize.
I would like to focus on the surprising nature of praise and thanksgiving. We also need to have more openness than many of us do now that the Holy Spirit might inspire us in surprising ways. One of the most helpful ways to read this segment is in answer to the plea of the disciples in 17:5, "Increase our faith." If so, in verses 1-4, faith forgives; in verses 5-6, faith can accomplish everything; in verses 7-10, faith is humble; and here in verses 11-19, faith is proper praise and thankfulness. The story invites us to take the opportunity to witness to what God has done in our lives with a spirit of thanks and praise. What transforms this healing story into a demonstration of faithfulness is the action taken by just one of the 10 lepers.
The fact that ten lepers approach Jesus in the travel narrative to Jerusalem prepares us for the healing story.
On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance. Since they were ritually unclean, they kept their distance, but they called out loudly to the approach Jesus. In Jewish culture, they were required to call out to avoid any risk of contaminating the ritually clean. they were under the strict proscriptions of Levitical law (Leviticus 13-14, especially 13:45-46). Lepers are to wear torn clothes, have disheveled hair, cover the upper lip, and warn everyone by crying out that they are unclean. Lepers are to live alone outside the camp. Cultural values ostracized these lepers from their families, their homes, their livelihoods, and their community. Deprived of all social contacts, cultural values banished lepers to the boundaries of the village and forced them into beggary — relying on mercy and generosity for their survival. In this case, however, they address Jesus directly: "Jesus, Master (ἐπιστάτα), have mercy on us." Addressing Jesus as Master shows respect for him and his authority. They request that he have mercy on them, which at its simplest level, refers to financial support. Jesus acts on their behalf in verse 14: Go and show yourselves to the priests. Sending the lepers to the priest is necessary because the point of the story requires that the healing should take place on the way to the priest. In II Kings 5:10-14, Elisha tells Naaman to wash himself in the Jordan to receive healing, an incident that may influence the formation of this story.[4] Luke informs us that they were made ritually clean.
One of the ten saw he was healed (ἰάθη), turned back, and praised God with a loud voice. He acknowledged his debt and gave thanks. Now, a healing story becomes a testimony on faithfulness because of the action taken by just one of the l0 lepers. Everything about this healed leper is surprising. First, he prostrated himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The other nine are doing what Jesus said and continue to the priest in Jerusalem. Even if the benefit had not been as dramatic or miraculous, according to tradition all 10 men owed Jesus a debt of thanksgiving. Luke has this behavior of praise repeated several times to mark the occasion of a miraculous event that signifies God’s active presence (see Luke 2:20; 5:25-26; 7:16-17; 13:13; 18:43). Second, only now do we discover another important fact about this leper. He was a Samaritan. This fact makes the command to go to the priest puzzling, for why would a Samaritan go to a Jewish priest. Since the ministry of Jesus and the ministry of the earliest Jewish-Christian community was to Jews (Mat 10:5-6), this part of the story hints at the Hellenistic origin of the story.[5] Luke has a special interest in foreigners that shows up here. He would not have to be such, since the point remains the importance of offering thanks. Jesus asks a good question in verses 17-18, containing the point of the story, that will not receive an answer, Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? In the eschatological situation of the coming and work of Jesus, thanksgiving and adoration, as self-evident implications of his message and its reception in faith, could always be inexpressible. Yet, in this passage, the Samaritan has offered thanksgiving and adoration to Jesus. In fact, in apostolic times, the time of looking back on the history of Jesus, thanksgiving and adoration of God for the divine action in sending the Son for our salvation have had to take a principal place.[6] Jesus addresses the leper in verse 19, Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well (σέσωκέν). Luke uses this phrase four times. He uses it twice applied to women (7:50; 8:48), once to a Samaritan (17:19), and once to a Jew (18:42). Genuine faithfulness transcends all distinctions of gender, race, and nationality. This final pronouncement, and not the actual cleansing of the 10 lepers, best defines the essence of this segment. Through his faithful praise, the Samaritan has received divine blessing. This progression of words to describe the experience of the Samaritan leper appears intentional. He recognizes that he is now ritually clean, but this means that Jesus has “healed” him of his disease. When he returns to offer his sense of gratitude to Jesus for this healing, Jesus is the one who sees the faith of the Samaritan and proclaims him well, the same word that in other contexts will translate as “saved.” Jesus shows that healing is deeper than the body. We need healing of mind and spirit as well. His faith and gratitude have led to a deeper experience of God making “saving” him in body, mind, and spirit. Of course, this suggests that for Jesus, salvation, making people well in a deep and profound sense, was not something limited to Jews. He made it clear that such “making well” was open to anyone who has faith.
The Samaritan identity of this man suggests two quite different observations about this text. First, because he is outside the faith of traditional Judaism, the concern of the Samaritan to return and give proper worship now reminds readers of another healing of a non-Jewish leper. In II Kings 5, the mighty warrior Naaman, who is also a leper, receives a miraculous healing from his disease under the instruction and guidance of the prophet Elisha. In 5:15, Naaman responds to his experience of healing with faithfulness, not just gratitude. This Samaritan leper also responds to his healing with faith that results in authentic worship. Second, the healed leper’s Samaritan identity could suggest that he originally “turned back” for an entirely different reason. Jesus had commanded the 10 to go to the priests — for the nine who are Jews, this still means journeying to Jerusalem. Yet, for a Samaritan, the center of worship and the location of his priests were at Mt. Gerizim in Samaria. When he saw Jesus healed him, this Samaritan may have turned back to make his own pilgrimage to Mt. Gerizim. However, even in route to that separate place of worship, this Samaritan finds a third and satisfying place to offer this thanks to God in worship. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. Instead of directly addressing the prostrate form before him, Jesus first wonders aloud to his audience (the disciples) about the absence of the other nine and the presence of only one. Only then is this one -- an "outcast" by the norms of Jewish society -- identified in verse 18 by Jesus as "a foreigner" and held up as a positive example before the disciples. The term Jesus uses to describe him is the same as is inscribed on the wall of the temple that separates the Court of the Gentiles from the sacred inner courts reserved only for Jews. By using such a harsh, segregating term to describe this man, Jesus highlights the fact that this Samaritan, who was outside the people of God as identified by Judaism, has become through his faithfulness one of the “saved” ones. In a sharply divided society, Jesus showed openness to the outsider. All ten were outsiders, but one was an outsider in special sense. Society erects many barriers. The natural response for most people is to refrain from crossing the lines society establishes. We do not relish the embarrassment, scorn, or rejection society can bring. In some cases, we might feel like we are putting ourselves out on the limb and fear someone will chop off the limb! Yet, we are part of society. We help make the barriers and support their continuance by our words and actions.[7]
In offering thanks to others, we acknowledge our dependence upon another. We need to learn to surprise people with our gratitude to God and to them. Yes, many experiences can cause us to be resentful about the hand life has dealt us. The leper could have done that in a large way. Gratitude focuses our attention upon the positive dimension of life rather than its trials and barriers. We do not express gratitude because life is perfect. Life does not run smoothly for anyone. It has twists and turns, hills and valleys. Yet, along the way, focusing on those aspects of life that have helped us along the way will lift our spirits. Expressing gratitude will also lift the spirit of others. This story might inspire us to surprise others with our gratitude.
Offering thanks and gratitude will not solve every issue in your life, of course. However, developing a spirit of gratitude in your life can take courage.
Viktor Frankl, the eminent psychologist, and founder of the so-called Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy (Logotherapy), provides a revealing example of what it means to express gratitude for wholeness and wellness. Frankl, who died in 1997 at the age of 91, was a prisoner in the concentration camps during World War II. Dr. Gordon Allport, in his preface to Frankl's significant work, Man's Search for Meaning, says that
"there he found himself stripped to a literally naked existence. His father, mother, brother and his wife died in the camps or were sent to the gas ovens, so that except for his sister, his entire family perished in these camps. How could he -- every possession lost, every value destroyed, suffering from hunger, cold and brutality, hourly expecting extermination -- how could he find life worth preserving? A psychiatrist who personally has faced such extremity is a psychiatrist worth listening to" (7).
Frankl answers Allport's question when he recounts his experience immediately following his liberation from the camps:
"One day, a few days after the liberation, I walked through the country, past flowering meadows, for miles and miles, toward the market town near the camp. Larks rose to the sky and I could hear their joyous song. There was no one to be seen for miles around; there was nothing but the wide earth and sky and the larks' jubilation and the freedom of space. I stopped, looked around and up to the sky -- and then I went down on my knees. At that moment there was very little I knew of myself or of the world -- I had but one sentence in mind -- always the same: "I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and he answered me in the freedom of space." "How long I knelt there and repeated this sentence, memory can no longer recall. But I know that on that day, in that hour, my new life started. Step for step I progressed until I again became a human being" (96).
Frankl, released from the most "leprous" episode in the history of humankind, could do nothing but kneel before his Creator in a posture of overwhelming gratitude. From that point of thanksgiving, he marked his renewal as a human being. Likewise, our wellness, our wholeness, our very healing and health, our becoming wholly human depend on our being able to celebrate and give thanks for the "freedom of space," for the liberation and cleansing God has brought to us, often mediated by influential people we love and the people who love us.
Thanksgiving is not such an obvious response to life and world. The senseless suffering in human life, the at least temporary success of evil, is enough to remind us of the faith, hope and courage it often takes to give thanks. Today, we need to look for ways to say and to write “Thank you” to those in our circle of friends and acquaintances. We need to develop the habit of gratitude. In fact, a large part of the stewardship of life includes offering gratitude to others.
The American tradition of setting aside a day of Thanksgiving is a case in point. It was not easy. We do not find the most intense moments of thankfulness in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound.
Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number dead, men without a country, but still there was thanksgiving to God. Their gratitude was not for something but in something. In 1777, over 100 years later, the continental congress proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving after the American Revolution victory at the Battle of Saratoga. However, it was twelve years later that George Washington proclaimed another national day of thanksgiving in honor of the ratification of the Constitution and requested that the congress finally make it an annual event. They declined. Yet, the custom grew in various colonies as a means of celebrating the harvest. Another 100 years later, in 1865, and the end of a bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving. It might surprise you to learn that it took still another 40 years, the early 1900's, before the tradition really caught on. For you see, Lincoln sanctioned Thanksgiving to bolster the Union's morale. Many Southerners saw the new holiday as an attempt to impose Northern customs on their conquered land.
Thanksgiving today is a mild-mannered holiday full of football, hot apple pie, and family reunions. However, that is not a realistic historical picture of Thanksgiving. It is more often born of adversity and challenging times. So many of the greatest expressions of thanksgiving have occurred under circumstances so debilitating one wonders why people give thanks. It would seem the more reasonable response would be bitterness and ingratitude.
It is not that life is so wonderful. It is not. It is not that people are so wonderful. We are not. It is because of God, it is because of confidence in God, that we can be grateful. If you really want health of mind, body, and spirit, you might have to dig down deep and be grateful. If you really want to be well, let praise gush forth. If you want to be clean morally and spiritually, let Jesus come in and make it so. Here are some proverbs that remind us of this truth.
Anxiety weighs down the human heart,
but a good word cheers it up. (12:25)
The light of the eyes rejoices the heart,
and good news refreshes the body. (15:30)
Like vinegar on a wound
is one who sings songs to a heavy heart. (25:20)
A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance,
but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken. (15:13)
A cheerful heart is a good medicine,
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[3] (Mark Hillmer, “Luke 1:46-55,” Interpretation, October 1994, 391-93). He was professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary.
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[7] Jimmy Carter, Sources of Strength, New York: Random House, 1997, pp. 74–75
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