Whoa, baby, don’t you know what week this is? For centuries, no, a couple of millennia at least, people have taken time, even created festivals and holidays, just for the purpose of giving thanks to their Creator God and those who are much appreciated in this life we have. Your question implies that thanking God is not important or necessary. Where are you going with this?

Ok, true, the ancient holy writings overflow with thanksgiving to God for all kinds of things: the created world and heavens, our very existence, good harvest, health, prosperity, victory in battle, family, etc. It is natural then to join with the chorus in word and song to express appreciation for all good things of life.

But there were some, nine specifically, who didn’t do it. And did Jesus ever take notice of it.

Shameful Stigma

He was just entering a village when ten lepers, standing away at a good distance, cried out to him. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Mercy certainly was what they needed. Leprosy was strictly regulated by Jewish law. Besides being a dreadful, life-altering physical disease, it carried much shame. Persons so afflicted were required to shout, “Unclean!” to any who approached. Judgement hung heavy over those suffering from it based on the thinking that persons had brought it upon themselves due to wrong living. Besides no cure being available in the first century world, the social isolation it brought on was devastating to all familial and social relationships. Thus, enormous stigma surrounded this disease, and for the large part, it was considered a death sentence.

Community of the Diseased

Also interesting, this story confirms what helped so many to survive throughout the centuries. Disease can be a great leveler. Persons of varying social status, wealth, age, race and gender would form a kind of colony, leaning on each other for survival of their common misery. This particular group of men, mostly Jewish, had among them a Samaritan. Simply put, Jews hated Samaritans for all the religious, ethnic, racial prejudices people can drag up. But in this little tribe, there was no discriminating when all shared a commonality of scabs, sores, and numbness in the extremities.

Jesus Looked at Them.

Get that? He looked at them, that is, he saw them as they were, ten men who dearly needed the mercy for which they cried, mercy which would restore them not only from physical affliction but also from the loneliness, the separateness, the rejection that kept them apart from others who could love, work, and worship together.

The great compassion for which Jesus was known was put into play before anyone could even tell. “Go show yourselves to the priests,” he told them. The law required they had to be certified as “clean” to be approved as cured and cured so that they could return to their lives. But the most miraculous thing was, as they were on their way, the leprosy disappeared. Scales fell, skin was full and firm, fingers and toes tingled in sensation. Who wouldn’t run off in joy and excitement?

No Thanks to You

Maybe that was it, they were just overwhelmed, swept up with what was happening? Maybe they just plain forgot. Perhaps it was carelessness from having not been trained as children to say thank you when someone does something nice for you. Or, it very well could be they were just plain ungrateful. All of this is hard to believe given what they’d had and of which now were cured. But for whatever reason, nine of the ten never gave Jesus so much as a “Yea, God” for how they’d been cured and ran off.

Except, One Did

Of all of them, the one who stopped was the Samaritan, the despised one, the enemy of the Jews. His dreaded skin disease was gone, but he would still know the prejudice and outright hatred for being who he was and to whom he was born. That aspect of his life would not change regardless of any approval by a priest that he was now “clean.” He’d never be accepted by them, maybe more so because of what he had shared with them. That circumstance would never change.

Still, he was the only one who turned back, praising God for this much desired change in his life. Even more so, he worshiped, falling face down at Jesus’ feet for what he had received. Jesus notes: “Does only this foreigner return to give God glory?”

Surely, it was a rhetorical question. Jesus didn’t come for those who required just a fixing of their circumstance. That wasn’t his mission. Yet, when you think about it, isn’t that what happens when people express their thanks? They celebrate their happiness in what is good around them: the created world and heavens, one’s very existence, good harvest, health, prosperity, victory in battle, family, etc.  If the situation is good, they give thanks. When life is not good, they still search for the silver lining in the cloud, taking a could-have-been-worse attitude.  It’s their state of affairs for which they show appreciation.

Only this foreigner returned. A foreigner this time, but in other places it was a tax collector, a prostitute, a fisherman, a desperate father or a frantic mother. No matter what their circumstance, these models of faith understood best what Jesus had done for them. Sometimes people know they’ve been cured, but outcasts know real healing.

Jesus told the man, “Stand up and go.” Stand, he said, rise up to the full stature of who you are in God’s purpose. Go, move forward into life in that purpose. “Your faith has made you well.” Your faith, your belief in your Healer as one who looked at him not as an outsider, as the other, as one shunned more so because of his heritage than his health. Faith made the difference. It made him whole, brought to him a full restoration that would not only deliver him from illness and isolation but that would reconcile and restore him to God.

Divine Fixer

Giving thanks is limited to only what one has now. True, being thankful for the blessings we know does keep us in connection with God’s love. But remember, God doesn’t need our thanks. Based in circumstance, too often God is called upon to be the Divine Fixer. After it is granted, people tend to run off. That’s what Jesus saw in the nine who were cured but didn’t return.

Gratitude is deepest in those who have had lives reversed, who no longer see themselves as defined by others but as God sees them. Gratitude becomes boundless in who one will become by God’s love and grace. God’s greatest desire is our gratitude, the life that is wholly healed and saved by Jesus. 

Luke 17:11-19 

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