Reflection on Luke 17:11-19

Luke 17:11-19

¹¹ On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, ¹³ they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” ¹⁴ When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. ¹⁵ Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. ¹⁶ He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷ Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Reflection

“One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan” (Luke 17:15-16). 

I think the gratitude of the tenth man with the skin disease stems from an amazing realization that can be summed up in words that go something like: “You healed me too.”  It was the gift of being included by Jesus that seems to have brought about that saving faith of the tenth man who was healed of his skin disease.  

It is the same sort of gift of inclusion that a lonely teenage girl on the side of the dance floor feels when, out of nowhere, someone comes up, takes her hand, and whisks her away to dance.  “Someone cares enough to dance with me too?”  

It is the same sort of gift of inclusion that the homeless veteran feels when someone cares to sit down with a cup of coffee to talk and listen.  “You would waste your time on me too?”  

The tenth healed man had a reason to feel that way.  You find the reason right at the end of verse 16: “He was a Samaritan” (Luke 17:16).  He was the enemy.  He was a part of the very people who rejected Jesus just down the road.  Just day before, the disciples asked Jesus to call fire from the skies down on people like him after a Samaritan village refused them hospitality. 

After the ten suffering men called, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus ordered them all to “Go and show” themselves “to the priests” (Luke 17:13-14).  There is no doubt that the Samaritan’s heart sunk at these words.  As a Samaritan, he could not step foot in the temple, much less show himself to the priests there.  The other nine could excitedly anticipate the healing that would come.  But as a Samaritan he expected nothing, except to be forgotten.  After-all that is what happens when you are different.  That is what happens when you are a hated Samaritan living in a Jewish world.  

So, imagine the Samaritan’s surprise and he looked down and saw that Jesus had included him in the healing too.  The pealing, grey skin that made him look like a member of the living dead was pink and whole once again.  He too had been noticed by Jesus.  He too had been loved.  He too had the chance to live a normal life.  He had been healed too.

Jesus is like that you know.  When Jesus teaches us: “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you;” in Luke 6:27, Jesus actually follows his own teachings and loves the enemy as well as those who are not.  

Can I just stop for a moment and consider that simple fact.  It is my experience that most people not only hate their enemies, but they also hate the friends of their enemies.  We like to lump entire groups of people into one category, all of whom we can easily hate and dismiss. We love our friends and hate our enemies.

Jesus is not like us.  His view of life is so different.  “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:32-33).  Instead, Jesus loves his enemies.  Jesus does not distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving before he sets out to heal.  Jesus healed the Samaritan, even though Samaritans were well known to worship in the wrong way, in the wrong place, and associate with the wrong people.  

It is as if Jesus would be willing to go to the cross for people like that Samaritan man.  It is as if “God so loved the world,” and not just those with the right religion, or the right culture, or the right politics (John 3:16).  It is as if Jesus actually cares that people like this Samaritan be saved.  And it was that sort of unconventional and unexpected love of Jesus that caused a healing faith to well up inside the formerly diseased Samaritan.  Curiously, that faith only welled up in him, not the other nine.

Just to be clear, Jesus loved and healed all ten men with the skin disease.  All ten people, sequestered to the edge of the village because of their illness, are healed after they shout out for Jesus to show mercy.  None of them had to prove anything to Jesus to deserve this healing.  None of them had to demonstrate any incredible amount of faith to be touched by the holy.  

I would also like to note even further that the other nine men listened closely to Jesus’ words and did exactly what Jesus told them to do.  Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests, as required by their religion to prove that they were clean, and they went away and did exactly that.  They did nothing wrong.

The only difference that I can see between the nine and the one is that only the Samaritan expected that the gift was not for him.  Only the Samaritan had reason to believe that he would be excluded like every other time.  But, when the Samaritan looked down and saw that he was healed too, he could not help but come back with a heart of gratitude and praise for what Jesus had done.

You cannot manufacture this type of gratitude.  It is like forcing your kids to sit down and write thank you notes for their birthday gifts.  It is the right thing to do, but the actual sense of gratitude might be somewhat lacking as you force them to write pre-scripted words of appreciation.  

The difficulty of showing gratitude does not stop with children though.  I have heard many Christians express how they know they need to be more grateful but somehow fall short.  

Surely, we have all heard about the scientific studies that show how much better our mental health becomes when we show gratitude.  Gratitude decreases pain levels.  It allows for better sleep.  It relieves stress.  It reduces anxiety and depression.  And gratitude can even increase your levels of energy.  But knowing the scientific evidence is different from making it happen. 

How do you make yourself grateful?  You cannot just make yourself feel something that you do not feel; can you?

In order to get at that question, I want to point out one more thing that I noticed about the Samaritan that I saw lacking in the other nine.  Maybe you saw it also.  

The Bible says this: “Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice” (Luke 17:15).  This man was the only one who looked down and saw that he was healed.  This is such a small detail, but it is huge.  

The other nine diseased men simply walked off, as they were told to do.  But it is only the Samaritan who took the time to look and notice what God had done.

Here is the thing.  God is at work and doing things in our lives all the time.  There are a multitude of things that you could notice throughout any single day that God is doing.  There are a multitude of things that could cause you to turn back and praise God.  

For example, those who suffer from acute asthma are so grateful when the God given gift of breath is restored.  But it is only those with acute asthma who even notice the gift of breath.  I do not think about the gift of breath a single time throughout my day.  But there are some who do.  And, because they do, they show gratitude.

Those who have lost legs and arms can tell you how grateful they are to have a prosthetic limb that restores their lives back to something that looks normal.  But it is only those who have lost limbs who look and notice what a gift arms and legs are.  I use my gift of arms and legs all the time, but I cannot think of a single time that I picked up my fork with a nice piece of steak, brought it up to my mouth and thought, “Boy, it’s a good thing I have arms!”

What I am trying to point out is that having your eyes opened to see all that God has done is a gift from Jesus in and of itself.  Because, when you see the gift, gratitude comes.  And gratitude that God has noticed us and done something for us causes us to trust God even more.  The next time the skin disease shows its ugly head, we have faith that God has our back.

In worship we sometimes get to see a young child accepted as a child of God through Holy Baptism.  It is a gift from a loving God that draws the child into a holy family.  Notice that like the ten who here healed, nothing had to be done by the child to be given this beautiful gift of grace.  It is a gift after all.  But we do pray that throughout the years parents, sponsors, and the church itself will be able to help the children to stop, look, and see the gifts that God has given.

So, even though I cannot just get up in the morning and decide to be grateful, we help each other to do it, as a gift.  We help others stop, look, and see all that God has done for them. 

After-all, it is what Jesus does.  Jesus stops and looks.  Jesus sees you, even when you do not feel like you are noticed by anyone, and even when you do not feel worthy of being noticed.  Jesus sees you and gives you healing too.  

I pray that someone help you to truly see the grace that Jesus pours out on you, even today.  And when you are healed by Jesus, and when you are finally able to see it…to see his love, and when gratitude fills your heart, I hope and pray that you hear Jesus’ words spoken as if to you:  "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well" (Luke 17:19).