Our Gospel reading is a familiar story. There’s nothing particularly under the surface here, no secret meaning revealed by the Greek New Testament or by diving into Jewish backgrounds. What we have, rather, is a simple story of Jesus healing ten lepers while he is on his way to Jerusalem, and instead of all ten returning back to him to praise God, only one does, a Samaritan, whom Jesus calls a “foreigner.”

Luke says that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and called to him. The call him by name, and then they call him “master,” but note this isn’t the word kyrios. The word ἐπιστάτης, here translated as ‘master’ is typically an administrative title, but I don’t think we should make too much of that.

The lepers lift up their voice and cry out,

“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”

And Luke writes,

When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.

All ten are healed, but only one leper returns.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.

And then Luke adds:

Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Luke emphasis, quite clearly, is on the attitude on the outside. Those outside the people of Israel are responding appropriately to Jesus while those on the inside are not. And there are a whole host of directions that we could go from this point, but what I want us to reflect on this morning is this:

Why didn’t the nine return and give praise to God?

Keep in mind as you reflect on this question that these are the people of God. Not outsiders. Not pagans. These nine are people of God, just like you and me, and when God intervenes in their life, they don’t return to Jesus and give him thanks. And we can make some guesses about why they don’t come back. Maybe they’re doing what they were told. Jesus didn’t command them to make sure they came back to him to give him thanks, he said, “Go and show yourself to the priest.” Maybe that’s what they did. Maybe they were so focused on being obedient and doing the right thing, that they forgot to come back to Jesus.

Or maybe they were so excited about what had happened that thanking Jesus simply slipped their mind. These are people who were outcasts in their society, separated and cut off from their family and friends, and suddenly they are healed, and maybe their first thought is to run back to their family and friends and share the news of their healing with them. Maybe in their excitement they forgot to thank Jesus.

Or maybe Jesus was such a controversial figure at this point that they didn’t want to be associated with him. They got what they wanted from Jesus, and now that they’ve got it, they’re going to keep him at an arm’s distance.

All of these are just guesses. Luke doesn’t tell us why the nine don’t return, and I suspect this is left open-ended in this way because it invites us to reflect on all the times in our own lives where we have failed to come back to Jesus and give him thanks. It’s easy for us to give thanks for the big things, which is what makes the nine lepers failure to do so so startling. If we got a clean bill of health from the doctor, like when the doctor called me and told me they had cut all the cancer out of my back, for many of us it would be our natural reaction to give thanks to God for this healing we had received, for the clean bill of health.

But in Christian theology, we don’t say that only the big things in our lives come from God. We say that everything we have, every breath we take, every meal we eat, every dollar in our bank account, everything comes from God. In fact, I hope you all are paying attention, because we say this practically every single Sunday.

The celebrant prays:

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for everything in heaven and on earth is yours; yours is the Kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as Head above all. All things come from you, O Lord, And of your own have we given you.

This prayer follows immediately after the bread and wine are placed on the table, and they are part of the people’s offering to God, but this is also typically the time in which the offering plate is passed around, something we don’t do here, but it’s meant to signify that your gift to the church is (1) a means of giving thanks to God for all that he has done and (2) an act of giving back to God what was already his because all things, everything we have, comes from him.

This is why Paul can say in Ephesians that Christians should be:

giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Of course we know this, but practicing it is a different matter.

Genuine thankfulness, the kind that results in praise to God for everything we have in our lives, begins with the understanding that everything we have is from God. There is nothing good in your life that doesn’t come from God the Father and isn’t redeemed by God the Son. So our attitude as Christians, once we wrap our heads around this thought, ought to be one of constantly coming back to God, and giving him thanks in the name of Jesus for everything good that we have in our lives.

There are many reasons why we might not do this always and for everything. Maybe we’re too busy dutifully going about our lives to come back to Jesus and give thanks. Or maybe there’s so many exciting things going on in our lives that it’s hard to remember to pause, take a breath, and give him thanks. Maybe we’re ashamed to say his name in public. Or maybe we don’t truly believe that everything we have comes from him. We think we’ve earned it. We think it’s ours by rite.

Whatever the reason, we don’t want to be like the nine lepers who went on with their life healed but never came back to Jesus to give him thanks. For lots of people get healed in this world, and lots of people have breath, and food, and enough money to live off of. God’s grace is common. It extends to everyone. But notice what Jesus says to the one who returned:

And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

But the word for rise is the word for resurrection. And the words for “made you well” are literally “saved you.” All ten were healed. All ten were made well. But only one was saved that day, and only one heard Jesus tell him to rise, and that was the one who came back and gave him thanks.

Amen.

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