October 12, 2025
This homily will not be delivered. I am in Oklahoma for the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Missionaries Monks from France
2 Kings 5: 14-17 + Psalm 98 + 2 Timothy 2: 8-13 + Luke 17: 11-19
A familiar yet complicated story is proclaimed today. It is one that all of us know very well, and we have all heard countless sermons about gratitude springing from it. For me, that is all well and good, but there is so much more to this story yet to be discovered if we sit with it, and carefully look at the action and the language.
One of the details that has often struck me as is the fact that this whole scene comes as an interruption. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and suddenly he has to stop. It reminds me that sometimes, it is the interruptions that matter and provide us with a chance to do something that may be more important than whatever it is we are up to.
Another detail easy to miss is that this is not really a healing story. Instead of healing these ten who come asking for mercy, which may have been a plea for alms, Jesus sends them to the priests. The actual healing take place as they travel away from Jesus, which is the center of the story. As a matter of fact, the one who returns had no reason to go to the priests because he was a Samaritan. He was a double outcast. Bad enough that he was a leper. He was also a despised Samaritan. We should notice that even this one is healed. They were all faithful enough to do what Jesus asked even before there was a healing. We ought to connect this obedience to the healing.
The Samaritan’s status as an outsider allowed him to see his healing differently from the other nine, and this leads us deeper into the story. The healing is not the focus here. All ten had the faith to do what Jesus asked and start off on their way to the priests. Yet, only one had the faith to return, and what he did and said brings a whole different dimension to this story and leads us to why Saint Luke tells it when the other Gospel writers do not.
If there is fault with the other obedient nine it is not that they fail to see God at work in their healing. It is that they fail to see God at work in Jesus Christ. The Samaritan does, and what he does about it is important. Luke not only reveals Jesus as mediator and healer, but he teaches us how to respond to the work of Jesus Christ with praise and thanksgiving. Luke tells us that the Samaritan came back with gratitude and praise. This is an attitude of worship. These are the practices that mark our worship, and Luke is connecting these with the restoration of health.
This Church and our actions here are transformative. They are healing. This is the place where we can cry out for mercy. In fact, we just did so a few minutes ago. This is the place where we gather to offer thanksgiving and praise. In Luke’s original Greek, he says that the Samaritan came to offer “doxa” which is praise or glory, and eucharisto which means thanksgiving and is a unmistakable reference to worship. Martin Luther is said to have defined worship as “the tenth leper turning back.” Ultimately, this story invites us to follow the healed leper into a life of thanksgiving and worship.
Finally, the last movement and command in this story, “Get up and Go” is exactly the way this Mass and every Mass concludes with a commission to get up and go out with the joy and hope that forgiveness and healing brings to people who will obey and follow the commands of Jesus Christ.