A Good and Joyful Thing

This is in a sermon series based on passages from Luke as Jesus travels from Galilee to Jerusalem. In today’s reading, he is in an area between Jews on one side and Samaritans on the other, and he is met by a group of ten lepers, united by their leprosy and thus by being outcasts from both Jews and Samaritans. At their request he gives them instructions that will heal them. They are healed, but only one of the ten returns to thank him and to praise God, and that one is a Samaritan. By this act of gratitude, that thankful Samaritan establishes a new relationship with Jesus and with God, demonstrating a difference between being healed and being made whole. The story presses us to ask ourselves whether we pray for something and then neglect to give thanks when it is granted.