Psalm 65
Luke 17:11-19

"Unclean!  Unclean!" announced the first‑century leper if anyone got within sight or sound of him.  Originally, this approach was a method of preventive medicine. However, eventually this approach became as much or more a method for social ostracism than a method of preventive medicine.  Imagine how isolated and alienated your would feel if you had to yell "Unclean" to describe yourself every time you saw another human being!
           
Leprosy was a terribly dreaded disease which also rendered a person to be religiously unclean.  The leper was considered to be a carrier of a contagious disease.  Therefore, there were rules of isolation which the lepers were required to obey (Lev. 13:46).  A leper was required to avoid social interaction with all people except those in a similar condition to his.  Cure for leprosy was considered possible only as a miracle performed by God.  When one thought that he had been cured of leprosy, he was expected to go the priest who determined if the leper were ready to be integrated into society.
           
I’ve read several stories about people with leprosy but I’ve never seen a person with the disease.  This deadly disease seriously alters the ordinary tasks of life such as walking and talking.  No matter what people with leprosy look like or how the disease alters their lives, they are always outcasts—isolated, despised, feared, and rejected by others.  The isolation is so strong that it is not uncommon for someone who is feeling isolated and rejected to comment that she is being treated like a leper.
           
Who are the outcasts today?  The list is too long.  It includes people who are homeless, people with AIDS, people who are in the minority in a culture or a community, and people who live a different lifestyle than the majority or different from the accepted lifestyle of the community.  I hear it often, “That’s so North Shore,” or “They don’t really fit in the North Shore.”  This is a modern day rejection. There was a time when Glenview Community Church was referred to as the “Country Club Church.”  Those who were part of the “club” didn’t mind the designation.  Those who weren’t in the “club” were outcasts.  They felt isolated and rejected. 
           
We often deal with those that frighten us by pushing them to the periphery of life.  By exploring this account of Jesus’ involvement with the ten lepers, we can see parallels to how we are to minister to those who feel alienated from family and society, whatever the cause is for the alienation.  People who are isolated and alienated need to be accepted, loved, and included in relationships. We are called to minister to people regardless of their needs and conditions.  Jesus said the righteous are the ones who clothe the naked, receive the strangers, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned. 
           
As a Jew, Jesus sought to work within the framework of Judaism.  Jesus knew the religious rules regarding cleanliness, which were developed as a way to emphasize the importance of presenting oneself openly and honestly to God.  However, through centuries of use and abuse the intent and purpose of many of the rules became distorted if not totally lost.  What resulted was that often rules were more important than people.  Jesus did not have a vendetta against the religious rules, but he knew and taught that rules were made for people and not people made for rules.  People were more important than rules. 
           
In the text from Luke, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.  Just as there are many roads that lead to Chicago, there were several roads that led to Jerusalem.  Jesus chose to walk the most crowded road, the one that enabled him to encounter a myriad of individuals with numerous needs. 
           
Jesus enters the village, walking along its center street.  Women are busy buying meat and vegetables for the evening meal.  Merchants are capturing the crowd with their goods.  Children are playing hide and seek between dusty blankets hanging from tents.  Ten lepers are painfully entering the edge of the road, yearning to encounter the man of miracles.  “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus hears the cry for help, turns around and sees the sick lepers walking nearly a city block away.  He walks a little closer, and with little or no thought, instructs them to go to the temple and see their priest.  In a blink of an eye, the lepers are made clean.  Scales fall.  Eyes open. Pain subsides. Business continues.  After going to the temple, nine lepers proceed.  One turns back to find Jesus.
           
The stranger in the midst, a foreigner who is the outcast of society, turns away from the other nine and turns toward Jesus.  Ten received healing.  One returns thanks.  Ten receive healing.  One is made well.  The one who returns and offers gratitude and thanksgiving becomes healthy and whole.  
           
When the one leper returned to thank Jesus is when Luke revealed the identity of the grateful leper.  He was a Samaritan.  Samaritans and Jews had no dealings with each other except business dealings and there were special guidelines for Jews to conduct business with Samaritans.  In this story, however, there were nine Jews and one Samaritan banded together, an illustration that those in misery often are more willing to admit their need for company than those who are unaware of their condition and misery.  Life threatening events pull down walls that separate people who otherwise would remain forever apart.  The primary concern of these ten men was they were desperately in need.  In their need they found common support, understanding, and encouragement with each other.     
           
The waiting room of the intensive care unit of a hospital can be a similar wall breaker.  There family members of several patients wait for a word from the doctor.  It matters not what the race or creed of those waiting may be.  When one receives encouragement all are encouraged and rejoice.  When one receives bad news all are saddened and mourn with him.  Common human need tears down the walls that we easily and glibly construct to keep others either in or out of our lives. 
           
There are always barriers between us and people who are different, lonely, or in need, and it is natural and convenient for us to refrain from crossing those lines.  One of the greatest fears is of being embarrassed—of being publicly scorned or rejected, or of getting ourselves out on a limb and having someone chop off the limb.  But who builds and maintains the barriers?  We do. (Jimmy Carter, Sources of Strength, New York: Random House, 1997, pp. 74-75)
           
It is not surprising that the grateful leper is a Samaritan when you consider that Luke is the one who recorded this story.  Incidentally, Luke is the only one who tells about this particular event.  Other Gospel writers have stories of Jesus relating to lepers and healing them (Matt. 8:1‑4).  Only Luke has the one expressing gratitude and the nine expressing ingratitude.  Apparently Luke wanted to show the ingratitude of those who took their relationship with God for granted and to show the gratitude of those who instinctively saw the care and healing of God as a matter of grace.  This story may indicate that only about ten percent of us ever take the time and make the effort to say, "Thank you," for the gift of grace we receive.
           
There is a difference between being healed and being made well and the difference is related to gratitude.  Have you had an experience where your immediate reaction was to express thanks for what someone had done for you or given you but you didn’t take action?  As time passed you became less and less interested in expressing your gratitude.  And then the feeling of gratitude gave way to a sense of entitlement.  The thinking process goes something like, “That was a nice thing that was done but actually I really deserved it.” 
           
This process seems to be what happened to the lepers in the story from Jesus’ ministry that Luke has recorded for us.  All ten lepers were healed. Only one was made whole, complete.  I find myself being so much like the nine and so unlike the one.  I suspect that when the nine recognized they had been healed, initially they thought of going to thank Jesus, but they didn’t act on it and the gratitude was not integrated into their lives and wholeness and completeness did not happen.  Gratitude carries a surprise.  There is a wholeness that accompanies gratitude that we never know or experience until we take action to express gratitude.  Once we are surprised by gratitude, we are likely to express gratitude again when some healing occurs.  The more action we take when a sense of gratitude comes into our lives, the deeper the sense of gratitude becomes.  The eventual result is we develop an attitude of gratitude.  When we don’t take action to give thanks, we proceed on our way healed but we are not well. 
           
The spirit and love of God so evident in Jesus continues to encounter a myriad of people in a variety of places.  God continues to give great gifts—gifts of healing, acceptance and joy.  Some of us have experienced a statistically defying, medical cure.  All of us have experienced minor medical healings whether it is the ending of a headache or a scab forming over an open wound.  Some of us have experienced deep depression.  All of us have walked through dark, painful nights.  Some of us have experienced broken bones and bodies.  All of us have experienced broken hearts.  Some of us have been ostracized by society—pushed to the outskirts because of the color of our skin, the amount of our paycheck or our sexual orientation.  All of us have been teased and put down.  All of us, every single one of us, have been healed.  We have been found.  We have been touched.  We have encountered God.  We have received God’s mercy and grace.  We have been healed and cleansed. 
           
Through the love of God revealed in the life and ministry of Jesus, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.  No response is required.  No debt is owed.  We can choose to go on our way like the other nine, and many of us do.  We can also choose to be like the Samaritan who returned.  We can respond to God’s faithfulness with gratitude and thanksgiving. When we do we are made whole. 
           
We are God’s hands, God’s heart, God’s eyes, and God’s ears.  We can serve others.  We can share what God has generously provided.  We can tell what God has done in our lives.  We can touch those individuals whom Jesus would touch—the poor, the rejected, the battered, and the bruised.  
           
Grace and gratitude are inseparably related.  The inverse also is true that ingratitude and unawareness of grace are interrelated.  Grace primarily is a movement or an attitude.  It is something that radically alters life for the better.  Usually it is only after a person is in a new state that he realizes how badly his condition was in the previous situation.   
           
Grace identifies the rich positive relationship that exists between two people.  One person is responding with grace to another when she receives that person without criticism, without preconceived notions of how the other person ought to be, without judging the other, without being impatient, and without any wish to make the other person over into her image.  Positively, grace is the ability to receive another with warmth, permissive acceptance of the other person's uniqueness, with concern, with loyalty that respects the other's confidential communication, with openness to the other's revelation of himself and with one's willingness to reveal himself and how he sees the world, himself, and others. Grace is one person giving himself to another.  It is one person confronting another in freedom and responsibility.  With this understanding God is like the sea, ebbing and flowing into each person according to his needs and accessibilities.  Jesus demonstrated and lived out the graciousness of God to all people alike.  He was able and willing to confront people at their worst and remain gracious.
           
This is our task and our calling.  We are to live out the graciousness of God to all people alike regardless of who they are or what their circumstances in life may be.   
           
Jesus said that the faith of the leper who returned to express his gratitude had made him well.  Wellness means wholeness.  I have noticed an interesting phenomena characteristic of cancer patients with whom I have worked.  Every one of them would like to be cured.  As the disease overtakes their lives, I notice a willingness on their part to accept the inevitable of their lives ending.  Their desires and prayers are for strength for the living of their days, while their family members and close friends continue to want some miracle to happen that will cure them.  In a sense the cancer patient at this point is more nearly well, whole than are his family and friends.  Generally, the patient is able to verbalize her appreciation and gratitude for the life she has had and for the life that remains for her.  The emotional well being of the patient seems to get better.  Often the emotional state of her family becomes bitter.  Grace and gratitude are the difference between becoming better or becoming bitter.
           
A man told about taking his family to a restaurant. His six-year-old son asked if he could say grace.  As they bowed their heads the boy said, "God is good, God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Mom gets us ice cream for dessert. And Liberty and justice for all! Amen!"
           
Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, a woman was overhead saying, "That's what's wrong with this country. Kids today don't even know how to pray. Asking God for ice cream! Why, I never!"
           
Hearing this, the six year old boy burst into tears and asked his dad, "Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?"
           
As his dad held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job, and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table.
            He winked at the boy and said, "I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer."
            "Really?" the six year old asked.
            "Cross my heart," the man replied.
           
Then, in a theatrical whisper, he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing), "Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes."
           
Of course, after all of this, dad bought his kids ice cream at the end of the meal. The boy stared at his for a moment, and then did a surprising thing.  He picked up his sundae and, without a word, walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her, "Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes; and my soul is good already."
           
This boy was whole, made well by being grateful. His gratitude led him to take action.
           
Here is an experiment for us to try this week.  Every time this week we have a sense of gratitude or gratefulness or want to say thanks or do something to express thanks, let’s do that. Take action.  Do something to express the gratitude.  Don’t put it off.  What will happen?  I think we will be surprised, surprised by gratitude and discover that we are developing an attitude of gratitude as well as being made well, whole, complete.    
           
We have received God's grace.  We are to be conductors of grace by allowing the grace and love of God to flow to us and then through us to others, especially to those who have been alienated from community, from family, friends, and church.  With grace and gratitude we can bring back into community and relationships from the periphery those who have been treated as the lepers of our day.  What an opportunity!  What a gift the surprise of gratitude is! Gratitude brings wholeness.  Do you want to be well?  Then, give thanks.  Everyone can be healed.  Only those who recognize the gratitude they feel and take some action to express it can be made well, whole, and complete.  What a surprise gratitude brings!
Notes
    
1Fathia A‑Mahmoud, "In Africa, Taking Action Against AIDS," in "A Weekly Journal of Medicine, Health, Science, and Society," The Washington Post, Aug. 25, 1987, p. 7.
2Christine Gorman, "Plague of the Innocents," Time.  (New York:  Time, Inc., January 25, 1988), Vol. 131, No. 4, p. 59.
3Ibid., p. 59.
4Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, United
States Department of Health and Human Services, December 12,
1986, vol. 35, no. 49, pp. 6‑8.
5Ibid., p. 6.
  6SBC Today, vol. 5, no. 5, August/September 1987,
p. 6.
     7Mann, The Washington Post, pp. 24‑25.