Doubly Excluded, yet the only one to give thanks

On his way to Jerusalem (cf. Luke 9:51), Jesus met ten people with leprosy who lived on the border between Samaria and Galilee. “Are they Jews or Samaritans? Since people with skin diseases are excluded from normal society, their ethnicity doesn’t matter.” * We know at least one, a Samaritan, faced double exclusion—he was both a “leper” and a Samaritan, an outcast for both health and ethnic reasons. Jesus healed all ten when they called out to him for mercy. Yet the reason we know one was a Samaritan was that he—a man most Jews would have considered spiritually “unclean”—was the only one who returned to thank Jesus. Jesus highlighted this man’s gratitude, asking about the other nine who didn’t return to give thanks. Once again Jesus’ healing love crossed all social and religious barriers. The one person society would have considered least worthy showed the most appropriate response to God’s grace.

• The nine who didn’t return to thank Jesus probably followed proper religious protocol—going straight to the priests as instructed. “Perhaps, once they’d seen the priest (the priest who lived locally had the responsibility to declare when people were healed from such diseases), they were afraid to go back and identify themselves with Jesus, who by now was a marked man…. Luke doesn’t say that they were any less cured, but he does imply that they were less grateful.” ** The Samaritan chose gratitude over ritual, returning first to thank Jesus. His outsider status may have made him more aware of the gift he’d received. “It is not only the nine ex-lepers who are shown up. It is all of us who fail to thank God ‘always and for everything’, as Paul puts it (Ephesians 5:20).” *** How might your own struggles or difficulties make you more appreciative of God’s blessings? What blessings have you forgotten to thank God for?