Luke 17: 11-19
Offered to the First Presbyterian Church of Franklin NJ – October 12, 2025
by Mel Prestamo, Elder, PCUSA
In Psalm 103, which I read the beginning verses to you earlier, the Psalmist is telling God’s faithful to be thankful for all the blessings that God has bestowed upon them.
He tells them and us to bless the Lord’s holy name with all that is within us – with every part of our entire being – “with all – all – that is within us.” Holding nothing back.
He tells us to bless the Lord from the depths of our souls – do not forget all his benefits, – the good things that God has showered upon us.
The Psalmist asks, “…who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems you from the Pit?”
Think of what the Psalmist is saying here. Who is it that can and does forgive all of your sinfulness? The Lord. Who is it that can heal your brokenness – the disease and the hurting – that is in this world? The Lord. Who is it that will finally resurrect you from the Pit when you have separated yourself from the love of God? The Lord.
The Pit – think with me for a moment on the parable of the Prodigal Father. The Younger son demanded all of his inheritance – benefits the Psalmist would call them – the benefits that this young boy was blessed with – and then he runs off and squanders it – his elder brother would later say he devoured those blessings and benefits with prostitutes. He didn’t just spend or waste it. He devoured it voraciously with the type of women that Proverbs tells us will lead us away from the wisdoms of the Lord.
And in so doing, he separated himself from the love of his Father and his God and sunk into the depths of depravity – into a Pit of squalor that is characterized in Jesus’ parable as feeding pigs.
Who was it whose love was steadfast? Who was it who kept watchful eyes on the horizon praying for and hoping for the wayward son’s return? The Father. Who was it who showed mercy and forgiveness towards this son who had caused so much pain and anguish? The Father. Who was it who restored the son to his inheritance in his household – lavishly showering him with good things and benefits – with robes, and rings, and sandals? The Father. Who was it who vindicated and redeemed him? The Father.
Although the Psalmist probably never anticipated how Jesus would weave his parable of a younger son, a begrudging elder son and a forgiving father who was willing to pour out his love lavishly upon his wayward younger son – that day in the Temple where he himself was sitting with the tax collectors and sinners, but in anticipation perhaps for how Israel would forget the Lord and all his benefits, the Psalmist admonished all of Israel never to forget and to be ever thankful for the steadfast love, mercy, forgiveness and healing of the Lord – of God, our Father. The Psalmist reminded Israel to be ever mindful of who it was who redeems them.
The Psalmist tells Israel – and us – to say Thank You to the Lord by blessing the Lord and the Lord’s holy name. He tells us today to just do something simple that perhaps we too forget to do, to just say Thank You.
With that as a backdrop, let’s take a look at our reading today. Today, Luke tells us that Jesus is walking along the border area between Galilee and Samaria – between the Jews of Judah who believed they were God’s chosen, faithful to God in every way and those Samaritans who they considered to be mongrels who had lost their way by meshing foreign religions into their practice of the Jewish religion what was and should be – the true faith of Israel.
When the Samaritans were invaded by the Assyrians, the Jews in Judah believed that the Samaritans were infected with outside cultures and religious practices that had reduced them to little better than Gentiles – unclean, unbelievers.
So, we find Jesus in this story in Luke walking through an area where there were mixed cultural influences. Jesus was walking across the line where devout Jews would feel uncomfortable. They would have considered it unclean to mix with and associate with Samaritans. Yet that is where Jesus was.
So, Jesus and his devout Jewish followers are walking the road, and we see that Jesus is called upon by a mixed group of Jewish and Samaritan lepers. While standing far off from the crowd that was following Jesus, they call out to him to have pity upon them. In other words, they are beseeching Jesus to heal their leprosy. They are standing off to the side away from the crowd because they are considered unclean. Not even the Samaritans would have anything to do with them. No one would allow them to come close. Further, by and large, good Jews would ignore their plight believing that their leprosy was caused by their sins.
Now I want you to be mindful of something here in Luke’s Gospel. This story follows on the heels of Jesus’s parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus was the poor diseased man living in poverty in the doorstep of the rich man. The rich man ignored his poverty and his plight. You know the story. The rich man lives a life of lavish excess in both how he dresses in purple robes and how he devours and feasts.
Lazarus, the poor man with no means of surviving on his own lives in the rich man’s doorstep hoping for any scraps that might be tossed from the rich man’s table. They both die. When the rich man dies, he is buried in the ground where his body rots into dust. He is consigned to Hades to an afterlife of torment. Lazarus on the other hand is lifted up by angels to spend eternity at the side of Abraham in heaven.
Like Lazarus in the rich man’s doorstep, these lepers are relegated to living outside of community shunned by good God-fearing Jews. Because their leprosy is believed to be caused by sin, good Jews would cast them out of society and refuse to have anything to do with them for fear of themselves becoming infected bby their sin, and then too, becoming unclean.
What stands in contrast between these two stories here is while the rich man ignores the poor man in his doorstep, Jesus hears the leper’s plea for pity and mercy and heals them. That is the stark difference between how humankind loves – with conditions and how God loves – unconditionally. You need to be mindful of what Luke is trying to tell us here.
Humankind’s love is conditional. It is limited. For the most part, it is unwilling to risk getting down into the muck of life – into the Pit of human brokenness – to help heal the brokenness of the human condition.
God’s love, in contrast and as exemplified by Jesus, is unconditional. It is steadfast. God’s love is merciful and forgiving. God’s love is redeeming and restorative. And it comes like a flood that showers down upon us God’s benefits and blessings.
So, Jesus reacts to the plea of these broken souls and shows them his love. Jesus is merciful and forgiving. If their plight is because of sin, they are forgiven. Jesus heals their infirmity and restores them. He redeems them so that they can go to the priests to prove that they have been cleansed and so that they can return to their own communities.
Jesus does all these things for them. He does all the things that the Psalmist attributes to God.
What happens next? The ten begin to walk off to show themselves to the priests as instructed by Jesus. As they begin to walk off, one of them – a Samaritan – notices that he has been cured, healed, and made clean. This Samaritan, who the Jews considered a mongrel in his faith, returns to Jesus to give him praise and thanks. He falls at Jesus’ feet to praise him and give thanks. The other nine who we are told later were Jews, do not.
The Jewish lepers walk away without giving a second thought that they should give thanks for their healing. This, in a microcosm, of what Jesus thinks the Hebrew people have done to their God.
They have a God who is steadfast in his love for them, who has forgiven all their iniquities, who showers them with love and mercy, and who redeems and renews them, but they have forgotten their God.
They have replaced their love of God with tradition, religious practices, and sacrifices. None of which, we know, are important to God. God has repeatedly told the people through God’s prophets that he does not want their sacrifices of bulls and calves. Instead, all God asks for is a sacrifice of self – that they give to God their love and praise. The prophet Micah phrases it elegantly, …that they should do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with their God.
The Psalmist tells them and us to be thankful. But these nine cured Jewish men walk off as if all of what has happened was to be expected. You see, they did what some of us to at times. They had put God and Jesus into a box demanding of him the forgiveness and healing that they expected they deserved – what they believed was due them as descendants of Abraham. After all, what could be a simpler concept for the ancient Jew to believe. If Jesus was God’s Messiah, then he should do for them what they believed God should do for them.
And when they got it, they walked off. No thanks. No gratitude. No praise. That was left to the mongrel, the outsider, the Samaritan. He returned to Jesus to offer praise and thanksgiving. God’s people on the other hand had forgotten what the Psalmist had told them should and must be done. They had forged a God who they demanded do their bidding like a slave. Take pity and heal us. That is what their God was to be used for. And once they got what they wanted, they no longer had need of God. They had no need to be thankful.
That is a Pit that we all fall into.
Sometimes, we are no different. Sometimes, we read and pray in our devotions in the morning but then other times we forget – ahh, that alright. God will forgive us.
Sometimes, we say grace before our meals in thanks for what is placed before us but then other times, we forget. It’s alright. It doesn’t change the taste of the bounty we are consuming. God won’t mind this one time we forget to offer our thanks and praise.
God should heal our illnesses, our diseases, our brokenness when we ask for it in prayer, even if we forget to offer praise and thanksgiving after we are blessed with that healing. When we receive benefits that heal our brokenness, do we offer thanks or are they something that we rightfully expected because we are baptized followers of the Christ?
You see, that’s when we put our powerful and awesome God into a puny little box – a box constructed from out of our own expectations of what God should be doing for us and not the other way around. Sometimes, we think that God should be forgiving even when we forget to be thankful. When it should go the other was around. It is we, who should be thankful first when God is blessing us and showering us with God’s benefits.
We have a God that is steadfast and faithful. In return we should be steadfast in our praise of God’s holy name and do it with all that is within us never forgetting who it is who forgives, who it is who heals, and who it is that redeems.
May this ever be so with you and all that is within you.
