Image: Codex Aureus Epternacensis, ca. 1035-1045
I want to share the story of Bob, a sweet elderly man whose dedication to his community left a lasting impact. Although most of Bob’s active years of working and volunteering had passed by the time I met him, his concern for others was unwavering. Bob had served as president of a local organization that provided utility and other forms of assistance to those in need. Under his leadership, he started a food shelf, and he participated in several other service organizations. His commitment was so remarkable that he was publicly recognized by then-governor Evan Bayh.
Bob’s deep involvement in community service was rooted in a personal experience during World War II. He served in the North Africa and Italy campaigns and, during the Anzio landings, prayed, “God, if you get me out of this, I’ll do anything you want me to do.” He was wounded in battle, earning both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, and suffered from trench foot, which required him to leave the front lines. While he recuperated, his company participated in the Normandy landings, where nearly 90% of his comrades were killed. After rejoining them, Bob soon fell seriously ill and was airlifted to England, where he spent the remainder of the war. For the rest of his life, Bob believed God had saved him for a purpose and made it his mission to serve both God and his neighbor wholeheartedly.
This story may prompt us to wonder why Bob was saved while so many others were not. Yet, the essential point is Bob’s expression of gratitude—a gratitude like that shown by the healed Samaritan in the Gospel story.
The gospel picks up where we left off last week. Jesus has not only opened his disciples to the dangerous, amazing potential of increased faith, he has also reminded them to not expect special favors for their obedience to the gospel—namely, protection of vulnerable believers and offering forgiveness. Here, they’re back on the road to Jerusalem, a road that has been quite long (eight chapters long, so far!)
But he meets ten men who have been on a long road of their own. We’re told they’re suffering from a skin disease, but this doesn’t do justice to the term. While it probably isn’t what we call leprosy today, it was a condition that rendered them ritually unclean. Ritual impurity was not sinful, but it did impair a person’s connection to the wider community. The book of Leviticus is clear about what to do with such persons: they are to “wear torn clothes and let the hair of [their] head(s) be disheveled, and [they] shall cover [the] upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ [They] shall remain unclean as long as [they have] the disease; [they are] unclean. [They] shall live alone; [their] dwelling shall be outside the camp”[1]. There was hope for them. Leviticus 14 details the priestly procedure for restoring someone to community after cleansing. But these men were still suffering, not just physically, but socially and spiritually too.
They cry out. Jesus doesn’t even bother with a gesture of healing; he simply tells them to show themselves to the priests so they can undergo the cleansing ritual in Leviticus 14. As they obey, they are healed. And if the story were to end there, it would be simple and clean, pardon the pun. People are suffering, Jesus heals them. The end.
But as happens so often in Luke, the story doesn’t end there. We’re told that one man out of the ten perceives his healing. One man out of ten notices what has happened. Now, this man had a choice to make. Does he obey Jesus’s command immediately? That seems to be desirable, after all, especially considering Jesus’s own words at the beginning of this chapter! Or does the man defer obedience to give thanks and praise to God for all that God has done for him? Does he put off obedience to Jesus in the moment to engage in this act of spontaneous thanks and praise-giving?
He chooses the second option. Giving praise and thanks to God is too important to put off. There is something deep within this man that needs to glorify God. That needs to praise God. That needs to offer a sacrifice of love and devotion before fulfilling Jesus’s other command that will restore him to his family and community. Praise and gratitude can’t wait! Not because of God’s need for it. After all, God does not need our praise and thanks. But because of the man’s need to do so.
Unfortunately, sometimes we put off our deep need to praise and thank God. We can do this out of a sense that we deserve what we’ve received. This might be best summed up in the grace Bart Simpson offers in an episode of The Simpsons: “Dear God, we pay for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.” Perhaps we can do this out of a sense of lack. We don’t feel like we’ve gotten what we need or deserve, so we regard God with a sort of cold indifference. Maybe we’re like the other nine men from the gospel—we simply don’t perceive what God has done for us. We don’t notice, so we don’t feel the need to offer thanks in return. Or maybe, in our heart of hearts, we avoid giving thanks by accusing God of not doing enough. “Why not them, Lord?” “What about those folks?” “What about me?”
But this Samaritan, an outsider and foreigner, gets it where we often do not. And he gets another surprise from Jesus upon returning. After he finishes his act of praise, Jesus tells him, “Get up and go. Your faith has saved you.”
The man’s faith—his God-given faith—makes his salvation effective. It is in his recognition that he has received what he does not deserve that he gives praise and thanks to the only one who can save. The “buts” or the “what abouts” or the “why nots” we often use to accuse God of not doing enough simply don’t matter to this man. What this man knows is that God, through Jesus Christ, has saved him. God, in Jesus Christ, has healed him and restored him to his community!
And God in Jesus Christ has done more than save him through mere physical healing. God has saved him—and us—through the cross, a cross that Jesus will soon bear on his shoulders through Jerusalem’s streets. In his suffering and death, Jesus makes us whole. Jesus saves us from sin, death, and the devil, reconciling us to his Abba Father. As Paul writes in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, “…in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them….” The cross is indeed God’s judgment on all our ingratitude, all our selfishness, all our desire to go our own way. But the cross is also God’s embrace of a broken world. It is God’s embrace of you and me, no matter who we are and no matter what we have done. The cross is God’s forgiveness, which restores us not just to our earthly communities, but to the whole company of saints. The cross is what saves Maniylah in her baptism. Through water and the word, Jesus Christ lifts Maniylah out of the clutches of sin and death and gives her a place with him forever, just as he does for all of us.
God has done more for you—more for us—than we could have ever asked for or imagined. Imagine what this world could be if we were like Bob, living our lives in full-hearted gratitude for God’s amazing grace. Thanks be to God. Amen.
© 2025, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit given.
[1] Leviticus 13:45-46