The Gospel for The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (October 10, 2004)
Luke 17:11-19
Now it happened that on the way to Jerusalem he was travelling in the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee. As he entered one of the villages, ten men suffering from a virulent skin–disease came to meet him. They stood some way off and called to him, ‘Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.’ When he saw them he said, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ Now as they were going away they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself prostrate at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan. This led Jesus to say, ‘Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner.’ And he said to the man, ‘Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.’ -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
A Study
All commenters are required to point out that Luke's geography is a bit fuzzy, because one would not take the route indicated, given the context of the story. But it is a handy route for there to be a Samaritan mixed into the ten lepers.
As they were supposed to, the lepers stayed a good ways off from "clean" people, but they still spoke to Jesus, asking for healing. Jesus complied with their request, keeping faith with Jewish tradition and the Law by sending them to the priests to complete the ritual of their healing.
The one who came back to give thanks was a Samaritan, not an Israelite. Here was a man who was not among the chosen, whom God nevertheless chose to heal. And only the un-chosen one gave thanks.
A Reflection
I doubt that I have read even a tiny fraction of the apologies for God's apparent deafness to our prayers. Yet they are everywhere. My special least favorite is "He heard and He answered, and the answer is 'No.'" Nowhere in the gospels do we observe that behavior.
When God was Jesus on the earth, He listened, He heard, He answered, and the only recorded instance of his saying "No" was followed by his healing the daughter of the woman who reminded him that even dogs get the crumbs under their master's table. Then, his spoken (not inferred) "no" was but a preface to "yes."
Rabbi Harold Kushner, the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, tells us that God helps us to comfort ourselves in grief. But when God walked the earth as Jesus, He healed on request. Sometimes he healed even when there was no request. I haven't found a Christian author who has anything more definitive than Kushner, and frankly, most of the Christian stuff is pretty mumbled-up.
Engineers like to know the "why" and the "how" of things. We are very very left-brained, very analytical. Einstein was famous among other things for asserting that "God doesn't play dice," when he was trying to counter a nondeterministic version of physics that still appears to be the way that things really work -- sort of a well-shaped chaos. I can accept a physics that works that way, but why God? In His walk on the earth among us, He didn't act that way! What or who changed?
Who are the Samaritans among us today? Once we find them, shouldn't we attempt to model their behavior? Perhaps they have the right attitude, because it's clear that we don't.
The Collect
Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
9:36:55 PM 
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