"Wholeness and Gratitude" (Luke 17:11-19)

Let us think for a moment… Let us imagine… what might have happened to “the other nine,” the lepers who did not return and give thanks. Jesus cleansed ten lepers, but only one returned to thank Jesus. Let us use our imaginations….
It is of course speculation. We don’t know what became of those other nine. We can only guess. Yet it is the scripture itself that invites us to guess. It is Jesus who invites us to speculate; it was he who asked, out loud, “Were not ten made clean? Where are the other nine?”

No answer is given in scripture. It is up to the reader to wonder, to imagine, to speculate, to guess…



Leper #1: What’s his story? Well, when he saw that he had been made clean, his first thought was his family. How long had it been since he had last seen them? For many years, as a leper, he had had no contact with them. Like all lepers and other unclean people, he was forced to live outside the city and keep his distance from all others. But now…

He ran home, anxious to embrace his wife for the first time in many years. But upon arriving, he discovered that she was now living with another man. He asked her to return to him, but she only cried, “I can’t. I thought you were dead.” And she shut the door.

So he ended up cursing the healing that he had received. Just being healed wasn’t enough. He wanted his life back.



Leper #2, when he saw, as he walked toward the temple, that he had been healed, he started walking faster, running even, eager to return to the city and get on with his life. On his way, he passed by some beggars, some men who themselves had leprosy. They kept their distance, but of course he could not avoid the sound of their cries.

Nevertheless, he kept on the path, ignoring as best he could the cries that he heard. He had no mercy. Having been healed of leprosy himself, he wanted absolutely no reminders of his former life. Thus, his life became a life of denial and avoiding realities.



Leper #3 believed that he was someone special, since he had been healed by Jesus. After all, there were a lot of lepers who were not healed. Why did Jesus pick him? Surely, he said to himself, it was because Jesus saw something special in him.

And if Jesus saw something special in him, then surely others would, too. He lived his life expecting people to treat him as someone special. He expected to have a job handed to him, a well-paying job that didn’t require him to work too hard; and he actually got such a job, once, but it only lasted one day. As soon as the boss saw how lazy he was, and noticed his overblown sense of entitlement, he fired him.

Unable to find a job after that, leper #3 was forced to resort to begging. Thus, he lived as an outcast, unclean, his life after the healing being not all that different from his life before.



Leper #4, having been a leper for so long, didn’t know how to transition to a new life. He felt uncomfortable just talking to people. It had been so long since he had taken part in a normal conversation. Rejoining society proved very difficult for him, and soon he was plagued by doubts: doubts about whether he really deserved to be cleansed; doubts about whether he really belonged within the city walls with everyone else.

Maybe Jesus had made a mistake? Life in the city was so new, so different, so bewildering and confusing.

Eventually, he went back to living outside the city, among the lepers. “Why are you here?” they asked him; and he said, “Because I don’t know how else to live.”



Leper #5 did a little better at adjusting to society and fitting in. He managed to get a job, become a manager, and eventually become quite rich. He built a large house, and had a large wall built around his house to protect his wealth.

Having gone from the bottom of society to the top, he was always afraid of losing everything and falling back down to the bottom. So he hid himself within the walls he built, along with his money, never going outside, always fearful, and living every bit as much an outcast as he was before, the only difference being that now his exile was self-imposed.



Leper #6 felt that, because he was cleansed, he should devote his life to easing the suffering of others. He wanted to dedicate his life to this cause, which he believed was now his life’s purpose. He promised himself that as soon as he got himself together, as soon as he got his own life back on track, as soon as things were going smoothly for him, that he would begin the work that he felt called to do.

However, things never did go quite as smoothly as he wanted them to. He felt that his life was always almost—but not quite—on track, and he never did get around to fulfilling his life’s purpose.



As soon as leper #7 saw that he had been healed, his first thought was actually to return to Jesus and give thanks. But then he started to doubt. “He said to himself, “What do I have that is of any worth to give in return as an expression of my thanks? What can I do with my life that would honor the God who healed me? I have no money. I’m not a good speaker. I’m not particularly wise when it comes to religion. I’m really not very useful at all.” And he fell into a deep depression.



Leper #8 was excited and happy that, having been healed, he could now rejoin society. When he was a leper, both those who stared at him and those who averted their eyes affected him deeply. He so wanted to be accepted among mainstream society! Having been healed, he eagerly sought to prove himself and find the acceptance he longed for.

However, he soon discovered that some people will always find a reason to judge and criticize. He sought their approval and acceptance, but they said, “So what if your leprosy is gone? You’re still not one of us. Your leprosy may be gone, but you’re still a freak. You still don’t belong. You’ll always be different.”

Seeing himself only through the eyes of his tormentors, his bullies, unable to see himself through the eyes of the God who had cleansed him and healed him, he went out and hung himself.



Leper #9 noticed that all of those who were healed were, like him, Jews; all except one. One was a Samaritan.

He wondered why Jesus would bother healing a Samaritan. The more he thought about it, the more offended he became…. and the more he decided to prove, through his own life, that only Jews were worthy of such attention.

He devoted himself to being the best Jew possible, as if to prove that Jews were better than anyone else, especially Samaritans. However, he became known as an arrogant, judgmental man, full of bitterness, a person who no one wanted to be around. This just made him try even harder, which in turn just made him even more bitter. And along with the bitterness, hidden within him, was a deep sense of loneliness.



When we hear Jesus ask, “Where are the other nine?” I think we tend to hear a tone of judgment and criticism in his voice, as in, “Where are the other nine? They should be here!” But I think it was with a deep sense of compassion that Jesus asked that question. “Where are the other nine? I wanted their healing to lead to a life of wholeness, but I fear that it has not.”



The tenth leper – the Samaritan – he alone returned to give thanks. He alone returned to praise God, even before he went to the priests to be examined. And he alone heard Jesus say to him, “Go on your way; your faith has made you well. Your faith has made you whole.”

Do you notice how being made well, being made whole – receiving what in Greek is called sozo, healing, wholeness, salvation – comes after this tenth leper returns to give thanks? All this comes after he returns to praise God. All this comes after he places worshiping and praising God first in his priority list, ahead of even showing himself to the priests, as Jesus encouraged him to do?

When I follow the scripture’s invitation and contemplate what might have happened to the other nine, I find it hard to imagine that they found this same wholeness in their lives. I think that’s because the more I study and contemplate this, the more I realize that wholeness and gratitude go together. You don’t get one without the other.

The tenth leper returned to give thanks and to praise God. The tenth leper was made whole. It seems quite clear, then, that in order to receive wholeness, in order to be made well, one needs to have a generous heart, one needs to give thanks, one needs to make God the #1 priority in one’s life, knowing that all good things come from God.

That much seems obvious to me. But in examining this story, another question comes to my mind. Why, I wonder, are there ten lepers? Why not 9, or 11, or 100? Numbers are often significant in scripture. Numbers like 7, 12, and 40 appear repeatedly, and are given symbolic significance. And I wonder, is there any significance to the number 10?

Well, I know there are the ten commandments, but the commandments aren’t what came to my mind when I read this story. I thought about how only one out of ten lepers returned to give thanks. One out of ten. One tenth. Where else in scripture do we read about one tenth?

The tithe! Scripture commands God’s people to tithe one-tenth of their income. Originally, that one-tenth was in the form of one-tenth of their crops and their livestock, but as society shifted to one that used money, the tithe came to mean one tenth of one’s income. Basically, out of everything you receive, scripture commands that one-tenth of it be returned to God.

Could it be that the story of one leper out of ten returning to Jesus is a story of returning one tenth of one’s income to God?

The book of Malachi is, to a large extent, a chastisement of people who have failed to tithe. Through Malachi, God accuses the people of robbing him. The people ask how are they robbing God, and God replies, “In your tithes and offerings! You are robbing me, the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse.”

And then God does something unusual. God invites the people to put him to the test. Elsewhere in scripture, the people are told to not put God to the test, but here, when it comes to the tithe, that doesn’t apply. God says, “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”

One tenth of the lepers returned to Jesus. A tithe of lepers returned to praise God. Jesus gave out ten blessings, and one of the ten was returned to him. And the blessings flowed. They flowed out, back, and then back out again, like a tub of water being sloshed back and forth, harder and harder until the water overflowed, until the blessings overflowed.

That one leper found wholeness. That one leper was made well, because of his faith.

The path of understanding for me on this has been long. I’m not sure I’m yet there. It sounds almost too simple. “Give back to God, and you will be blessed.” It sounds frighteningly close to what is often called a gospel of prosperity, which is popular among some preachers, in which material wealth is promised to those who follow God’s way.

Material wealth is not necessarily promised. But blessings are promised. Overflowing blessings.

I am pretty sure that the tenth leper found his life overflowing with blessings. And the blessings came when he returned to Jesus, and praised God.



Wholeness and gratitude.  Blessings and generous giving.  Today, as we present to God our pledges for the coming year, we do so knowing that we are blessed, that overflowing blessings have come to us through the ministry of Bixby Knolls Christian Church.

So let us celebrate! Let us rejoice! Let us give thanks! Let us praise God!

And if you don’t believe that blessings come to those who tithe, to those who give generously, ask that tenth leper. He didn’t have any money to give, but he returned to Jesus and gave what he could: his thanks and praise.

Or better yet, try it out for yourself. It’s OK: test God in this, in just this one thing. Don’t hold back from God, and see if God will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.