This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday in Year C with the gospel taken from Luke 17. The Samaritan fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  Some might argue that it reads too much into the posture to say that it is an act of worship (although I think that is a fair reading of Luke) – but in any event, is it an act of humility.  St. Bonaventure, sometimes referred to as the second founder of the Franciscan friars, wrote in his work The Tree of Life that humility is the guardian and gateway of all the other virtues and that gratitude is its first evidence.

While it is easy to become focused on the miracle, perhaps the more important lesson is the response from one who has been touched with God’s mercy.  Among the lepers there is the one, the Samaritan, who recognizes that God has acted through Jesus and thus he glorifies God (v.15). Glorifying God is a common response to manifestations of God’s saving work in Luke (2:20; 5:25-26; 7:16; 13:13; 18:4; 23:47) – and so returns to Jesus in gratitude. Gratitude may be the purest measure of one’s character and spiritual condition. The absence of the ability to be grateful reveals something also – perhaps a high degree of self-centeredness or a sense that we deserve more than we have received – thus there is no need to be grateful.

This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday in Year C with the gospel taken from Luke 17. Green (The Gospel of Luke, 627) writes about the declaration, “your faith has saved you”:

Here, something more than healing must be intended, since (1) the efficacy of faith is mentioned and (2) all ten lepers experienced cleansing. The Samaritan was not only cleansed, but on account of faith gained something more – namely, insight into Jesus’ role in the inbreaking kingdom. He is enabled to see and is thus enlightened, itself a metaphor for redemption.

The Samaritan was enabled to see the Messiah and so “returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.” The writer Robert Barron puts it another way:

Christianity is, above all, a way of seeing. Everything else in Christian life flows from and circles around the transformation of vision. Christians see differently, and that is why their prayer, their worship, the action, their whole way of being in the world, as a distinctive accent and flavor. What unites figures as diverse as James Joyce, Caravaggio, John Milton, the architect of Chartres, Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the later Bob Dylan is a peculiar and distinctive take on things, a style, a way, which flows finally from Jesus of Nazareth.

This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday in Year C with the gospel taken from Luke 17. 

¹¹  As he continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was entering a village, ten lepers met (him). They stood at a distance from him ¹³ and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” ¹⁴ And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed. ¹⁵ And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; ¹⁶ and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. ¹⁷ Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

“Stand up and go; your faith has saved [sozo] you” (v.19). Such are the words spoken to the Samaritan leper, the only one who returned and gave thanks to Jesus.  sozo has as a basic meaning, “to rescue from danger and to restore to a former state of safety and well being.” Thus it is translated with words like “save,” “heal,” “make whole,” depending upon how the danger is understood.  How are we to understand the use of sozo here in this verse?

This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday in Year C with the gospel taken from Luke 17. The narrative of the Journey to Jerusalem (begun in Luke 9:51) returns;  new characters are introduced – ten lepers – the disciples play no role in this story. For a brief moment the on-going theme of forming discipleship seemingly takes a backseat, as the accent is upon God’s mercy and salvation. Several commentators hold that this account marks a new turn in Luke’s telling of the gospel moving from an accent on discipleship to the larger theme of “Responding to the Kingdom” as the cleansing of lepers is taken as a sign of the in-breaking of the Kingdom.

This story is only in Luke. (While at first glance Mark 1:40-45 may appear parallel to our passage, it is considered parallel to Luke 5:12-16.) Culpepper notes that there are two instances of seeing that serve a lynchpins to the narrative:

• And when he [Jesus] saw them (v.14)
• And one of them, realizing he had been healed (v.15) – the word translated as “realizing” is idōn whose primary meaning is to literally “see” in a way that leads to insight and perception.