Sermon for October 12, 2025

October 12, 2025
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Luke 17:11-19





My heart sank a bit when I read the Gospel for today, specifically when I got to the last sentence. I did a mental scan of this congregation, and I thought about how many of us have suffered through sickness and death in the past year. I’m not betraying any confidences when I observe what a tough year it’s been.

So what do we do with this last sentence of the Gospel? “Your faith has made you well?” What does that say to the people who aren’t healed? We could say, Well, they’re not healed yet. But we know that not everyone gets healed, no matter how strong their faith. However, if we only paid attention to wider culture, we won’t hear this message. If we have disease, it’s somehow our fault. We didn’t eat the right food or do the right work outs. We had our shots or we didn’t have our shots. On and on I could go. We may know that the reasoning is flawed, but it’s hard to escape it.

This last sentence that Jesus says might make us think that this idea is Biblical, that a strong faith can make us well, that if we’re sick it’s because our faith is flawed. Again, it’s the reasoning that is flawed.

I wish today’s reading used a different translation. Think about how we might understand this text if we used a different translation of the Greek word: “Your faith has made you whole.” Not well—whole. We can be sick and still be whole. We can be spiritually healthy, even if our bodies aren’t in the full bloom of health or if disease is impossible to cure.

“Your faith has made you whole.” That translation makes more sense to me. After all, the other 9 lepers are also made well. Jesus cures them of their leprosy. Jesus doesn’t have pre-conditions. They don’t come back to say thank you, but Jesus doesn’t take away the cure of the physical disease that afflicted them.

It’s a disease that afflicts them in more ways than just the physical. Leprosy was seen as one of the most contagious diseases in the ancient world, and lepers were banned from society. Jesus doesn’t only restore them to physical health, but, as we’ve discussed with other healing stories, Jesus restores them to community.

Of course, Jesus can only do so much. The Samaritan returns to his role as an outcast in Jesus’ society. He’s not as much of an outcast as he was when he was a leper. But he’s still a foreigner. As such, he’s the only one who doesn’t need to go show himself to a priest, the way the other 9 must do. If we wanted to give the other 9 the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they are simply following Jesus’ instructions. Of course, they could say thank you, the way the Samaritan does, and then make their way to the priest.

Why does only one leper return to say thank you? Why is it the Samaritan who does so, not the others? By now, we’re probably not surprised that it’s the person on the bottom of the societal structure who returns to say thank you. We’ve had reading after reading of outcasts who understand the true nature of Jesus, the bleeding woman and the Syro-Phoenician woman, among the people who take risks and ask for healing, and Jesus grants them their deepest desire.

This story of healing goes a bit deeper. This story of healing reminds us that there’s more to wellness than physical health. There’s a deeper way to be made whole than to be free of sickness.

Once again, Jesus tells us that a life of faith is not about quantity, but about quality. All of the lepers had a similar faith, if we want to assume the best—perhaps their calling out to Jesus for healing isn’t faith but desperation, if we assume the worst. Still, they all have enough faith or hope to call out to Jesus. Jesus heals them.

One leper turns around, turns around to return towards Jesus. He returns to show his gratitude. These two actions—his turning back to Jesus and his gratitude—they show wellness beyond the physical.

It’s gratitude that redirects the Samaritan back to Jesus. Gratitude is the foundation, not faith. It’s a subtle message, an intriguing idea that gratitude can move us towards God. The Samaritan shows us a way to be whole that we may not have made a daily practice—the practice of gratitude and thanksgiving that can ground our faith.

I want to believe that gratitude is easier for us than giving up all our money or forgiving over and over again. But I’ve met enough people who have so much and who don’t have a scrap of gratitude. They are like the man in the parable from a few weeks ago priding themselves on their economic fortune rather than acknowledge the work of those who have made it necessary to build bigger barns.

It’s human nature to assume that our successes come to us because we are talented and that our lack of success is not our fault. If we assume that our success is justly ours, we may not ever find our hearts moved to gratitude. We may find ourselves spiritually starved and stunted.

It’s gratitude that can make us whole, make us more faithful people who can do the harder work of forgiving and sharing our resources and working to restore peace and wholeness for the wider world, a world where we no longer see the stark divisions between insider and outsider described in the recent letter signed by a majority of bishops from the ELCA.

Gratitude is one of those spiritual practices that is easy to start. Decades ago, many of us kept gratitude journals, a simple practice of writing down a list of things we’re grateful for, and doing that each and every day. Some days, we listed profoundly good luck. Other days, the list was more basic: gratitude for a bed to sleep in and a stomach that was full.

Keeping a daily gratitude list is a great way to end the day or to start it. If we do this practice for a few months, we’ll find that we are more profoundly whole. It’s a simple task, and in our Old Testament lesson, we get a warning about how hard it can be to do the simple tasks that can make us whole.

In another story of healing from leprosy, Naaman has a simple task, to wash in the Jordan. But he wants the healing to be different, We hear him grumble: “sure, I get healing but can’t I go to Damascus? Those rivers are just as good—maybe even better!”

His servant is the one who turns him around, who redirects him to God, by saying, “if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult [than washing], would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” To paraphrase, the servant says, “You want it to be even easier than it is? Why are you being so obstinate?” Naaman’s story has a happy ending, because he has the capacity to recognize good advice, even if it comes from his underlings.

Once clean, Naaman returns to the prophet Elisha to acknowledge that Elisha’s God is the one true God. Keep in mind, it’s Elisha’s people and God whom Naaman has been fighting. Here, too, Naaman’s gratitude redirects him to God.

Gratitude like that of Naaman and the healed Samaritan can be such a simple task. Yet we know how difficult it can be to do the simplest practices that can lead us to spiritual healing and wholeness. We have known this basic fact about human nature since ancient times. “If it’s free, it’s worthless. If it’s easy, why do it? If it’s quick, I can always put it off,” we might hear ourselves saying. Eventually, though, this current of thought can lead from postponement to inaction to refusal to see that we have anything to be grateful for.

It's the daily practice of gratitude that can turn this tide. It’s gratitude that can turn us around, as the Samaritan turned around, that can reorient us to back to Jesus, back to wholeness.

Today and every day, let us wash in the river of gratitude. May the current of the river of gratitude turn us in a different direction, away from all the distractions that swirl our way. Let us swim in the river of gratitude each day and allow that gratitude to orient us to God. By doing this practice, we will be made whole.

And for that, we can be grateful.