“The Grateful Foreigner”
Luke 17:11-19
October 12, 2025
Luke 17:11-19
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was goin g through the region between Samaria and Galilee.
As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying,
‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When he saw them, he said to them,
‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean.
Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.
He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.
Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?
Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’
Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
I once read that a spiritually grounded way to start any day is to list five things –
five people, things or abilities – for which you are grateful.
Think about that. Can you name five people, things, or abilities for which you are grateful?
Go ahead and do it now….I’ll give you a few minutes to think about it.
You can count them on your fingers. While you’re thinking, consider this quote.
Gratitude changes us. Author Robert Emmons claims that “Gratitude amplifies (our) goodness,
rescues us from negative emotions, and connects us to others in meaningful ways.”
(Emmon’s The Little Book of Gratitude quoted in Bass, p. 187)
Gratitude is not to be taken for granted.
Mary Jo Leddy, author of Radical Gratitude, claims that practicing gratitude
includes thinking with our hearts and seeing the world from a different perspective.
Lean into any feelings of gratefulness, she says. Pay attention to such feelings; speak them out loud.
Dorothy Butler Bass, in her book Grateful, revealed that, in several studies,
it was discovered that men found it more difficult than women to be grateful.
How’s it going on your list of five things?
Are as many men working on their five-fingered list as are the women?
Many men have been taught to have expectations of male self-reliance and to be dependent on anyone,
even on God. This can deeply affect men’s attitudes.
Men, in general, do not want to be in debt to anyone, not even for gratitude.
But what the studies discovered is that self-sufficiency and radical individualism
can be serious stumbling blocks for being grateful. (Bass, p. 16)
But gratitude can change everything.
Gratitude is at the heart of spiritual health.
Vernon Gramling shared a quote this week from Cicero:
Cicero: “Gratitude is not only the greatest virtue, it is the parent of all others.’
An attitude of gratitude can positively affect not only our spiritual, but our mental and physical health.
It has been claimed that living with gratitude can even help us live longer.
But gratitude can be so elusive. Gratitude can be “blocked by regret, or grief, or anger, or fear.”
Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, wrote:
“When people lack gratitude, something is missing in their humanity.”
People can “almost be defined by their attitude towards gratitude.”
Wiesel claims “our ability to experience life as a gift, to treasure that gift, and to feel its power,
even in the most violent and demeaning of circumstances, is the very essence of human existence.
(Gratitude is not about) what we have, but that we are.” (p. 44)
As you are probably aware, until the mid-20th century,
leper colonies were commonplace all over the world.
Many countries designated tightly controlled spaces where people who had been diagnosed,
correctly or not, with leprosy were forced to live.
Untold thousands of persons spent months or even years of their lives
segregated from their families and from their communities due to the condition of their skin.
Leprosy spread great fear among our ancestors.
I’ll be honest, when I visited a dermatological clinic in Buenos Aires, Argentina with my father-in-law,
who was a dermatologist, and we witnessed together a case of leprosy, I was,
at least for a brief moment, taken aback, nervous even.
Even though this case was just a small circle on the back of a woman’s calf, it gave me pause.
Leprosy is a bacterial infection which can lead not only to damage of our skin,
but also our nerves, our respiratory tract, and our eyes.
The nerve damage can ultimately lead to the loss of parts of our extremities from injury or infection.
Throughout history, countless human beings suffered from leprosy, and they also suffered
from living separated from family and community, most often in squalid conditions.
Thanks to Dr. Stan Topple, a former member of Decatur Presbyterian Church, and many others,
today we understand far more about leprosy and are able to treat it quickly and well.
While it is possible for the disease to spread through extensive human contact,
leprosy is not nearly as contagious as we had once thought. (Wikipedia.com)
Back in the 1960’s, Dr. Stan Topple, who now lives in Black Mountain, NC,
left Decatur to serve as a mission doctor in a leper colony in South Korea.
Stan’s methods for preventing leprosy were picked up by the local South Korean government,
and the incidences of leprosy dropped sharply. Not long after, the national government of South Korea
implemented Stan’s methods of preventing leprosy across the country with a significant positive impact.
There, in Sooncheon, South Korea, Stan opened an orthopedic hospital with the help of this congregation,
because those with leprosy so often needed orthopedic surgeries.
Did you know that this church sent $130,000 in 1968 to Sooncheun, South Korea to build that hospital?
That’s $1.2 million in today’s dollars. Former pastor, Davison Philips, and his son, Jim,
flew to Sooncheun for the opening dedication of the hospital.
Today, the Topple Hospital is known as one of the most outstanding and respected hospitals of its region.
And the last report I heard from one of our local Korean pastors who went to Sooncheon on his sabbatical
is that there is a framed rendering of Decatur Presbyterian Church hanging in the hospital lobby.
This congregation, thanks to Stan Topple, made a significant impact upon a critical need
in the Sooncheun region.
If we look around us, many of today’s chronically homeless live almost like lepers –
often segregated from normal society, living under bridges or overpasses at the edge of the city,
avoided by others, often dependent on the kindness of strangers.
How often do we fail to see them, really see them, or avoid meeting their eyes?
How often does their presence make us uncomfortable, thinking that there is nothing we can do?
What long term impact might this congregation have on the unhoused persons of Dekalb County?
As Jesus approached a village of today’s West Bank, ten lepers, respectfully keeping their distance,
cried out to him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
They must have heard about this rabbi from Nazareth, heard of his compassion
and the many healings that Jesus had wrought.
I wonder how long these human beings had been forced to live outside of the village in the leper colony?!
How long had they been fully dependent on whatever food leftovers and scraps were brought to them?
How long had they been waiting for their condition to get better, so that they could re-enter
their community, so that they could hug their spouses and their children again?
Jesus, seeing them, tells them to go show themselves to the priests,
because the local priests had been tasked with confirming that contagious infections had abated.
Did you catch that phrase – “When Jesus saw them…”
Our compassion for other human beings begins when we see them, really see them.
Jesus saw the lepers. He noticed their suffering. He recognized their affliction.
All ten were seen. All ten were all healed; but only one returned to give thanks.
Where are the other nine?, Jesus responded. Is this foreigner the only one to return and give thanks?
I wonder what his name was, that Samaritan who had been confined to the leper colony.
I wonder if he had a family. Was he married? Did he have children?
This Samaritan, who had lived at the margins, who had surely suffered,
was the only one to return to Jesus, the only one to show gratitude, to offer praise.
Before he went to the priest, before he washed himself clean,
before he sat at a regular table and ate a meal, before he hugged his family or returned to his work,
he prostrated himself before Jesus and offered gratitude to God with a loud voice.
Ten lepers were physically healed of a skin disease that afternoon;
but only one at the end of the day was spiritually whole and well.
“Your faith has made you well,” Jesus said. Your gratitude and praise has made you whole.
What of the other nine? Were they not grateful?
Perhaps they didn’t mean to be ungrateful. Perhaps they were just focused on getting back to their lives.
If you do not feel grateful today, consider that something may be blocking your emotions.
“Feelings are the data that point toward our inner realities.
Feelings alert us to what is unresolved in our lives, what is missing in our hearts,
the brokenness that needs mending, and the relationships that need tending.
If we do not feel grateful, (according to Dorothy Butler Bass) something is blocking our feelings –
and whether that something is learned or feared is important to explore.” (Bass, p. 35)
Perhaps those other nine lepers told themselves they deserved that healing.
They had fought that terrible disease long enough, they had suffered long enough.
“I should be well; I deserve to be well!
Perhaps those other nine lepers had learned to be resentful.
God should never have let me suffer like this in the first place!
Why did God do this to me? Why did God allow this to happen to me!?
Dorothy Butler Bass claims that “Gratitude is not only an emotion, and an ethical way of life.
It is also a disposition, an awareness, a set of habits.
But ultimately,” she writes, “gratitude is a place—perhaps the place—
where we find our truest and best selves.” (p. 194)
That lone Samaritan discovered his truest and best self when, because of a deep sense of gratitude,
he stopped in his tracks, retraced his steps, sang praises before Jesus,
and prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet.
When he humbly offering himself in worship, he became his truest self.
So, what are you grateful for. I am grateful today. I am grateful for…
1 – I am grateful for my family – for Melanie, for my sons, for my extended family.
2 – I am grateful for my health. I can still run and play. I feel relatively good most days,
and I am old enough now to know that this is not to be taken for granted.
3 – I am grateful for this congregation. I am truly blessed to serve in this role.
What a joy and a privilege to be your pastor!
4 – I am grateful for Presbyterian elders. For 35 years, I have served as a pastor,
and all along the way, Presbyterian elders have shown up, walked alongside,
and lead their congregations with faithfulness, creativity, and perseverance.
But, when I really take time to think about my life as a whole,
5 – I am most grateful for the love and grace and forgiveness of God I have experienced in Jesus Christ.
The awareness of God’s presence in my life affects significantly every other part of my life.
Get up and go, Jesus said to the grateful Samaritan.
Go embrace the rest of your life with this same attitude of gratitude,
whatever circumstances you may face.
Go, Jesus said, your faith has made you well, and your expressions of gratitude have made you whole.
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Todd Speed
Decatur Presbyterian Church
Decatur, Georgia
