As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying,
"Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!"
The ten lepers had an illness that defined their entire existence. Even if they ever experienced momentary relief from the symptoms, they were still exiled from the wider society around them, outcasts and pariahs. When the painful and crippling illness was at its worst there was no one to whom they could turn except others who were so preoccupied with their own condition that they could do little to help. But these outcasts on the outskirts had still somehow heard of the healing ministry of Jesus. They had nothing to lose by seeking him out. They way they approached him respectfully. The words they used to plead with him seemed to indicate a genuine hope, a real readiness to receive what he might be able to give.
And when he saw them, he said,
"Go show yourselves to the priests."
As they were going they were cleansed.
The fact that they followed the instructions of Jesus and went before they were cleansed was a sign of faith on the part of all ten of them. It isn't entirely clear whether or not the nine who did not return realized what had happened before they found priests to confirm their cure. But it is clear that one of them did realize what was happening so deeply that he could no longer follow the instructions of Jesus to the letter. The priests could wait. They would still be there. But he might not get another opportunity to say thank you.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
Within the Church all cleansed by the saving waters of baptism, all who confess their sins with contrition and receive absolution are forgiven, and all who receive Holy Communion receive the body and blood, soul and divinity, of Jesus himself. But not all, perhaps not most, are much changed by these realities. They have some effect, probably, on everyone. But not enough on most that it causes them to actually interrupt their routines with gratefulness and thanksgiving. There was something admirable about the attention with which the one leper who returned noticed what Jesus had done in him.
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?"
Then he said to him, "Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you."
Perhaps the fact that he was a foreigner helped. He wasn't so caught up in expectations and a sense of what he ought to do in regard to the priests that felt the need to respond to Jesus in an overly literalistic way. The letter always brought death when it was pushed too far. But the Spirit always brought life (see Second Corinthians 3:6). The priests represented a return to society and to the worshiping community. However, Jesus himself represented a new centrality of both community and worship. It was one thing to reclaim one's position in the old passing order. It was another to find one's place in the Kingdom. The debate between Samaritans and Jews about the proper place to worship was even then in the midst of being superseded. The one leper who returned was and fell at the feet of Jesus must have been, in some way, by that very act, worshiping in Spirit and truth (see John 4:24).
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