God's Healing

A Reflection on the Gospel for October 9th, 2022:
Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

---

Luke
17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going 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 Jesus 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 Jesus said to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

When I think of Jesus’ healing, the stories that pop fastest into my mind are the ones of moments where His physical touch was the source of healing. It’s easy to get caught up in those moments where people were healed by the touch of His cloak (Matt 14:36, Matt 9:21), by being laid at His feet (Matt 15:30), by His hands (Luke 4:40, Mark 6:5), and even by His spit (John 9:6, Mark 7:33, Mark 8:23).

As a person physically and temporally separated from that season of unprecedented healing by God, my focus on the physicality of Jesus’ healing from the Gospel is perhaps a way of denying that God might wish to heal me, today. Yet, we see in the Gospel for this Sunday that Jesus healed the lepers even from a distance. He told them to go and present themselves to the priests to complete ritual confirmation that their leprosy was healed. At the end, only one returned to give praise.

In narrowing my focus on Jesus’ healing to His physical touch, I am in many ways like the nine who received healing and then went on their merry way. How many times have I been gifted true healing and ascribed it to chance or circumstance or, worse, my own efforts? Because I had no physical sign that it was Jesus Himself responsible, I can easily take my healing and give it any other name besides miraculous. He gives me all of these gifts without any expectation of return. With what radical humility He keeps giving even as I give praise to anything but Him.

The Gospel today stands as a reminder to me that Jesus’ healing is flowing around and through me at all times, whether I name that healing as belonging to God or not. To see more clearly the truth of the matter, I need to keep my eyes off myself and my own worldly expectations, and keep looking to God. I need to keep my heart close to His, so I can feel when He draws near to my broken places. 

And it’s not enough to acknowledge it in my own heart. I am also called to give glory to His name before the world when that healing comes. It is time for me to take my place next to the one Samaritan in praise. Thank you, God, for all of the healing and mercy you pour into my life!

​

Stephanie Potter

---