In exploring Jesus' healing of the 10 people with leprosy, we are invited to see how the generosity & grace of Jesus is poured into their lives and into our lives today. And we hear the call to respond with thankfulness. Andrew M first brought this sermon to the St Denys congregation in October 2025, at a time when life for many is not easy, and yet still the invitation to gratitude resonated.

The Eagle that Soared Away 

A farmer once found an injured eagle lying in one of his fields. Its wing was broken, and it could no longer fly.  The farmer gently took it home, wrapped its wing, and nursed it back to health.  For several weeks, he fed it, protected it, and watched it regain strength.  Then one day, the eagle’s wing was whole again.  The farmer carried it out to a high hill, removed the bandages, and let it go.  The eagle soared upward into the sky - higher and higher - until it disappeared into the clouds.

Days went by.  The farmer looked up each day, half hoping that the eagle would come back, maybe just once, to circle over him or perch on the fence in gratitude.  But it never did. It simply flew away - healed, free … and forgetful.

This story paints a picture of how many people treat the blessings of God. We call on Him when we’re broken, but once we’re healed, we often just keep flying without ever turning back to thank Him. 

Ten Healed by God's Grace in Action

As we start a new series about lives shaped by faith — about being formed by God rather than just trying harder — the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17 invites us to begin with gratitude - gratitude that sees the Giver behind every good gift.

Leprosy a nasty disease.  Ten people were diagnosed with it in the UK last year, but there hasn’t been a case transmitted within the UK since the 1950s.  It is a disease of poverty and, although much less common now, is still found in poorer countries.  There are about 4,000 cases a year in Ethiopia.  It affects your skin and your nerves, and the loss of touch sensation leads to damage, tissue destruction and deformity.  It can be treated and cured now, but in Jesus’s time it was much feared.  Although it is not highly contagious, people with leprosy were required to stay away from other people and announce their presence if they had to come near.  Sometimes leprosy goes into remission, and if that happened, the leper was expected to go to the priest who could declare him or her clean (as described in Leviticus).

So, in Luke verse12 we see the lepers, keeping their distance but calling out to Jesus: “Master, have pity on us”.  They were pitiful because of their disease and its consequences.

In verse 14 Jesus’s response was to tell them to do what was required after they were healed … and they went.  They responded in faith and Jesus healed them on the way.  This is an extraordinary example of faith. They obeyed His word, even before they saw the results.  I wonder how many of us trust God so much that we act on what He says even before we see evidence that it will work?  Jesus shows God’s grace in action.

One Sees Past the Gift to the Giver

All ten were healed, but only one came back to thank Jesus.  It says that he praised God with a loud voice.  And this man was a Samaritan.  By glorifying God and thanking Jesus the Samaritan connected God and Jesus as being the same, in the same way that the shepherds did [at Christmas] after the angels announced the birth of Jesus: "And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God”.  Similarly, the healed paralytic goes home glorifying God.

Jesus goes on to say in verse17 “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?  Was no-one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”  Then he said to him: ”Rise and go; your faith has made you well”

All ten healed lepers got to start their lives over and could get their certificates of health from the priests, but Jesus implies that the other nine are superficial. Yes, they happily went back to their lives, grateful for the time they have left, but their experience with Jesus faded into a past, onetime experience. 

Jesus had so much more that he wanted to do in the lifetime of these ten people.  It was only the beginning of the life of faith.  But only the thankful man learned that his faith had played a role in his healing  … and only grateful Christians grow in understanding God’s grace.  God doesn’t demand that we thank Him, but He is pleased when we do so.  And He uses our responsiveness to teach us more about Himself.

Again, importantly the one who did return was a Samaritan, from a despised, idolatrous, group.  We see once again Luke pointing out that God’s grace is for everyone.  Time and again in the gospels Jesus shows that He didn’t come just for the Jews or the well-to-do.  He went out of His way to demonstrate that God’s love reached beyond His chosen people to those at the margins and those who were foreigners.

So this is a powerful story.  Ten people meet Jesus.  They all receive an incredible gift - healing, freedom, new life.  But only one of them sees past the gift to the giver.  And that moment of gratitude shows that his eyes and heart have been opened not just to what he’s received, but to who Jesus is.  Jesus shows God’s grace in action, that only grateful Christians grow in understanding God’s grace, and that God’s grace is for everyone.

The Practice of Gratitude

What are we to make of all this?  It has been said that gratitude is an attitude.    I read last week that the actress and singer Suki Waterhouse has set up a free-to-use app in which users write ten things they’re grateful for each day and share them within small private circles, or “bubbles”.  She claims that it rewires the way you see the world.  Studies have shown that regularly noting what we appreciate is linked to boosts in dopamine and serotonin, the so-called “feelgood” hormones, and can lower stress hormones such as cortisol.  On a purely human level it makes good sense.

I have had some less good health over the last 18 months and some of the things I used to be able to do I can’t do now.  A friend who has had more serious health issues said that he found it helpful when he stopped regretting the things he couldn’t do and focused on the things he could do …  and being thankful for these.  Good advice!

We are often asked think about what we are grateful for and as Christians we can lift ours eyes unto the hills from where our help comes … and the psalmist goes on: “My help cometh from the Lord the maker of heaven and earth”!  Have any of you ever received a gift from someone and you didn’t know who it had come from?  Perhaps the label had come off, or maybe it had been given anonymously?  The gift might be very nice, but without someone to say thank you to, it all feels a bit unsatisfactory.

The story is told of some geography students who were asked to list the seven wonders of the world.  The students got going with their list:  the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, China’s Great Wall and so on.  One student, a quiet girl, seemed to be having trouble making up her mind, and when the teacher asked what was up, she said she couldn’t make her mind up as there were so many.  The teacher asked her to share what she had come up with and hesitatingly she said: “I think the seven wonders of the world are to touch , to taste, to see, to hear …” she hesitated a little and then added … “to run, to laugh and to love”.  It is far too easy to look at the exploits and achievements of man and to refer to them as wonders while we overlook all that God has done, regarding it as merely “ordinary”.

The Source of the Gift

If God is left out of the picture, we can have a sense of general thankfulness, but for some of the best things in life, some of the most important things in life, we have no-one to say “thank you” to.

Have you been given a gift and then not had a “thank you” from the person who you gave it to?  How does that make you feel?  Ingratitude is not an attractive thing.  It is not just a question of manners, and there may be differences in other cultures.  We did our best to always encourage our children to write thank you letters, and we now receive the most wonderful thank you letters from our grandchildren.  It makes the family relationships feel really good.

I once read that a good thank you letter should start by saying “Thank you;” and go on to recognize the gift for what it is; then say Why you’re grateful, and finally tell that person what they mean to you.

Just as we like to be on the receiving end of gratitude, it is the same with God.  Jesus helped us to think of God as our Father, and it helps us to understand the way in which gratitude nourishes the relationship we have with God – the relationship He always intended us to have with Him.

My time living in several African countries taught me many things, but I learnt much about thankfulness from Christians who had so much less materially than I did.  Their prayer life was hugely weighted towards thanksgiving, while we so often launch quickly into our pressing concerns and requests.

The Greatest Gift

What has been the most valuable gift you have ever received?  Those of us who are Christians, who are friends and followers of Jesus, would say, in some form of words, that the biggest gift we have ever received was when we were making a mess of our lives, Jesus rescued us, forgave us and gave us a fresh start with His Spirit to help us day by day.  There are more theological ways of describing this truly amazing gift but that is what we have experienced.

And it is also the most costly gift that has ever been given, because to enable us to be forgiven a cost had to be paid and that cost was the death of God’s own son in our place - the only way in which we could be brought back into relationship with God and have a confident hope for the future.

Gratefulness, Grace & Good News

From the story of the healing of the ten lepers we saw how Jesus shows God’s grace in action, that only grateful Christians grow in understanding God’s grace; and that God’s grace is for everyone.

God’s grace means that he keeps on giving – that is His nature.  All good gifts and every perfect gift is from above and comes from the Father (James 1:17).  He gives us our daily bread.  He gives spiritual gifts to be used in the context of the church. . We may face difficulties, our lives may be complicated, but through it all we have the most precious gift of being accepted and having Jesus’s presence with us.  He wants to us to know this as more and more of a reality … and cultivating an attitude of gratitude enables us to grow and flourish in our life of faith.

And finally, God’s grace is for everyone.  When we have received a really nice gift, when something really good has happened in our lives – a new relationship, healing - we want to tell others about it.  How can we keep what we have experienced and know of God a secret?  The good news is to be shared, because … it is good news for all people.  Talking about what we are grateful for and attributing it to what God is doing in our lives should become more and more natural as we practice doing it, opening up conversations and enabling God’s grace to be at work in others’ lives.  May many more people will come to know God’s love and receive God’s grace through the faith-filled lives of St Denys people, lives that are marked with gratitude.

A Jewish Passover Prayer

“Even if our mouths were filled with songs like the sea, our tongues with joy like its mighty waves, our lips with praise like the breadth of the sky, if our eyes shone like the sun and the moon, and our hands were spread out like the eagles of heaven, if our feet were as swift as the hind, we should still be incapable of thanking you adequately for one thousandth part of all the love you have shown us.”