If you think about your own probable reaction, it is hard to blame the lepers for scattering to the wind and leaving the past behind them like a bad dream. But Luke tells us that one leper, the ...

If they were questioning the validity of his ministry, here was proof that God was at work through him. Cleansing 10 lepers was no small fete, so they ought to be satisfied.

The gospel reading for Sunday (28th OT)--Luke’s account of Jesus healing ten lepers, one of whom returns to give thanks (17:11-19)--is a good example.

2 Kgs 5:14-17; Ps 98; 2 Tm 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19 The gospel story of Jesus’ encounter with the 10 lepers is certainly about the importance of gratitude, but there are other dimensions to it as well.

Luke tells us about another community on the margins. Before the advent of modern medicine there were leper colonies on the edges of towns, where the rest of society kept them for fear of contagion.