READING:
Luke Luke 17:11–19

Wholeness Across the Divides

On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus walks through the borderland- a place between Samaria and Galilee. It’s not just a line on a map but a place of tension, difference, and history. Jews and Samaritans avoided one another, yet Jesus chooses to walk right through that middle space. He walks neither on one side nor the other.

• I wonder what it means that Jesus chose to travel through this “in-between” region?
• I wonder too where our own communities might have such borderlands – the places of awkward silence, misunderstanding, or separation we prefer to avoid?

Yet it is precisely in this in-between place that healing happens.

Ten lepers approach Jesus but keep their distance. They are used to distance, from family, community, and worship. The law told them to keep away; society told them they didn’t belong. When they cry, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us,” they speak for all who long to be seen and restored – for all who carry the weight of rejection because of illness, identity, poverty, or circumstance.

• I wonder how it feels to cry for mercy and not know whether anyone will listen or even see you?
• I wonder who among us feels like those lepers- outside the circle, unseen, waiting for welcome?

Jesus doesn’t heal these lepers with a dramatic gesture. Instead, he tells them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” It sounds as though he sends them back to the very system that had pushed them away. Yet as they go – and before they have any proof, before any priest declares them clean – they are healed. Their healing begins as they take that first step of trust, that turning back toward community.

• I wonder what healing might begin if we dared to take one small step toward those from whom we are divided?
• I wonder how faith grows when we walk or act before we see the result?

One of the lepers, seeing that he is healed, turns back. He praises God with a loud voice, throws himself at Jesus’ feet, and thanks him. And the gospel writer Luke,m adds the detail that shocks the listeners. He was a Samaritan, a foreigner, the outsider. It is he, the excluded one, who sees what Jesus has done for him: not just the restoration of health but the restoration of life, friendship, and belonging.

• I wonder what gave that man the courage to turn back when the others kept walking?
• I wonder whether gratitude sometimes flows more freely from those who have been pushed to the edge?

Jesus asks, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” His question carries no anger, only sadness – the ache that gratitude has not been expressed. Healing is not complete until it becomes thanksgiving. Gratitude draws us back into relationship with God and one another.

• I wonder whether gratitude-+the simple act of turning back and saying thanks , – is the first sign of wholeness?

Healing in the Borderlands

Many theologians and pastors from Africa remind us that healing is never just individual. Illness and loss affect families and whole communities; so too healing brings renewal not just to one life but to the whole social fabric.

Desmond Tutu, who lived through the deep wounds of apartheid, often spoke of the African concept of Ubuntu to describe what it means to be human together. The phrase “I am because we are” expresses the truth that our identity and wellbeing are bound up with one another. No one exists in isolation; our lives and flourishing are interwoven. When one person suffers, the community is diminished. When one person is healed or restored, the whole community is strengthened.

For Tutu, Ubuntu challenged the individualism of Western society. It insists that humanity is communal, that justice and reconciliation are not abstract ideas but ways of living in relationship. The work of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which Tutu helped lead, was not simply about exposing wrongs but about healing the torn fabric of a nation. When one group dehumanises another, both are wounded. The oppressor and the oppressed alike lose part of their humanity until truth and forgiveness begin to restore it.

This is what the Gospel story of the ten lepers reveals. In Jesus’ time, people with leprosy were forced to live apart, cut off from family, worship, and belonging. When Jesus heals them, he does more than cure a disease- he restores relationship. Their reintegration heals not just their bodies but the social and spiritual bonds that had been broken. The community itself becomes whole again.

The film The Colour Purple (based on Alice Walker’s novel) offers a modern picture of Ubuntu. The main character, Celie, begins the story isolated and silenced, cut off from love and dignity. Through the friendship of other women- Shug Avery and Sofia. And Celie slowly rediscovers her voice and sense of worth. And as Celie heals, those around her also change. Shug learns tenderness; Sofia regains courage; even the men who had oppressed them begin to soften and repent. The healing of one person becomes the healing of a web of relationships. That is Ubuntu: Celie is because they are, and as she becomes whole, so too does her community.

Desmond Tutu’s vision teaches that our wounds and our healing are collective. Just as Jesus’ healing of the lepers restored a broken community, so every act of reconciliation, forgiveness, or inclusion today restores something in the human family itself.

• I wonder whether we believe that our flourishing and wellbeing are bound up with one another’s?
• I wonder what it might mean for a church to be healed together – not one by one, but as a body?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus walks through the borderland between Samaria and Galilee – a place of reconciliation. It is there, between histories and hostilities, that God’s new world begins. The Church, too, is called to live in that space: not safely behind our own lines, but standing where difference meets grace and healing.

• I wonder if we have the courage to stand in the borderlands today? Courage to stand between denominations, between faiths, between political divides, and even between the divisions within our own communities.
• I wonder what reconciliation might look like in our village, our congregation, our family?

Gratitude and thanksgiving are often described as the heartbeat of African spirituality. To live a life of faith  is to live thankfully. When the Samaritan returns praising God in a loud voice, his gratitude becomes the very expression of his faith. His faith is joy. He cannot help but sing.

• I wonder how gratitude might sound in our own voices? what it might look like in our daily actions and in the life of our church?

For Divided Communities

This story speaks deeply to communities  and a world struggling with division. Whether our differences are racial, political, or theological, Jesus still walks through the middle of our borderlands. Healing begins not when one side wins, but when we recognise that God is already present in the space between us.

Desmond Tutu said, “There is no future without forgiveness.” The Samaritan’s gratitude is a kind of forgiveness- it  does not forget the pain but chooses relationship and joy. Gratitude disarms fear. It turns strangers into companions.

• I wonder how we might cultivate that spirit of gratitude in our shared life?
• I wonder how forgiveness might begin – not as words of apology alone, but as the courage to give thanks for one another’s existence.

When Jesus says to the leper, “Your faith has made you whole,” he names a wholeness deeper than physical healing. Wholeness is not perfection; it is belonging.

• I wonder what wholeness would mean for our community ? It certainly isn’t uniformity. Rather, it is a renewed sense of belonging across our differences.
• I wonder if we can imagine faith as the simple act of turning back, saying thank you, and recognising that grace is already among us.

Closing

In a divided world, Luke’s story invites us to walk bravely and with courage in the borderlands. To listen for cries of mercy and help , to take steps of trust, and to discover gratitude as our shared song. The healing Jesus brings is never private; it is the restoration of relationship, the re-weaving of community, the joy of belonging again.

“Your faith has made you whole.”

I wonder how that promise might sound if it were spoken, not just to one Samaritan, but to us all – a word of wholeness for every fractured heart, every divided place, every church and community longing to be made whole again?

Photo Credit: Sydney Moore (Unsplash.com)