When Healing Isn’t Enough

Preacher: Met. John Gregory

Lessons: Ruth 1:1-19a, Ps 113, 2 Tim 2:1-15, Lk 17:11-19

Sometimes healing is not the same as wholeness. Ten lepers in today’s Gospel cried out for mercy. All ten were healed, yet only one was made whole. The difference was not in what Jesus did, but in what the Samaritan did next. He turned back. He gave thanks. He came close. That small act of gratitude became the hinge between relief and restoration, between distance and belonging. And it still is.

Our Old Testament reading from the Lectionary came from the Book of Ruth. It begins with famine, grief, and displacement. Naomi has lost everything, her husband, her sons, her sense of home. She tells her daughters-in-law to go back to their people. One does. Ruth does not. “Where you go, I will go,” she says. “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” It is not romance. It is covenant. Ruth chooses faithfulness when it costs her everything. She walks beside Naomi into an uncertain future, trusting a God she barely knows. Through her loyalty, redemption moves forward. Through her will come David, and through David, Christ himself.

In the Gospel, we find another border story. Jesus walks the line between Samaria and Galilee, between those who belong and those who do not. Ten lepers call to him from a distance. They keep their distance because that is what the world demands. They have learned not to come too close. Jesus does not touch them. He does not explain theology. He simply says, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they go, they are healed. But one turns back. Only one returns to give thanks. And Luke makes sure we notice that he is a Samaritan. An outsider. A foreigner. Ten are healed. One is made whole. Healing can happen at a distance. Wholeness requires return.

We live in a culture that prizes efficiency over relationship. Everything is instant, optimized, and automated. Even our faith can fall into that rhythm. We ask for help, receive it, and move on. We want the blessing but not the belonging. But both Ruth and the Samaritan show us something deeper. Wholeness is not found in getting what we asked for. It is found in returning, in gratitude, in relationship, in covenant.

That message hits hard right now. Many in our community are worn thin. Wages have not kept up with costs. Groceries and housing weigh on families that once felt secure. Anxiety runs high. People work longer hours and still feel like they are falling behind. And beneath it all is loneliness. We are hyperconnected and still feel unseen. Gratitude feels like a luxury, not a lifeline.

Yet that is exactly what the Gospel calls us back to. Gratitude is not denial. It does not ignore injustice or pain. Gratitude is defiance. It is faith that looks at the chaos and still says, “God is here.” That kind of thanksgiving is not shallow. It is survival. It is the act that keeps our hearts from going numb.

The Samaritan turned back when he did not have to. Ruth stayed when she could have left. Both acts broke the logic of self-preservation. Both opened the door to something sacred. Maybe that is the invitation for us this week, to turn back. To notice small mercies. To name grace aloud. To be present to one another in a world that rushes past need and pain.

When we turn back, gratitude does something to us. It realigns us. It softens our edges. It reminds us that we belong not because we have earned it, but because God has called us his own.

Every Sunday, we turn back again to the Table. The word Eucharist means thanksgiving. Here, gratitude becomes flesh and blood. Here, healing becomes wholeness. At this Table, we bring the week with us, the good, the hard, the unfinished. We bring our questions, our fatigue, and our gratitude. And Christ meets us again, not at a distance, but close enough to feed us.

That is where the Samaritan ended up, at the feet of Jesus, giving thanks. That is where Ruth ended up, grafted into the story of redemption. That is where we end up too, made whole by a God who meets us on the road and welcomes us home.

The world does not need perfect people. It needs grateful ones. People who remember where their healing came from. People who turn back, and by doing so, become whole.

Come back. Give thanks. Be made whole.