Judy Kincaid, pastor of Little Elk Creek Lutheran Church and New Hope Lutheran Church in Menomonie, Wisconsin, begins with a story of a friend’s mother-in-law. Kevin told her that his mother-in-law was a kind and generous person, but someone who could also be judgmental and had no patience for what she interpreted as bad manners. Kevin said that when they moved his mother-in-law into an assisted living facility, they found an envelope in her home labeled with one word, written in ink and underlined twice, “deadbeats.” She had collected the place cards of the guests who had RSVP’d but had not shown up at Kevin’s wedding reception and put them in this envelope. Kincaid says of today’s passage, Luke 17:11-19, “I bet she would have put those nine lepers who did not come back and say thank-you to Jesus in that envelope.” Ten lepers were healed and only one came back to say thank you. Before we judge these nine as “deadbeats,” Kincaid reminds us that they “did nothing wrong. They did exactly as they were told…it’s that they didn’t voice their blessing. They received physical healing, but they missed out on being made whole.” Listen as Kincaid challenges us to be like the tenth leper.
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