Being Gratitude
Today I want to put two things together that might seem an odd match: healing and stewardship.
How do they fit together? Well, let’s turn to our gospel story from Luke and see what we can find out.
We read of ten lepers who band together and seek healing from Jesus.
The number ten in the Bible signifies completeness—think of the ten plagues of Egypt, the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb on the tenth day of the month, or the Ten Commandments.
So we could read the ten lepers as representing a complete picture of humankind.
That’s a bit jarring, isn’t it?
Even today, we would think of lepers as “the other,” someone different than we are.
We know that leprosy in the Bible could represent any number of different medical conditions, but these people were ostracized from society, driven out and forced to live in sub-standard, isolated conditions.
When we think of lepers in the Bible, we are likely to think, “Those poor people. That’s awful.”
We are not so likely to think, “That’s me. I’m a leper. I need healing.”
But that’s exactly where I want us to go. Continue reading