This is a story that can be peeled back in layers, each one with a slightly different slant.

Notice first that Jesus is again on the "border." Literally, he's traveling between Samaria and Galilee. But it was also characteristic of Jesus to walk the figurative dividing lines too: between Jew and Samaritan, the "good people" and the sinners, the sick and the healthy, the clean and the unclean.

Ten lepers appear and call from a distance to Jesus to help them. As many Bibles note, the word "leprosy" can stand for any number of skin diseases. The law of Moses stipulated that skin conditions rendered a person ritually unclean, and anyone who came into contact with a person with a skin disease would become ritually unclean as well. Ritual uncleanness that persisted, like "leprosy," meant that people were thrust out of the religious community, usually to form their own small community, like these ten men.

Because they aren't allowed near healthy people, these men keep their distance from Jesus, shouting at him to have mercy from afar (though in Mark 1:41 Jesus did touch a man with leprosy). But in this case, Jesus merely tells them to go to the priest. This was so that the priest could certify that they were clean, and therefore fit to rejoin society.

It must have taken some faith for the men to do as Jesus said, because nothing happens until they are on their way to the priest. But sure enough, they soon see that they have been healed! How glad they must have been, after years of being ostracized.

They head for the priest as Jesus has told them to. All except one. One man, as soon as he notices that he has been healed, and before even going to the priest, turns right around to go back to Jesus and thank him. He doesn't just thank him, he adoringly throws himself at Jesus' feet. He is overwhelmed with gratitude. And then Luke unloads the kicker: the man is a Samaritan.

Samaritans were a mixed-breed people descended from Jews who remained after the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel and the people who had been forced to relocate there from who knows where. They practiced a mixed religion, combining elements of their pagan practices with Jewish religion. The Jews despised them.

But the Samaritan is the one who comes back to thank Jesus so profusely. Jesus wonders out loud, "Where are the others?" Isn't it remarkable that this foreigner is the only one whose heart is filled with gratitude, the only one to acknowledge that Jesus is the source of the healing?

Jesus says in response to the man's thankfulness, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well." The word we translate as "well" means "whole, full, complete." While all ten were physically healed, only this man, expressing his overwhelming gratitude, was truly transformed. He was healed, body and soul.

Gratitude is deeply important. When we are grateful, we recognize that our lives depend on the generosity and goodwill of others. And when we are truly grateful to God, we understand that we depend on him for everything we are and have.

Grace is like an electrical circuit. God gives it freely, but it's only when the grace, the healing, the forgiveness is returned in grateful living, that it truly transforms our lives.