“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. (Luke 17:15-16)
A word jumped to mind for me when I read these words – “Intersectionality”. You may not know the term, and you may not be familiar with the story from which these verses are taken.
So far as the story goes, we’re at the climax of Luke’s account of a healing miracle that took place while Jesus was journeying “through the region between Samaria and Galilee” (Luke 17:11). Jesus, in other words, was in ‘no man’s land’, and, as might be expected, He encountered people there who lived on the outskirts. Jesus met the unclean – people with skin diseases (whether leprosy or something similar) that the good folk in the townships considered contagious and dangerous. Jesus met these people, engaged with them, and healed them.
The unclean approached Jesus from a distance (as the rules demanded) and cried out to Him – “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Luke 17:13). Jesus did not go over to them and hug them. Indeed, Jesus didn’t seem to do anything for them beyond shouting back, “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (Luke 17:14). It seems that when they then left, they were healed en route to the synagogue! Indeed, all ten were healed, we’re told, but only one of the ten turned around and came back to thank Jesus. “And he was a Samaritan” Luke tells us (Luke 17:16). This is where the ‘intersectionality/ comes in.
The term was coined by African American scholar, Kimberlé Crenshaw, to describe how overlapping identities—such as race, gender, and class—create unique modes of discrimination. I’m not an uncritical advocate of Crenshaw’s work by any means, and I have real issues with the whole school of Critical Social Justice Theory that she represents. Even so, the concept of Intersectionality points out correctly that systems of oppression are not isolated but interwoven. In this story, the healed man is not just a leper. He is a Samaritan leper. Each identity carries its own stigma, and together, they compound the man’s isolation.
The man’s skin disease rendered him ritually unclean, cut off from temple worship, family, and community. His Samaritan identity marked him as religiously heretical and ethnically impure in the eyes of Jewish society. He was doubly marginalised! Even so, one of the things that rings true to me about this story is how his Samarian identity doesn’t emerge in the story until after he is healed of his skin disease.
Many years ago, I did weekly shifts at a Sydney City Mission centre that provided accommodation to long-term alcoholic people. Over time, I came to realise that I was working with an extraordinarily diverse group. Thet were black and white people, men and women, people who had been former high-flying business executives as well as people who had lived on the streets for longer than they could remember. Even so, they were one in their alcoholism! Their identities as addicts eclipsed all other tribal memberships. I think we see a similar thing in this story in Luke 17. The Samaritan leper is just one of the boys while he’s a leper. It’s not until he’s healed that it becomes obvious that he is also a Samaritan, and hence still an outsider.
Being a Samaritan was not something even Jesus could heal him of, of course, but we might have expected that this guy would have immediately set course for home – for somewhere where he would be accepted. Even so, he turns out to be the only one who returns to Jesus, and he seems to be the only one who praising God. He is also the only one who is told, “Your faith has saved you” (Luke 17:19).
This is more than a story of physical healing. It is a story of recognition, restoration, and salvation. The Greek word for healing used here –“sozo” – means more than being cured. It means being made whole, being delivered and, literally, being saved. Jesus doesn’t just heal this man’s body. He affirms his dignity, receives his worship and declares his salvation. In doing so, Jesus dismantles the boundaries that kept the man at a distance—boundaries of purity, ethnicity, and religious orthodoxy.
The Samaritan’s response is deeply liturgical. He “praises God with a loud voice” and “prostrates himself at Jesus’s feet.” The verb used here for thanksgiving –“eucharisteō” – is the root of our word “Eucharist.” His gratitude becomes a prototype for worship rooted in liberation. He doesn’t just say thank you. He enacts it. He embodies it. He becomes a living liturgy of grace.
This story invites us to see healing not as a private miracle but as a public disruption. It challenges us to ask: ‘Who are the lepers and Samaritans in our midst?’ ‘Who lives in the borderlands between purity and impurity, between belonging and exclusion?’ ‘Who cries out from a distance, hoping to be seen?’
Unless we spend time on the margins we will miss these people. They inhabit areas where most law-aboding, church-going folk rarely visit, but when we do get there, we invariably find that Jesus is there in no-man’s land ahead of us.
Salvation, we see in this story, not as a doctrinal transaction but as a relational transformation. Salvation happens when the marginalised are not only healed but recognised – when they are restored and received. Jesus doesn’t just heal a body here. He heals a story! Jesus rewrites a narrative of exclusion and replaces it with a liturgy of grace.
For all of us engaged in proclaiming the Good News, this passage is a call to intersectional solidarity, reminding us that healing must address the layered identities of the people we work with and work for. Real salvation reaches into the tangled roots of oppression, leading to praise and thanksgiving erupting from the margins.
And for all of us who dare to worship, this story reminds us that our Eucharist begins with the cry of the excluded, and that true thanksgiving is born in the borderlands. The loud voice of the Samaritan is the sound of salvation!
May we, like him, turn back. May we, like him, fall at the feet of grace. May we, like him, be made whole. Amen.
Our Sunday Eucharist
We celebrated another wonderful Sunday Eucharist last weekend, and it was great to have the dynamic duo of Tom Toby and David Baldwin back with me on the panel. Thank you Tom and Dave, and thank you everyone who joined us last Sunday who contributed their wisdom.
Predictably, the ongoing tragedy in Gaza was a major point of focus for us. It was also the focus of the most-watched shorts from last Sunday (pasted below). You can see all the shorts from last Sunday on our Sunday Eucharist Instagram page and watch all our broadcasts on our YouTube channel.
This coming Sunday I’m very much looking forward to having a new guest with us! Brynn Reese will be joining Andrew Logan and myself on the panel.
Brynn is a long-timer member of our community but this will be the first time most of you will see his face! Brynn is a country man, living out near Binacrombi (which is how we know each other). He runs a successful rural business, manages a farm, and is a key lay leader in the local Anglican church community of Taralga. How he’s found time to put aside to join us, I do not know but I’m grateful and excited!
Join us at midday this Sunday, remember again that it is Daylight Savings time here and that means we’re broadcasting an hour earlier than usual. Even so, please invite your friends by referring them to the Facebook Event Page or the Streamyard event page. We broadcasting via TheSundayEucharist.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia and Streamyard.
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What’s On?
- Sunday, October 12 – Our Eucharist from noon @thesundayeucharist.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia or Streamyard
- Tuesday, October 14 – Boxing at the Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm
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- Thursday, October 16 – Boxing at the Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm
- Saturday, October 17 – Boxing at Legends Gym in Kensington from 3 pm.
I’m concluding today with a special appeal to anyone who would like to join us for the “Stand with Palestine” Gala Dinner coming up next month.
- Date: Friday, November 14
- Time 7 to 11 pm
- Place: Macquarie Paradiso Function Centre, Liverpool
The dinner is hosted by our friends from “Palestinian Christians in Australia” and aims to raise much needed funds to support projects in Australia and in Palestine. Get your tickets HERE.
This is, of course, a vital time to be channeling funds to our sisters and brothers in Palestine. Having a ceasefire in place means that food and medical aid may finally be able to reach the people who most need it. Of course, nothing is guaranteed.
My fear, of course, is that by the time we reach our Gala Dinner for Palestine, the genocide will have resumed. Indeed, the killing may restart as soon as the last Israeli hostage is released. The only thing stopping this (politically speaking) is that Donald Trump seems to have staked his reputation on the ceasefire holding.
Of course, the other thing that can hold the ceasefire in place is our prayers, and we must pray. Even so, we must pray not only that killing stops, but that justice is done. We must pray:
- That the people of Gaza will be able to live on in their own land
- That reparations will somehow be made and new homes built
- That the people will gain control of their own borders, air and sea space.
- That the people of Gaza and all of Palestine will enjoy the same rights to freedom and self-determination that we have, and are their God-given rights.
None of this looks politically likely. It will take the miraculous intervention of God to see these things happen. Even so, I do see the Spirit of God at work in all this, and I am confident that justice will come. Even so, How Long, O Lord?
Your brother in the Good Fight,
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About Father Dave Smith
Preacher, Pugilist, Activist, Father of four
So sorry I can’t be with you all tomorrow to welcome Brynne.
Just a question re the healing of the ten –
The 10 were not automatically healed at Jesus’s command.
They were told to present to the priests and went to do so. It seems that they may have at first believed the healing would result from seeing the priests, although they
were then actually healed on their way.
My question then, related to the Samaritan, is – Was he as a Samaritan actually allowed to go to the priests at the temple – and if not, Jesus would have known that. Jesus knowingly sent him to the priests where he would possibly be rejected but in faith he still went.? That sort of courage is quite awe inspiring.
A bit like the dark skinned, the Moslems and Palestinians who braved their arrest at the hands of the Israeli IDF on the flotilla.
💚🙏
These are great questions, and scholars from way before our time have deliberated over them at length. The Samaritan, of course, had his own priests, and he could have been heading off to them. Even so, I suspect he went with his friends since, as I mentioned in my newsletter, the regular tribal barriers that seperate us don’t seem to matter too much when you’re a leper (or an alcoholic).