The only one who went back to Jesus, who fell before him and gave thanks, was the outcast among all outcasts, a figure doubly despised. A Samaritan.
It’s important to remember that Luke was the only writer of the four gospels who was not Jewish. He was a gentile, probably Greek. Like the Samaritan, he was an outsider himself. And so again and again, he opens the gospel to a wider world.
The first chapters of Luke, with the nativity story, bring people from all over the world to Bethlehem – wise men, shepherds, angels, everyone. When tracing Christ’s geneology, Luke doesn’t begin with Abraham, as Matthew does, but with Adam – the father of us all. And in his gospel, Luke takes pains to write about all the despised people who are saved: the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the prodigal son, the penitent thief. And, of course, he also gives us two famous Samaritans: the Good Samaritan, and the man we met today, this healed Samaritan.
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