"10% Jazz"

This is the thought that captured my imagination. Our praise is not the marching step of duty, it is the dance of joy; it is not the settled and predictable phrase that we can repeat without emotion, it is the giggle of delight; our praise is like jazz!

Luke 17:11-19

October 12, 2025

Dr. Todd R. Wright

I thought this was just another healing story … and then, as I was doing my research this past week, I ran across a comment that sent my imagination racing.  

There are these ten men who are lepers – the NRSV updated version is careful to preserve Luke’s humanizing practice of calling them men first – men who had families and friends, men who had worked to put food on the table; men who dreamed and prayed and bled – but sadly, men whose lives had been forever changed by one word: leprosy.

In the Bible leprosy can be any of a variety of skin diseases – Hansen’s, ringworm, psoriasis, leukoderma, or vitiligo – some were contagious, some weren’t; some were curable, some weren’t; but all led to isolation and humiliation.

In Numbers, the Israelites are commanded “to put out of the camp everyone who is leprous” – a temporary inconvenience for some, but a lifetime ban for those with Hansen’s disease.

According to Leviticus, lepers are required to shout “Unclean, unclean!” to warn uninfected people to keep their distance.[2]

So I imagine that when they saw Jesus, who had healed a leprous man earlier in his ministry, they praised God and changed their cry to “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

Since this is a healing story and since we know that Jesus has already proved his power and compassion, we know what to expect.

First, Jesus does not flinch. He looks the disease/the shame/the loneliness in the face and does not turn away. This is a rare thing. Many of you know what it is like to have a disease that makes people feel awkward in your presence. When chemotherapy causes your hair to fall out, robs you of your energy, and fills your mouth with canker sores, there is no hiding the fact that you are diseased. Your cancer walks into the room before you do and people who know better, still flinch. But not Jesus; he shows compassion. While most look away and walk by, Jesus chooses to see the ten’s misery and hear their calls for healing.

Second, Jesus makes the ten partners in their own healing. He orders them to go and show themselves to the priests so that they might be certified as healed and welcomed home. He sends them off even before they show any signs of healing. In short, he asks them to step out in faith.

That is the way God consistently works.

Say an individual recoils at the idea of neighbors going hungry, or children being humiliated when they wet their pants, and prays to God to do something about it.

God smiles and says, be my partner in answering your prayer: start a ministry with other churches to feed people; hold an “undie-Sunday” and donate them to a school.

Or say a church cries out: we want to be welcoming place for everyone, a nurturing place for children, a caring place for senior adults – help us, dear God!

And God says, be my partner – give your time and talent in my service; give your prayers and your money to undergird the church’s ministries; step out in faith!

So the Great Physician says the word and the ten head off, each to their own priests. As they go, their ruined hands, feet and faces put on new skin – as perfect as a child’s, as perfect as Naaman’s after he washed in the Jordan seven times. Fingers are healed, ears restored, sores disappear. Naturally they are giddy with joy. So they do what any of us would do when headed down a highway with a new lease on life: they march – first to the priests, and then back to their families, their villages, their former lives. What are new feet for if not for carrying them to finish what they were commanded to do?

Except… one of them drops back, stops, turns around. Something wilder than compliance comes into his mind. He is a new man, and that calls for a new voice. He runs back, “praising God with a loud voice,” then falls at the feet of Jesus, pouring out the gladness of his thanks. It is not done decently and in order. It is not coloring within the lines. It is not a well-crafted little thank you speech, but a stammering babble and a puddle of tears in the dust.

Paul Duke describes his praise as being like jazz. “This man’s freedom has found its voice and is having its proper play at Jesus’ feet. Praise is love improvising its answer to Love.”[3]

This is the thought that captured my imagination. Our praise is not the marching step of duty, it is the dance of joy; it is not the settled and predictable phrase that we can repeat without emotion, it is the giggle of delight; our praise is like jazz!

This is what that contrast sounds like … [Sharon Curnutte plays the tune of “There is a Balm in Gilead” with no embellishments and then plays the same tune with jazz playfulness.]

Shame on us for so often resembling a dutiful procession of cleansed lepers. Shame on us for being like the nine who after having their prayers answered returned to business as usual. Where is the one who wheels round to echo the wildness of God’s love?

Jesus requires obedience, but I believe he loves the jazz of our answering gladness. So he says to the one at his feet, “Your faith has made you well,” literally, “saved you.” Up until now in Luke, Jesus has spoken this sentence to two persons, both of them outcasts, both of them women,

one, a sinner, shedding tears as she anoints the Messiah’s feet;

one finding courage after bleeding for 12 years;

both, strikingly enough, kneeling at Jesus’ feet, like this one ex-leper.

Why is this manner of thanksgiving so central to the life of faith?

All ten in the group believe in Jesus’ power; all ten obey his command; and all ten are blessedly restored. But returning and thanking Jesus deepens and completes the act of receiving a blessing.

One scholar invites us to “think of a child who receives a meal from her parents, a dish they’ve specially prepared for her as a gift: if she simply consumes it as a plate of fuel, or devours it as a privilege, or thoughtlessly enjoys it as an indulgence — [then] she misses the truth of her situation. She misses the gift.”[4]

The Samaritan does not miss the gift! I think that is why Jesus is so impressed with him!

Perhaps more than the other nine, he perceives that what Jesus has done is a gift, as grace, as a sign of the abundance of God’s love and God’s indiscriminate sharing of it!

I think Jesus wants his followers to notice who responds and be moved to shout and sing too!

Where do you hear praise like jazz?

Do you hear it in this space as we gather to praise God, as we join together to do ministry, as we dream dreams and bring them to pass? I do.

I hear it when the laughter of being together rings out from the parlor every time circle meets;

I see it as our children scamper around with two cents a meal cans and you make them jingle;

I sense it in your delighted tales about Pay it Forward, Suds of Love, and Chamberlain b-day lunches.

It is the sound of grateful jazz; it is the sound of faith when it is most real.

This story indicates that it only happens about 10% of the time, but you are an extraordinary congregation, so I expect more of you. What will your grateful jazz sound like today? Amen.