Praising God with a Loud Voice!

Meditation on Luke 17:11-19

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

Oct. 12, 2025

I had a nice phone conversation with Sue Potter Spencer yesterday. Does anyone remember the Potters? Sue, who now lives in Weston, MA, mailed me a large envelope of church materials belonging to her parents, Edwin and Marjorie Potter, from the 1960s. She had come across the materials while going through some family papers. They stirred good memories for her, and she hoped they would stir good memories for us, too.

Her father was chair of the financial campaign in 1962 when the church was preparing to build an 9,800 square foot addition for Christian education. They hadn’t yet raised the $300,000 that would be needed for both building and the interior furnishings, but they went ahead with the plans. The church was responding to what was happening both inside and beyond its walls. The Rev. Raymond Case writes of the unprecedented growth—from 300 members in 1955 or so to 600 in June 1961, with 400 young people enrolled in Church School. Rev. Case says that this is due to a population shift and explosion on Long Island “far beyond the wildest imagination of any real estate promoter.”

To understand what was happening at the time, I had to look no further than the bulletins that Sue sent, revealing the congregation welcoming, in June 1961, a Confirmation class of 40 students! George Ludder and Lucia Spahr were in that class!

The church hoped to lay the foundation by April 1, 1963. The reason to expand, they say, is that the Church School was “literally bulging at the seams.” The new Church School facilities would help the church to grow. The thinking at the time is that “Home buyers always investigate church facilities, with an eye to providing the best for their children.”

Two years after the Christian Education building is complete, the church starts the Village Presbyterian Pre-School in 1965. Although it is begun with the members’ needs in mind, the cooperative helps the church grow even more as families join the congregation after their kids begin attending the pre-school.

Sue Potter Spencer remembers the church of this time. She writes, “My family was deeply involved in the life and ministry of First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown from the late 1950s through 1972. My parents and their four children (Don, Sue, Kathy, and Judy) lived in St. James and attended church services nearly every Sunday until we relocated to Westport, CT in 1972. During those years, my parents served on many committees. My father sang in the choir at the 11:00 service and played clarinet in the church members’ band …. My mother served as Superintendent of the Sunday School after the addition was completed and, along with my father, organized and called regular square dances and folk dances at the church.

“My siblings and I attended Sunday School and when we were old enough helped out in the classrooms. We sang in the Primary and Chapel choirs at the 9:00 service led by choir director Robert Lawton. I remember singing Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence for the introit before processing each Sunday. We were routinely at the church from 8:00 until almost 1:00 when my parents were finally done visiting with everyone. We knew every nook and cranny of the church and especially liked hiding in the closets under the stairs at the front of the church.”

Today, we read about the grateful outsider in the gospel of Luke whom Jesus heals of a contagious skin disease. The man who is healed is a model for us because of his response to the merciful gift. He falls at Christ’s feet and praises God with a loud voice. Jesus makes a point to emphasize that this man whom he healed is not of their faith community. He is a Samaritan, an enemy of the Jewish people of the time. This Samaritan, who is not welcome in his hometown, anymore, because of his sickness, lives on the margins of the village with the Jewish men who suffer with the same disease.

Jesus comments on the man’s status to those who have witnessed this miracle. He seems to be asking, “How can a Samaritan believe in me and my power to heal, when Jewish people do not?” The answer is because faith is a gift offered to all who seek to follow him. No one is excluded. And not only is the gift of faith offered to this man; he is healed, a gift that essentially grants him a whole new life and restores him to his own family and community.

But the man doesn’t seem anxious to go home. For his healing is not just a bodily healing. His healing is spiritual, as well. He has been made whole.

Jesus doesn’t seem to warmly welcome him, at first, after he is healed. He is a “foreigner,” Christ says, and the word makes me cringe. Isn’t “foreigner” what we call people who are not like us? People whose differences stir fear and suspicion in us, as they did in ancient days?

He is a “foreigner,” Christ says, using the word his own people would use when they see a Samaritan, though Jews and Samaritans have a common ancestry. They are both descendants of the ancient Israelites.

Jesus is challenging his community’s prejudice, when he points out that a Samaritan and not a Jew is doing the righteous thing. Jesus already did this in Luke 10 and shocked his audience when he tells a parable with a Samaritan man as the one who is “good,” caring for a Jewish man set upon, beaten, and left for dead by robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

“Were not ten made clean?” Jesus’ words ring in my ears. “So where are the other nine? Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” Then he turns to the grateful man who is no longer unclean, and says to him, in the hearing of the villagers, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

This passage in the context of our looking back at our history this year and leaning forward into the future God has planned stirs me to consider two questions. The first is, “How did we treat the stranger, the outsider, in our faith community in the past?”

Looking at the enormous growth of the church in the 20^th century, I have to say that we were willing to take on an expensive building project, one in which we hadn’t raised even half the money before we began, and we did this to welcome young families coming to our community. As the population shifted and grew, this little church had a vision to nurture the faith of the children of our new neighbors. The Village Presbyterian Preschool served the members and children of the community, too.

My second question is, “How do we treat the stranger, the outsider, in our faith community today?”

Last week, on World Communion Sunday, I emphasized how the Lord’s Table is open to all people, no matter our age or religious background. The Sunday School children were invited to stay for the liturgy and the partaking of the bread and cup. This is the Lord’s Table, and Christ welcomes all to come to him, all who seek to be made one with him and all his followers, in every time and place.

And while the Christian Education building is no longer overflowing with Sunday School children and youth, like it once was, it has been opened wide to numerous community groups, along with our parish hall and narthex. We were the charter organization for Boy Scout Troop 214 of Hauppauge back in 1959, which still has about 35-40 active scouts. Over the years, 145 of the scouts, including our own Daniel Davidsen in August, have earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

We were talking about this in book group this week, but Nanume, a Korean Presbyterian congregation, met for worship, food and fellowship, and Bible study in our building for about 20 years—until they were able to move into their own space a couple of years ago, closer to Stony Brook University.

And I know that healing takes place in our building for those struggling with alcohol and drug addiction. I have heard stories. AA meets 6 days a week in our building to provide support and encouragement for those on sober journeys.

Another way that we welcome the stranger, the outsider, to our faith community is through our livestream. All you need is an internet connection and you can join with us in worship on Facebook and YouTube. Our livestream connects with people, right where they live, in the privacy of their home. My blog—pastorkaren.org—is the same way. You can read my message for every service, including our funerals, from any place in the world if you have a computer, tablet, or smart phone.

We don’t know what unexpected changes will happen in our ministries as we seek to follow Christ in the years to come. But I do know that our faith and gratitude will be required. It’s no accident that the gifts of faith and gratitude often come together in the gospels. I am not sure that one can be present without the other. Can we be faithful without being grateful to the God who loves us so much and made a way for our salvation, the God who continually welcomes and restores by grace those who go astray?

Sue Potter Spencer’s gratitude for the church of her childhood and its pastors is evident throughout her letter.  She writes, “Thank you for all you do to nurture and sustain the life of a church that meant so much to our family. In times like these, strong and caring churches are more important than ever, offering hope, community, support, and encouragement in a world that often feels uncertain and divided. It brings me great joy to think that First Presbyterian continues to be such a place.”

Dear friends, may we, like Jesus, welcome and bless the stranger and outsider with our friendship. May we seek to bring about healing and wholeness in Christ’s name through our prayers, worship, and witness. May we, like Sue Spencer, be grateful for one another, our siblings in Christ, and this ministry, that has continued for generations. With God’s grace and our faith, may we continue in ministry for generations to come.

May we, like the man who is healed when he cries out for mercy, respond to God’s goodness with loud praise. The man to whom Jesus says, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Let us pray.

Healing God, thank you for your Son’s mercy and compassion for the sick, even the outsiders from his own faith community. Lead us, by your Spirit, to welcome and bless the stranger and outsider with our friendship. Grant us your power as we seek to bring healing and wholeness through our prayers in Christ’s name. Help us to be grateful, dear Lord, for all that you have done, and for your everlasting presence with us. May we be faithful to give you loud praise and serve you for generations to come. In your Son’s name we pray. Amen.