I will admit that I tire of this text. Perhaps more accurately, I tire of the trivializing of this text in which it becomes little more than a prod to gratitude for a people prone to presume that they somehow deserve the good things that come to them. While it is certainly true that we do presume we deserve the good thing but not the bad that happen to us, this is not simply about ingratitude. It is about rejecting the God who gives good gifts to His children.
All ten lepers were cleansed, healed if you will. But how could they know it? This was not simply about looking into the mirror to see if the sores were gone or taking their temperature or blood pressure or an x-ray or if they felt better. Jesus had told them to go and show themselves to the priests. The priests would declare if they were cleansed, and if they could rejoin their families and society. Healing, in other words, is not something you declare but what is declared to you and for you by others. God declares us clean.
This is hard to take. We imagine ourselves to be the arbiters of our destinies. The world has lied to us so often and we have yearned to believe those lies that we believe them as the truest of truths. We are who we want to be, we can do what we want to do, and we get what we want. So the whole idea that our lives or our identities or our happiness lies beyond our control offends us.
The ingratitude of the nine is shown by their refusal to credit their healing to anyone, much less Jesus. They went their own ways to pursue their own dreams and desires and while their bodies might have been well, they were not healed or whole by any means. The key to wholeness and healing is not simply gratitude but the gratitude that is returned to Jesus.
It is one thing to be complacent about or to feel entitled when it comes to the ordinary things of this life. It is another to shrug your shoulders at the forgiveness that is free to you but cost our Lord His life in suffering on the cross. It is another to take for granted the things of God that come to us not by right or merit or worth but only and simply out of His great goodness and mercy. This is what one leper got right and nine got all wrong. Their illness was everything when it kept them from what they wanted but their healing was nothing if it required them to kneel before the Lord with gratitude and thanksgiving.
The ingratitude of the nine was nothing short of rejection of God, rejection of their sin, rejection of their need to be redeemed, and rejection of the Redeemer whom God had sent. Faith is, as they say, the attitude of gratitude. The one thing that will destroy a faith is ingratitude and the one thing that will rob the faithful of joy is ingratitude. It is not a small problem but a huge and profound roadblock to the contentment, peace, and joy we crave but cannot know outside of Christ.
The Samaritan leper could not go on without returning to the God who had made Him whole. He was asked to go to the priests. This was unthinkable to him and to the priests but he was willing to go. Then he realized that Christ was his priest and he could not go on without returning to the God who had made Him whole. He could not walk away from the Jesus who had visited such mercy upon his unworthy soul and body. Though he was a Samaritan and the Temple and the priests were not supposed to matter to him, they became the only thing that mattered – even more than the leprosy he had suffered and the healing he had received. For kneeling before the Lord he saw Scripture fulfilled. There he learned what it was that St. Paul proclaimed – whether you live or die, you belong to the Lord and this is the only thing that matters. All of them were healed but only one of them knew the end of his story, the final chapter of his mortal life, and the outcome of his faith. That was the Samaritan. He was grateful not because he could finally go back to the things that really did not matter but because he was finally free to focus on the only thing that mattered.
Like Martha who had to be taught the one thing needful, you and I come here in need of the gratitude of faith. We are but small numbers before an entire nation sits down to a feast that takes hours to prepare and minutes to consume, then to a distraction of a game or black Friday deals. We are the one who was healed, who cannot live at all unless we live in Christ and for Christ. Jesus is looking not for a thank you from us but for a life that has been truly healed of all the self-centered foolishness that parades as wisdom and all the trivial pursuits that lead nowhere. His desire is that we might know who we are through the lens of His love and find the contentment and peace of hearts that rest finally and fully upon Christ.
It is easy to be grateful in general without acknowledging the specifics for which we give thanks. It is easy to be grateful for the few things that we treasure most of all and which we consider to be extra special blessings. It is much different to begin the day thanking the Lord for even the trouble it will bring and for His presence throughout it all. It is much different to end the day commending to the Lord our sins for His forgiveness and His protection from pride lest the things we have done well distance us from Him.
This is not about perfunctory acts or words without meaning but about faith – faith that recognizes Jesus and rejoices in His gifts and returns to Him what His blood, suffering, and death have purchased. You. Me. And the whole world. For this Jesus is willing to waste His extravagant mercy on a terrible batting record of one out of nine. We would be stingier with what cost us so much but He is generous. And from this generosity, comes faith, gratitude, and devotion. The end result is not a thank you but a different person, created in Christ Jesus for an eternal future.
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