Gratitude is showing appreciation, for life in general or for a kindness done to us or a benefit received. A leper shows gratitude in this Sunday’s Gospel. Jesus comes upon 10 lepers and tells them, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” It seems a fool’s errand. Priests do not receive unclean people but are responsible for removing them, such as lepers, from the community. The lepers head off anyway, including at least one who is a Samaritan. Samaritans believed they were the true chosen people, not having been corrupted by captivity in Babylon as were the Judeans. Yet a Samaritan, raised on the inferiority of the Jewish priesthood, went off to show his uncleanliness to them. On the way though, they are all cured. It is only the Samaritan however who returns to thank Jesus.
It is easy to contrast the Samaritan with an ingrate, an ungrateful person. An ingrate would go back to Jesus to kick Him in the shins. An ingrate would go back to the person who gave him his renewed position in the community and rob him. An ingrate in our time could be described as a person who works in government but not for the people. A congressional ingrate receives the benefit of a salaried position in the community, paid for by the people, who then prevents other workers in the government from receiving their salaries. Such is the case in a government shutdown when Congress members continue to fund their own salaries while cutting off the salaries of others. A congressional ingrate takes people’s money to pay for their own socialized health care system and then denies the people health care. A congressional ingrate shuts down a community’s goods and services while they keep open their personal transportation system and gym. That is the behavior of an ingrate. It is someone who has no appreciation of Jesus, no appreciation of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, and no appreciation of how to be a healing presence.
Ingrates and the systems they manipulate for their own benefit do not serve us. Saying ‘Thank You’ but ‘No,’ is our necessary response to their systems. More importantly we need to make the old way of high priests as irrelevant as Jesus made them in the Gospel. Be they in church settings or congressional settings they are obsolete and of little help in helping heal our suffering. We need to nurture alternative systems consisting of a communion of equals.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, help me to be a healing presence with people who promote sickness and suffering.
Question: To whom do I need to say, “Thank you.”?
October 13, 2013 Gospel Luke 17:11-19 Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time