Saying Thanks
October 14, 2007, 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time
II Kings 5:14-17 II Timothy 2:8-13 Luke 17:11-19
To the church in the diaspora[1]
& to the church of the unchurched[2]
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, Lord.
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?" Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you" (Luke 17:11-19).
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ
Introduction
Thanks at Thanksgiving
For us in the northern hemisphere the story of the one leper out of ten who returns to say thanks is timely. The maple trees are now donning glorious garments of gold. God’s bounty of apples and pumpkins is being gathered into bins against the long winter night. Soon our thoughts will turn to Thanksgiving Day, and we, who nine times out of ten have been too busy to return to say thanks, will pause on this very special American holiday to count our blessings, as “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go.”
Thanks in the old days
Saying thanks came easy in the old days, even though we didn’t enjoy as many blessings then as we do now. Our forefathers planted their crops in early spring, nurtured them through the warm summer months and then in fall gathered their harvest into bins. That yearly round made it easy for them to feel grateful for the simple blessings present even in their frugal lives. It was easy for them to say thanks, and they were saying it much more frequently than we do today. Scarcity and gratitude strangely are brothers and sisters. It was no surprise, therefore, that sooner or later our forefathers would invent a special holiday for saying thanks.
Thanks today
Even though blessings abound these days, it’s harder now to say thanks. Today when we expend great physical and psychic energy from Monday to Friday to earn a paycheck, and when there’s no money left over after we’ve paid the rent or mortgage and have bought the weekly groceries and have filled the gas tank, we don’t feel overwhelmed with gratitude. When in our illness we approach the healthcare industry with three genuflections, and the first thing it asks us is not how sick we are but how insured we are, we don’t feel overwhelmed with gratitude. Nor is it easy to say thanks for a healthcare system which admits us into the hospital at early dawn for brain surgery and hopes to have us out by evening. If rural pilgrims had not invented Thanksgiving Day, and if that had been left up to us urbanites today, it probably would still be waiting to be invented.
It’s hard to count your blessings in a savagely capitalistic atmosphere. That’s an atmosphere in which nothing is free and everything costs. Some of us remember the old days when we could get free soup bones at the corner butcher shop and free lunches of rye bread, cheese, sausage, and herring at the local tavern. Today we pay for absolutely everything, and when we pay for absolutely everything, then nothing is gift. And when nothing is gift, there’s simply not much reason to say thanks.
That staunch demand for payment, that ever-hovering cloud of transaction which hangs over us all week long eventually creeps up into the more spiritual realms of our lives. Before we know it, we’re transacting with our spouses, kids, parents, brothers and sisters. Before we know it, we’re making others pay up before we love them. The only one left who’s not in a transactional mode is our dog who loves us unconditionally and reminds us that God loves us the same way. The only one left to whom we find ourselves saying thanks in a savagely capitalistic atmosphere is the family dog.
Jesus’ gratifying experiences of Samaritans
As Jesus and his disciples were making their way toward Jerusalem and the hill of Calvary, they suddenly came upon ten lepers. Nine of them were Jews and one was a Samaritan. Jesus (Good Samaritan that he was!) stopped to pour the oil of compassion upon them. He cured all ten lepers, but only one returned to say thanks, and that one was a Samaritan! A no-good Samaritan! A no-good half-breed and heretic who worshipped God on Mount Gerizim instead of in the temple in Jerusalem (Jn 4:20)! Jesus, the Jew, on his way to Jerusalem had this very gratifying experience of a despised Samaritan, and he never forgot it.
On another occasion he and his disciples were journeying through Samaria and approached a village named Sychar. There they came upon Jacob’s Well located on a plot of ground that Jacob gave his son Joseph. It was high noon, and all were very thirsty. The disciples went into town to buy food while Jesus remained behind at the well. A Samaritan woman, a no-good half-breed and heretic, approached with a bucket to draw water. The two (a Jew and a Samaritan) met and launched off into a long conversation in which the woman owned up to a meandering life with five husbands. When the conversation opened, it was the woman who had cool clear water to offer Jesus, and it was the Lord who was thirsty and asking for some to drink. When it ended, it was Jesus who had cool clear water to offer, and it was the woman who was thirsty and asking for some to drink. Jesus offered her “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” She drank deeply of it and was converted from her meandering life (Jn 4:5-42). That was another gratifying experience of a despised Samaritan which Jesus never forgot.
A parable about his experiences of Samaritan
It was no wonder then that sooner or later Jesus would craft an immortal parable in which the hero would not be a fellow Jew but a despised Samaritan. Once upon a time a man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and was waylaid by robbers who left him half-dead. Along came a priest (a Jew) who saw the poor man but passed him by. Along came a Levite (a Jew) who also saw the dying man and passed him by. Then along came a despised Samaritan. He saw the poor man and stopped to pour the oil of compassion into his wounds. Then he hoisted him unto his beast of burden and hurried him off to the nearest inn where he paid for his care and cure (Lk 15:1-32). With this parable Jesus did such a perfect job of rehabilitating the good name of Samaritans that we today cannot conceive of a Samaritan who is not good.
A story about ingratitude
When Jesus came upon ten lepers, he cured them all. Only one of the ten returned to say thanks. This gospel story is obviously about gratitude, and we will tell it again at Mass on Thanksgiving Day, November 22nd. But it’s also (and perhaps even more) a story about ingratitude (or at least non-gratitude), for nine out of the ten cured lepers did not return to say thanks. That’s not a good percentage.
We don’t know why the nine did not return to say thanks. Maybe some of them were simply ungrateful pups who think that whatever good befalls them is their just desserts. Such people never say thanks. Maybe some were so overwhelmed with joy at their cure that they went back into society and celebrated with old friends and simply forgot to return to say thanks. All we know for sure is that nine out of ten did not return to say thanks. Does it reflect an all-too-human statistic that out of ten opportunities or moments in our lives calling us to say thanks we probably fail nine times to say it?
The challenge to count one’s blessings
Right now I am in a kind of negative or almost depressed mode. After living for twenty eight years in a very nice house into which I invested much of myself, circumstances force me now to move out of the inner city. (Someone has said there are three woes in life: divorce, death and moving! Yes, indeed!) At this traumatic moment, I think of all I shall have to leave behind. I think of my cloistered backyard with its shrine of St. Francis. I think of the solitary silver maple tree which I planted in dead winter ten years ago, and which has now burgeoned into the cloister’s central gem. I think of the attic transformed into a wonderful Shangri La with a cozy gas fireplace to warm my cold bones in the dead of winter and to help me forget that I am living in the inner city. The impending move is a traumatic moment for me. It has me counting my many banes.
But it is also a profound moment for me. It challenges me to count also my many blessings. For blessings there are. Blessings like being able to move out of the inner city, while there are many who would like to move out but cannot. Blessings like having countless friends who in different ways and with much concern are helping me to make the move. It’s a profound moment challenging me to count my many blessings, and I hope I can do it as well as the little old lady whose story was related to me in the following e-mail.
A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and her makeup perfectly applied (even though she is legally blind), moved to a nursing home today. Her husband of 60 years recently passed away, and that made the move necessary. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, the nurse in charge gave her a visual description and preview of her tiny room. “Oh I love it,” she said with the enthusiasm of an eight year old having just received a new puppy as a Christmas gift. “Oh, but Mrs. Jones,” the nurse replied, “you haven’t seen your room yet. Just wait till you do! You’re going to be so happy.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied. “Happiness and her sister gratitude are something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I say thanks for my room or not doesn’t depend on what kind of furniture is in it or how it is arranged. It’s what’s in my mind and how it is arranged there that counts. I have already decided to be grateful for my room. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice: I can spend the day in bed bemoaning the difficulties I have with parts of my body that don’t work, or I can get out of bed and give thanks for the ones that do. My recipe for joy and also for a long life is this: a) free your heart from hate; b) free your mind from worry; c) live simply; d) and learn to count your blessings.”
Conclusion
Feel it and say it
Jesus cured ten lepers, but only one returned to say thanks. Every Mass has a dismissal. Go the Mass is ended. Go and return to say thanks. It’s not enough just to feel thanks, we must also say thanks. Just don’t feel thanks to the clerk who has met you as a human being and has been very pleasant and very helpful. Say thanks to the clerk. Give her a little speech that says thanks. It can be ever so brief. It can be as brief as the one-liner of a gentleman who said to me as he was passing out of church, “Your mother should have had triplets!” I received that very unique way of saying thanks down deep within myself, and it lit me up.
Just don’t feel thanks, say thanks to your spouse who goes forth every day to bring home the bacon, or who stays home everyday to take care of the kids and keep house and cook supper. Just don’t feel thanks, say thanks to your parents who, though they never do a perfect job of parenting, are always wondering how they can do better.
Saying thanks blesses everyone. The gentleman who wished my mother would have had triplets had, indeed, blessed me. But his unique words of thanks returned to bless him as well, for they planted a radiant glow not only on my face but on his as well. The leper’s words of thanks put a glow on the face of Jesus. But they also returned to bless the leper himself. They put a glow on his face as well when the Lord said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you" (Luke 17:19).
1] Diaspora is a Greek word meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile. It’s now come to mean the migration or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland or parish!
[2]] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
