28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (C)

 

   Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time (C) [Lk 17:11-19]

09.10.2022

Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers

Readings: (1) 2 King 5:14-17 (2) 2 Tim 2:8-13

1.  Theme in brief

A sense of gratitude          

2.  Focus Statement

We need to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude to God for his goodness towards us in cleansing us from sins and bestowing on us salvation and wholeness.

3.  Explanation of the text

In today’s gospel text, Jesus contrasts the gratitude expressed by a Samaritan leper over his experience of getting healed from leprosy with the ingratitude of the nine Jewish lepers who failed to give thanks to him for the same. Though all the ten lepers received the gift of healing, only the Samaritan, much hated by the Jews as an outcast, returned to give thanks. This Samaritan leper was doubly an outcast, both as a leper and as a Samaritan.

First of all, in Jesus’ time the Jews believed that leprosy was such a repelling, dreadful and contagious disease that anybody could contract it even by going close to lepers. That is why today’s gospel says that the ten lepers cried to Jesus to have mercy on them by keeping their distance from him (17:13) because it was prescribed in the Law of Moses as a precaution against the risk of contagion. They had to live in tents outside the village, isolated and cut-off from family and society. They had to wear torn clothes, let their hair dishevelled and cry out “Unclean, unclean” by covering their upper lip (cf. Leviticus 13:45). Since the Jews considered leprosy as a punishment for one’s sins, their condition invited less sympathy from others because they believed that the lepers deserved their fate due to their sins. The isolation experienced by leprosy patients from their families and society was really terrible.

Secondly, this leper was a despised Samaritan. The Samaritans were a mixed race – descendant of those Jews who took pagan wives of Samarian territory after their return from exile. The Jews considered Samaritans half-breeds, heretics and called them ‘foreigners’ (17:18) in their own native place. Luke makes this hated foreigner real hero of his story and presents him as a model of gratitude for the chosen people (Israelites). This must have really shocked his Jewish listeners.

The way these ten leprosy patients cried out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us" (17:13), indicated that they considered him more than an ordinary man. Otherwise, they would have begged for alms rather than mercy from him and would not have addressed him as Master – a person who had some moral and spiritual authority. We can guess that a request for healing from their dreaded disease was implied in their cry – since they were probably aware of Jesus’ healing power manifested in other miracles. Many might have ignored the lepers and probably paid no attention to their cry. But when Jesus “saw them" (17:14), he could also see their pain and plight; hence, he began the process of their total restoration to normal life in their society. Instead of healing them instantly, he asked them to follow the rule of showing themselves to the priests in order to get their certificate for social restoration (17:14). Their obedience to his command and faith in him healed them as they set out (17:14).

It is interesting to note that instead of saying all of them were healed, Luke says all of them were “made clean” (17:14). Besides healing that restored their bodily health, they needed a cleansing also to restore them to social and religious communion that enabled them to re-join their families and community and participate in religious worship. Then Luke mentions that though all the ten were cleansed, only the Samaritan “saw that he was healed” and turned back to thank Jesus (17:15-16). This is not an ordinary seeing, but a seeing (with the eyes of faith) of the presence of God’s saving love working through Jesus. He saw what others failed to see: it was God’s work done through Jesus; hence, God deserved glory and Jesus deserved to be thanked. Whereas the other nine were more concerned about re-joining their families and social life, this person felt that showing gratitude to Jesus was his first priority. He turned back praising God with a loud voice (17:15) which, according to Luke, was a natural response of those who experienced divine power and mercy (cf. 2:20; 13:13). His prostration at Jesus’ feet (17:16) shows that he believed that Jesus was endowed with divine power.

Jesus told the Samaritan leper to get up and go his way, because his faith had made him well, or as per another translation, his faith had saved him (17:19). All were healed but one, that also a foreigner, was saved. He not only received the gift of physical healing from a dreaded disease (= leprosy) but also inner cleansing from sins, that is, salvation. Quite contrary to the view held by Pharisees, this Samaritan was saved by faith alone, not by meticulous observance of Mosaic Law. The faith of the ten lepers led to their physical healing, but the gratitude of the Samaritan leper brought salvation and wholeness as well.

4.  Application to life 

Today Jesus goes in search of us or reaches out to us who are like leprosy patients, even when we are keeping our distance from him so that we may open our eyes to recognise his saving deeds. Our sins are worse than leprosy. They make us unclean and impure as leprosy patients were considered in Jesus’ times. They isolate us from God and community and break off our love-relationship with both. As forgiven sinners, we are all like lepers who are cleansed. Jesus restores our broken relationship and makes us whole. Our experience of being healed and cleansed from sins (or being made well) must lead us to praise and thank God for his wonderful saving deeds.

The nine Israelites, though healed from the dreaded disease (leprosy), are not affected deeply by that experience. We can be either like the nine leprosy patients who are changed superficially or like the Samaritan leper who is touched deeply and responds with gratitude. The first surprising element in this story is that such a tremendous saving deed did not touch the nine, though they also were cleansed. Luke says that only one of them “saw that he was healed” (17:15). He ‘saw’ in his miraculous cure the mighty hand of God who intervened to save him.

The second shocking element (for Jewish listeners) is that the one who returned to give thanks was a hated and despised Samaritan. Since the Israelites were privileged to be God’s chosen people, they should have recognised his boundless mercy first and returned to give thanks. But it is the despised foreigner who saw it and showed gratitude to God. The text says that the Samaritan patient “returned” to give thanks. This shows that giving thanks is like turning back to the source or origin of all the help we received. For a person of faith, if not God who else is the source of all that we are and all that we have? Ingratitude is a kind of leprosy that isolates or cuts us off from the source of all goodness. Surely there are moments when we failed to return to God to thank him for his gifts and blessings. The nine leprosy patients were more anxious to go home and reunite with their families than thanking Jesus for such a wonderful favour. In their eagerness they forgot to thank first the source of their well-being. Suppose we were in their position what would have been our priority?

We need to cultivate an attitude of gratitude to God for his goodness towards us in cleansing us from sins and impure minds as well as restoring and healing our broken relationships. Just like the Samaritan, our sense of gratitude to God is the result of our experience of being healed from our spiritual and social leprosy. When we stretch this idea a bit further, all thanksgiving to God is a response of our faith. In faith, we acknowledge every blessing, grace and gift which God out of his love and benevolence bestows on us.  It is also recognition of God’s saving deeds or mighty works in human history and our personal lives.

Often we approach God when we are in trouble. Thus he becomes “an Emergency God” for our external needs. Once our needs are met or when the trouble is over we forget to thank him. Do so many devotees who flock to shrines and healing centres begging for favours from God (quite often through the intercession of Mother Mary if it is a Marian Shrine), come to love him and neighbours better once their needs are met? In fact, our whole life ought to be a continual act of thanksgiving to God. Thanksgiving is the faith-response of the receiver of divine grace that has made well or saved him/her from physical or spiritual illness (17:19). It is also a type of remembrance. It is a recalling to one’s mind what good and marvellous deeds God has done for us or remembering those deeds with a grateful heart. Another way of generating a sense of gratitude within us is to remember our past history: where and what we were once upon a time, and where we have come and what we have become now. Considering the humble origins of many of our present talents, abilities and achievements, and also our sinful past, we cannot but give thanks to God who is the source of all blessings. That is why the Psalmist says: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits” (103:2). As constant beneficiaries of God’s favours and blessings, should we not always raise our hearts in gratitude to God?

There is a tendency in us to forget to thank not only God but also those who did so much good to us, once our needs are met. Many times God’s blessings, gifts, love and providence come to us through others, especially our parents, teachers, guides or role models. Any gesture of gratitude shown to them is also a gratitude shown to God himself, since it is He who sent these benefactors to us. The fact that a foreigner returned to thank Jesus while his own people walked away has another lesson for us. Often familiarity breeds contempt and we forget to appreciate or show gratitude to our own family members/ religious community’s members. While we are more courteous and grateful to outsiders, we take people who are close to us for granted. This attitude creates a distance between us and our own near and dear ones. Though we call them “near and dear ones,” they become less near and dear than outsiders. Nowadays, there are young people who consider their aged parents as a nuisance, and do not bother to take care of them. Even in societies where care for aged parents was traditionally regarded as a sacred duty of their children, we observe some of them being ‘dumped’ in old-age homes or in a corner to live separately. Is this the way we repay our debt to those who did everything for us?

The nine lepers who did not return to give thanks to God did not obtain an inner purification; they were cleansed only externally from their physical leprosy but not from their inner leprosy. Similarly, often God’s love and his goodness do not touch us deeply and change our attitudes. Though he cleanses us from our sins and other bondages even when we are keeping our distance from him like those lepers, we are ungrateful and lack enough faith to recognise his saving deeds. The ten lepers believed that Jesus was their only hope in the midst of isolation and segregation experienced by them. They cried out to Jesus to show mercy on their terrible and miserable condition. It was faith that restored them to total health and saved them from misery.

There is no dearth of people who are treated like lepers even today. They symbolize all the people who are isolated, rejected, stigmatized, ostracized and excommunicated by society and the Church. We can think of people who are treated like ‘lepers’ in our family, neighbourhood, village, community, classroom and institutions. There are regions in the world where leprosy and AIDs patients are thrown out of their families and societies even today – in some cases even if they are highly educated and hold good jobs. In many families and societies addicts to alcohol or drugs, differently-abled persons and crime prone children are not accepted. The Church also, since ages, has treated public sinners, heretics, divorcees, gays, etc., with harshness and condemnation. Sometimes they cry out: “Have mercy on us.” Are we compassionate to their cry like Jesus and reach out to them?

5.  Response to God's Word

Does the realisation that all that we are and have is God’s gift lead us to a deep sense of gratitude to God? Do we count our blessings? How do we express our gratitude? The very meaning of Eucharist is ‘Thanksgiving’. Do we realise that whenever we go to participate in the Eucharist we go to give thanks to God not only for our salvation through the ‘paschal event’ (passion, death and resurrection of Christ) but also for everything, A to Z? Are there signs of ingratitude in us towards God, family members (especially our parents) and our friends in need? Do we take people for granted from whom God’s blessings came (and continue to come) to us?

6.  A Prayer

O Lord, you have given to me all that I have and possess. In full response to your bountiful gifts, graces, mercy and salvation, I offer to you whatever I have and I am. Whatever I have is your gift to me, and whatever I give you freely is my gift to you. Amen.