This is Thanksgiving weekend in our country. Usually when we think of Thanksgiving, you have images of the bountiful harvest of the fruits of our land for which we come together to give thanks to God. But the image we have before us in today’s gospel is of a man giving thanks to God for quite a diffrent reason. He is a man whose body was being ravaged by leprosy until he encountered Jesus who cured him. Leprosy, or Hansen's disease as it is also known, still exists today. It’s a bacterial decease affecting the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This may result in a lack of ability to feel pain, thus loss of parts of extremities due to repeated injuries or infection. But today it is curable by medication. In the ancient world leprosy was grouped in with other visible skin conditions and was most feared and dreaded. People with these conditions were forced to live apart from the general population, they must keep their distance while warning that they were leprous – unclean, unclean. In this gospel passage there are ten leprous men who are cured by Jesus resulting in two different responses by those cured. Nine simply return to life in their communities but with the thought that they are the luckiest men in town. But one has an entirely different response. Something greater than physical healing has happened to him – has been converted – he has encounter God, person-to-person. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then Jesus said to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” In our first Reading Naaman when he saw that he was cured of leprosy proclaimed, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel.” Why, because in those days only God could cure leprosy. Today the wonders of modern medicine leave us in awe over how it is able to cure us. Is our age not unlike the picture we have before us in this gospel passage? Is it not unlike the other nine in today’s gospel, simply to be content with the cure – no need to bring God into it? People of faith gather this weekend to give thanks to God. Even though we know that by our own natural resources we contribute much to our own well-being, we also know that without the guidance of the wisdom of God and his provident hand sustaining us our lives could quickly descend into ruin. Today, as God looks out at these church gatherings of people come before Him to give thanks – yet with so many empty pews – might we not hear again these words spoken by Jesus in today’s gospel: “So many lives have I filled with my blessings, so few have come back to give thanks. Where are all the others? And to us he says: “Go home to your celebrations now, knowing that it is by your faith in me I make all things well.” |
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