Today's Message: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Kings 5: 14-17;  2 Timothy 2: 8-13; Luke 17: 11-19

Today’s gospel is the same gospel that we use on Thanksgiving Day.  We could easily look at it and see that Jesus is instructing us to be grateful to God for the gifts we have received.

We seem to be able to do this but is our gratitude all inclusive?  Do I consider outsiders as ‘regular people’ as I am?  Put another way, do I feel that I am important, valued and treasured because I am a Catholic or because I am in this social strata?  Do pride myself on the company I keep or the group I count as friends?  Do I consider that these are the ‘in-group’ for me?  To have an ‘in-group’ means that there is an ‘out-group’.  These would be people who do not belong…do not agree…are somehow different from the groups that I am associated with and have relationships.  If this is so do I consider my ‘group’ better?  Do I feel my way of thinking is better or my religion is better or my political bent is better or my way of living is better even I am better?  Very few of us would like to stay with this line of questioning. It may make us feel uncomfortable or it may make us look critically at ourselves in a way we do not want to do.  Yet God is always loving us, just the way we are now.  But God is always leading us to be the best person we can be; to be a person who is living the life of love as Jesus taught and showed us.  So are we the best loving people we can be?  Am I the best loving person I can be right now?  Is my love one of total giving or am I selective?  Do I feel that my love must always be growing and expanding?  This is the lesson of today’s readings.

The first book of Kings involves the time of Elijah the prophet; the second book the time of Elisha, Elijah’s successor.  Today’s story has to do with the cure of Naaman, who was a commander of the army of Syria.  He was a very successful leader and recognized that God had helped him, but he had leprosy.   One of the captured servant girls from Israel said that there was a prophet there who could heal him.  So Naaman’s king sent a letter to the king of Israel with loads of gifts so that Naaman could be healed. Naaman went as was told by Elisha, as we hear today, to bathe in the Jordan River.  Naaman was angry since he considered the waters in Damascus to be much purer, but the servant girl convinced Naaman and he trusted in God’s word and went and bathed and was cured.  Elisha would not accept any payment.  He only shared the gift he had been given.  All gifts from God are meant to be shared.  Now please continue reading the story…because a servant of Elisha, Gehazi, seeing Naaman’s wealth wanted to get ‘rich’ himself.  So he sent two servants who asked for talents of silver and two festal garments for two fictitious guild prophets.  They were lying, Gehazi wanted them for himself. Naaman gave them two silver talents with two festal garments.  When they came back and Elisha asked Gehazi what had happened, he lied again and Elisha said, “The leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever.  And Gehazi left Elisha a leper as white as snow.” Gehazi had placed more value on that fortune than by service to God to those in need.

The author of the second reading, most likely not Paul, is writing about the outstanding character of Timothy.  He continues to protect the correct teaching of  Jesus.  The message of the Gospel is to live and love.  Christ will always remain faithful to us as we live what Jesus teaches.  We are to trust His wisdom, mercy and goodness.  Our trust will always help us.  The last part of today’s reading, scholars tell us was part of a very early hymn of thanksgiving to Jesus:  “If we have died with Him we shall also live with Him; if we persevere we shall also reign with Him.  But if we deny Him He will deny us.  If we are unfaithful He remains faithful., for He cannot deny Himself.”

Jesus has healed ten lepers, but only one returns to give glory to God for being cleansed.  Jesus continues on His final life journey to Jerusalem to His passion, death, resurrection and ascension.  He goes through Samaria and Galilee.  Now at the time of Jesus, leprosy was a much feared and very often a fatal disease.  Because of this, lepers were isolated from family, friends and all people.  They couldn’t participate in Temple worship. They had to rely on the generosity of others for the necessities of life.  Today, these ten are begging Jesus for help, “Jesus, Master!  Have pity on us!”  The only thing that Jesus did was to tell them to go to and show themselves to the priests.  Now approval from the priest was required to be declared free from leprosy.  Did the all go to the priests?  All we know is that they were healed on the way.  For them to return to their homes and be accepted into Temple worship they needed the final OK from the priests.  Was this a certificate or the like?  I do not know.  Jesus said all ten were cured but only one came back and he was a Samaritan.  We presume the other nine were Jewish.  For the crowd the healed leper was a foreigner and remained this to everyone except to God and Jesus.  His faith in God and trust in God saved him and cured him. 

Naaman like at the Samaritan leper in the Gospel both are foreigners.  The Samaritans were enemies to the Jewish people.  The Samaritan was the only healed leper to return to Jesus.  He glorified God falling at Jesus’ feet with profuse thankfulness.  Jesus took time to affirm this man’s faith.  His faith brought God’s mercy.  Is my faith that strong?  Is my gratitude that strong all the time?  Do I consider myself as a member of the elite group and a simple thank you would be enough because God knows how I feel? 

Connections a Gospel newsletter gives us today’s reflection:  “Gratitude is a practice - a way of approaching life - that is grounded in the conviction that God has breathed His life into us for no other reason than love so deep we cannot begin to fathom it, and that the only fitting response we can make to such inexplicable and unmerited love is to stand humbly before God in quiet, humble gratitude.  We may not realize it or appreciate them at the time, but we have been blessed by many individuals whose presence in our life have contributed to making us who we are - and, though we seldom think of ourselves as the answer to anyone’s prayer, we have been a blessing to others in small and hidden ways.  Like the Samaritan leper who gives thinks for the miracle that has taken place in his life, we, too, can be transformed by such joyful gratitude once we realize God’s loving presence in every human heart.”   

So how am I doing in being a person of total love? And what do I need today from God?

Sacred Space 2019 states:

   “The Jesuit writer Tony de Mello used to say that you cannot be grateful and unhappy.  There is so much to be grateful for, and we need to remind ourselves of this from time to time.  In the great joy at their cure the other nine lepers forgot the greater joy that they were the recipients of this wonderful yet unearned gift.  Let me spend some time counting my blessings and being grateful for them.

   Jesus tells the Samaritan, ‘Your faith has made you well.’  I thank God for the gift of faith, which makes me more capable of facing life with all its suffering and contradictions.  I ask the Lord Jesus to strengthen my faith.”