Wisdom 6: 1-11
Luke 17: 11-19
Jesus says to a man he has cured, “Your faith has saved you.” We need a basic trust, to recognise our total dependency on God for life and for its good use, and to be able to cooperate with others towards eternal life. Faith helps us appreciate each other, and to give praise to our Maker. To the healed man who threw himself on his knees, Jesus says, “Stand up and go on your way.” The man, free at last from the dreadful disease of leprosy, went off full of joy, no longer forbidden to live near other people, no longer ostracized as unclean. He resumed a full life, blessed with good health and gratitude to God.
Alongside this happy tale the gospel puts a sober commentary on human ingratitude. The question is asked, ‘Were not all ten made whole? Where are the other nine? Was there no one to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?’ At that time, most Jews scorned and avoided the Samaritans, after a long history of mutual distrust. Some five centuries earlier, Jews had refused to let Samaritans join in rebuilding the temple (Ezra 4). In return the Samaritans built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim and tended to side against the Jews in later wars. Well aware of this antagonism, Jesus was trying to break it down and show that even Samaritans could have true faith.
Did their sudden return to health distract the other nine so that they failed in the normal courtesy of returning to thank him for their cure? It seems that God’s finest gifts, life, strength, the ability to think and to act creatively, can easily make us forget God and also forget to serve our neighbours. The Book of Wisdom warns about the proper use of life and talents. It admonishes us that God made the great as well as the small, and provides for all alike; but a tougher scrutiny awaits people of power and influence.
“Who has returned to give thanks to God, except this stranger?” We have all received a great deal as a gift. We don’t always recognize that the ultimate source of graces and gifts is God. That is what distinguished the Samaritan leper from the other nine who were cured. All ten were equally healed of a disease that had left them only half-alive. But only one of them, finding himself cured, turned back praising God at the top of his voice. He threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him for this cure. He thanked Jesus, but he praised God. The Samaritan realised that God was at work in healing him.
Jesus praised this man’s special insight. Notice how he didn’t want thanks for himself, or complain that “nobody has come back to thank me..” but “nobody has come back to give praise to God.. except this foreigner.” That is why he goes on to say, “Your faith has saved you.” This leper had the true vision of faith; he recognized God at work in what had happened to him, in the extraordinary way he had been graced. We are called to that same vision of faith, to recognize and to acknowledge God at work in all the experiences of grace that bless us in the course of our lives.
The Rumbling in the Wind 