28th.
Sunday, Year (C)
(2 Kings 5:14-17; 2nd. Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19)
(2 Kings 5:14-17; 2nd. Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19)
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s Gospel
reading gives us important guidance concerning our spiritual life. All true disciples of Jesus want to become
fervent ones who sincerely love the Lord, and who, indeed, might become worthy
of an intimate, personal, relationship with Him; and recently, in our Sunday
Gospel readings, we have heard advice from Jesus on how we can achieve that
desire. Just last week we were told by
the Lord that we must not look for quick, earthly, rewards since here on earth
we are servants whose job it is to work for the Lord, not to look for personal
comforts and satisfactions; earlier, we were encouraged to treasure our faith
and to have confidence in its power to raise us up with Christ; and yet earlier
we might still remember being told to persevere in knocking, seeking, and
asking.
Today, we have another piece of essential advice for our
spiritual growth … and by that, I mean our growth as children of God before our
Father in heaven, not before human beings, whomsoever they may be, here on
earth.
As Jesus continued His journey to Jerusalem He travelled through Samaria
and Galilee.
As He was entering a certain
village ten lepers met Him; they stood at a distance from Him and raised their
voices saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity
on us!”
When He saw them
Jesus said, “Go, show
yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that, as they were on their way to the
priests, they were cleansed. One of them -- when he saw that he was healed
– returned, glorifying God with a loud voice, and fell down at the feet of
Jesus giving Him thanks. He was a Samaritan. So, Jesus said:
Ten
were cleansed were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give
thanks to God?
Try to imagine that instant
when those erstwhile lepers first realized, almost incredulously, what had
happened to them!! That horrible,
flesh-devouring, corrupting, process, that cursed plague which had shut them
off from all familiar contact with family, loved ones, friends, indeed, from
all healthy human society, THAT … IT … was obliterated; it had simply
disappeared and they found themselves well again, no longer ugly and repulsive;
now they were normal like everyone else, and they would soon be able to
meet with others in homely and familiar surroundings, doing ordinary, every-day,
things, so lovingly remembered and so deeply missed!
It is hard, indeed, perhaps
impossible, to imagine that moment of utter and stupendous joy and relief ….
But, what else, do you think they might well have felt? Surely, at the centre of that volcanic upsurge of joy and relief, they would have felt burning
gratitude too? We know for a fact that
at least one of them did: for he had to return to Jesus without any
delay to thank Him. The others were, perhaps,
so excited at their recovery of health that they simply forgot all else; or
else it might be that some were so desirous of getting the priests to witness
their new-found cleanliness -- which was necessary before they could officially
be allowed to join ordinary people once again -- that they did not feel that
gratitude until after they had been certified clean by the priests; yet others
may have felt they had first of all to visit family and begin picking up the
threads of their previous lives once again.
Nevertheless, in all those ‘other’ cases, not responding immediately to
whatever grace of God did move them cost them the opportunity to express their gratitude
to Jesus, for He had gone on, dismayed somewhat by their failure to return to
Him.
Now, that is something of the
utmost importance in the spiritual life, People of God. We are blessed if we feel in our heart gratitude to God for whatever it may be: experiencing moments of clear
awareness of the beauty of God’s creation, being awe-struck at manifestations
of His power, suddenly appreciating His goodness to us personally, being astounded
at His wisdom in the Scriptures and at His supreme goodness and love in the
gift of His beloved, only-begotten, Son for our salvation ….. there are
countless ways in which God and His grace can touch our heart at any given
time, and every one of them is a priceless blessing if indeed we respond immediately, if that touch
actually moves our heart, and leads us to give thanks to God, admiring
Him as we are moved.
One of them, realizing he had been healed, returned,
glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell the feet of Jesus and thanked Him. He was a Samaritan.
You notice that only one, a Samaritan, responded immediately and came
back gratefully to thank Jesus, and he was not considered to be a religious man
as were the other nine Israelites, according to Jewish appreciation of those times. But of course, for some people, religion was
then -- as it still is today for very many -- all about performing duties
and obligations in order to save
themselves, rather than being the most sublime expression of their mind’s communion with, and fulfilment of their heart’s
longing for, the God Who loves them and is
calling them.
It is a noble ambition, an admirable desire, to be a true
Christian. It is, indeed the calling of
all Christians and one which has touched the heart of many disciples of Jesus
at some time or other; but sadly, those who respond whole-heartedly to such a
calling and perseveringly seek to fulfil its demands are no more numerous than the one out of ten cleansed lepers:
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?”
One of the great causes of would-be-disciples
thus losing their way is pointed out to us by the Lord today: count it a
blessing to experience the mysterious working of the Spirit of God in your
heart, but you must try to respond immediately, for that is a supremely important step on the way to intimacy with the
Lord.
There is further instruction
for us on this matter in our first reading today where, as you will recall,
Naaman, the Syrian army commander, having bathed in the Jordan at Elisha’s
command found himself miraculously cured of his disease. His heart was not just
touched by the grace of God, it was truly moved, and being humbled with
consuming gratitude, he forgot all about his own dignity as a royal
representative with imperious royal duties and immediately:
Returned with his whole retinue to the man of
God.
On his arrival Naaman stood before him and said, “Now
I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel. Please accept a gift from your servant.” “As the LORD lives Whom I serve I will
not take it” Elisha replied; and despite Naaman’s urging, he still refused.
Why did Elisha so bluntly, even so vehemently, refuse
Naaman’s grateful gift? Let us turn back the pages of our
Bible and read Genesis 14:23:
Abram
replied to the King of Sodom, “I have sworn to the LORD, God most High, the
Creator of heaven and earth, that I
would not take so much as a thread or a sandal strap from anything that is
yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’
Elisha, under God’s guidance and in imitation of Abraham,
refused to accept Naaman’s gift – a gift offered in sincerity of heart – lest
Naaman should then have thought that he had settled his debt with Elisha’s God,
indeed, settled it with generosity. God
was choosing Naaman for purposes unknown to him, with the result that being
unable to pay his debt to the man of God as he would have liked, Naaman’s sense
of honour would not allow him to forget what had been done for him in the land
of Israel by a prophet of Israel’s God. Therefore, he requested
of Elisha earth from Israel in order to pray acceptably, as he thought, to the
God Who had restored his flesh through the prophet’s intercession and by his
own washing in the Jordan.
Personal prayer of worship and thanksgiving to the God of Israel
Who, through His prophet, had cleansed him ...where would that lead Naaman? What were God’s plans for him??
Go in
peace – Elisha said – ‘such faith will save you’, we might well add!
Once more we are being taught about gratitude before God; and
the example of Naaman is of the deepest significance, for Naaman did not only
say ‘Thank you’ to Elisha immediately, he also took serious measures to
make sure that he would henceforth remember and be able to offer
acceptable signs of gratitude to the God of Elisha, the God of Israel, even
when he had returned to pagan Syria to continue his work in the service of
Syria’s ruler.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, God is divine and so
good that He wills to share His divine blessedness with us; we, however, are
human and indeed sinful, and consequently must open up to Him something of the
very best our human capacities for our renewal and refashioning in Jesus by the
Spirit: and that must, most surely, include an attentive and humble mind able
to recognize one’s needs before God, and a heart and will committed to gratefully
cherishing the remembrance of God’s resultant great goodness to us personally
and to all of good will.
