Oh, sure, it's the Samaritan that comes back and thanks God for his cure. Show off, know nothings, half breeds. What else shall we call them? Samaritans are on the margins of society, looked down upon by the real Jews and the religious elite, why can't they stay on the fringes where they belong? huh?
It seems everyone knows to ask God for help. There were ten lepers after all. The question is do we come back to God when we are cured? Do we at least have the decency to stop and say "thank you"?
I used to have a friend in college who made the sign of the cross while he drove. At every church, synagogue, temple and more, he was whipping up a stir with the sign of the cross. How that annoyed me. It drove me crazy but that probably says something more about me than him and that drive is often a short one - to craziness that is. If his personal acts of piety drove me nuts, he at least was keeping God in his thoughts. He was saying thank you and trying to keep God close to his heart. His biggest problem really was not having two hands on the wheel fifty percent of the time. How many of us go through our days focused on wrong things? ( Trivial pursuits? 11-18-18 ). How often is God really in our daily field of vision?
Do we really need to be reminded to say thank you to God? Even in the absence of some specific cure or an answer to a prayer, do we ever really devote enough time saying thank you?
What this passage speaks to is that we like to keep God where we want. It isn't enough that we can't seem to say thank you, we are distracted further when someone we don't like or someone we think isn't deserving of God's attention is acting holy or is actually included. Heaven forbid we consider the faithfulness of the people on that darned caravan. Isn't a gay Christian an oxymoron? How could they be faithful people? Oh do we get irked when the un-holy get holy. Who do they think they are?
It isn't enough to say thank you, it appears that we also might want to realize that everyone is loved and that everyone has God alive in their lives. God loves them at least as much as God loves you. We all should have consdieraby more thank you's and far less judgement of others.
Luke 17:11-19
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. 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 he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’
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