Ten lepers are healed by Jesus and only one of them takes the trouble to go back to Jesus and thank him. An easy moral to this story would be, we must be grateful: God gives us so much, the least we can do is say “thank you Lord”. But if this were the only lesson we can draw from today’s readings, the gospel would not be better than a mother who scolds her children for not saying “thank you” to the gentleman who just gave them a sweet.
Jesus carefully points out that only a foreigner was capable of discovering that the giver is more important than the gift. Probably a foreigner would be less tempted to associate the healing with the prescribed ritual of presenting themselves to the priest, and think beyond the efficacy of the ritual to discover the giver behind the gift. Nine lepers were just contented with having their health back. Only one of them discover that there must be something bigger than health at stake; that the giver of the gift is more important than the gift itself.
So, what does this foreigner have that the others don’t? In the first reading an Assyrian King, also a foreigner struck with leprosy, was suspicious of the treatment that the prophet Elisha had proposed. Elisha had asked him to simply bathe seven times into the river Jordan. Surely, this appeared nonsensical to a ruler of a kingdom with the mighty rivers. Only after he was healed did he discover that the God of that land had cured him, and not the bathing.
The therapy was simply the means to discover the God of that land behind the gift of health. And just in case there were doubts, Elisha sternly refused any reward or acknowledgment for the miracle. It was not bathing, it was not the prophet, it was the God of the land who was at work.
The Samaritan grateful leper of the gospel is not only healed. He is saved (“your faith has saved you”). Salvation comes through a personal relationship; not through rituals or activities, no matter how religious. Blessings are good; good enough to make our lives easier; but not good enough to save us. Only if we use the blessings to connect with the Giver, we can be truly saved.
It takes more than human gratefulness to discover the Giver behind the gifts we receive. It takes faith that saves and that is better than the gifts.
