Say Thank You

One of the Lectionary readings for Thanksgiving Day is Luke 17:11-19.  This is the story of the 10 lepers who approach Jesus in the region between Samaria and Galilee.  They cry out, and Jesus heals them.  One of the ten, seeing that he was healed, turned back and praised God, thanking Jesus. 

I remember this story as a kid as sort of a morality play, encouraging us to use the "magic words" - please, thank you, etc.  Not only that, but I saw it as a story that taught that God/Jesus EXPECTS us to say thank you - to be grateful for our blessings, and to say so. As an adult, I see so much more in the story.

Is it important that the story identifies the thankful healed leper as a Samaritan? I think it must be.  The Samaritan would have been the outsider. He probably wasn't really expecting Jesus, the Jew, to heal him, so when he found himself healed, maybe he was moved to gratitude.

What is really interesting to me is not just that the man was grateful, but that in receiving the healing, his eyes were opened and he recognized in Jesus the presence of God.

Did Jesus need gratitude? No.  But I think we do, right? In the ex-leper's gratitude, he found the grace of the unexpected blessing and the recognition of God. Gratitude does something to set ourselves aside and to focus on the external - on the one who is blessing us.