In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit, amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ.
Today, in the Gospel, we hear that familiar annual
story of Jesus' cure of the ten lepers, and only
one of them came back to thank God, to thank
Jesus for everything. that he had done to them,
especially his cure of that dreaded disease.
The main point of this parable, this story, it's
not so much a parable, it's an actual event,
but it has a parabolic meaning, so to speak,
for us, is the theme of gratitude and thanksgiving.
As a background, Many of you know in general,
or at least you've heard about, the disease leprosy.
It's pretty much been eradicated nowadays, except
in third world countries. But in ancient times,
there is a social stigma attached to that disease.
We know much more about this disease now, which
modern medicine is able to treat. But at that
time, they thought it was extremely contagious.
And that is why lepers were expected to live
by themselves and have little or no social contact
with otherwise healthy people. We had a little
taste of that a couple of years ago in that pandemic.
And you remember that mantra to have social distancing.
Well, that was only six feet. They expected lepers
to stay much farther away from others. So that
is the disease of leprosy. It caused disfigurement
and a painful disease as well. But in today's
gospel, all ten are cured, and one comes back.
And the point of this is that he's a Samaritan.
And then we run into Samaritans every once in
a while in the Gospels. And you basically know
what that is. If you look at a map of the Holy
Land, the northern part is Galilee. Then there's
a territory, the middle is the territory of Samaria.
And then you go down to Judea. So someone traveling
from Galilee to Judea would have to pass through
Samaritan territory. Samaritans were very much
despised by Jewish people. They considered them
to have polluted the purity of the Jewish religion
by incorporating certain practices that were
not kosher in the eyes of the Orthodox Jews.
And then, of course, the thing that really annoyed
them is that the Samaritans set up rival worship,
their own temple on Mount Gerizim in Samaria.
So Samaritans were very much despised by most
of the Jews. And Jesus several times in the Gospels
plays on this prejudice. that Jews have against
Samaritans because the Samaritans emerge in the
story as the good guys. A familiar story of the
Good Samaritan. When the priest and the Levite,
the officials of the Jewish religion, passed
by this wounded man who had been beaten up by
highway robbers. But then it was the Samaritan.
who came, bound up his wounds, took him to an
inn, and even paid for his time at the inn for
his recuperation. And then, of course, perhaps
the most familiar event with Samaritans is when
Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well.
And the Samaritan woman, of course, reveals in
a very delicate way the prejudice of Jewish people
when she says, we know that Jews have no dealings
with Samaritans, put very mildly because they
really did not like Samaritans. They despised
them. So the Samaritans sometimes turn out as
the least expected ones to be good and holy and
to do the right thing. And that is one of the
features in today's gospel. Of the ten people
that were healed, the ten lepers, the only one
that came back to thank Jesus was the Samaritan.
So as I said at the beginning, this reveals to
us the theme of thanksgiving and gratitude. We
can ask ourselves today, are we thankful for
everything that God has given to us? Things that
we don't appreciate, that we take for granted
in our life. Spiritual writers tell us that there
are four elements, basically, in prayer. Number
one is praise or adoration of God. Number two
is thanksgiving. The third feature of prayer
is repentance. And then the fourth one, which
is the one that we're probably most familiar
with in our own prayers, is petition. When we
ask God for certain things. So we have praise,
thanksgiving, repentance, and petition. There
are in our life many things that we should be
thankful for. Things that we take for granted.
Our health, basically. Those of us whose health
is not really... as good as it should be, sometimes
complain and ask God to relieve them of that
illness, that problem they have. Nothing wrong
with that. Even remember St. Paul had a thorn
in the flesh. It's a matter of curiosity among
scripture commentators what precisely that thorn
in the flesh was. But it's vague enough for us
to project our own problems. as being our particular
thorn in the flesh. But, as I said, many things
we take for granted. Our family, friends, the
health that God has given us, and here in America
we have so many material things. We take these
things for granted. We have, especially as Orthodox
Christians, we have so many religious things
to be thankful for. We have freedom of worship.
We can come to a beautiful church and pray. We
can come to a humble church and pray. We gather
together and pray. Many parts of the world, this
is difficult, if not impossible, for Christians.
So today is an example. of the ingratitude of
the ten lepers, let us take the example of the
gratitude, the thankfulness of the Samaritan
who came and thanked God and thanked Jesus for
healing him. Once again, look in our hearts today
and think of things that we haven't thought of
before or we haven't expressed to God. and give
thanks to him for his manifold blessings. Amen.