When he found Jesus, he fell down at his feet and thanked him over and over… Luke 17:16
Gratitude Makes the Blind See – The Gratitude Series – Part 7
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
In Luke 17, ten lepers called out to Jesus and asked to be healed. Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priest (so they could be deemed clean to re-enter society). On the way to the priest, all ten men found themselves healed. One of the men returned to Jesus, fell before him, and cried “Thank you” over and over again. “So where are the other nine?” Jesus asked. “Weren’t there ten who were healed? They all refused to return to give thanks and give glory to God except you, a foreigner from Samaria?” (Luke 17:17-18).
What’s the strange thing about this story? Can you see it? Is it that the nine didn’t come back to say thank you?
Is it a lesson on gratitude? Or is it a lesson about sight?
The most overlooked word in the story is: Samaritan.
When Jesus came across these ten guys, he was on his way to Jerusalem and was traveling close to the border of Galilee and Samaria. Luke tells us that one of the Ten Lepers was a Samaritan. It’s a point he’s trying to make.
Lepers and Samaritans. Two groups of people who were looked down upon by the Jewish community. One group because they were considered unclean and could easily defile another even by proximity. The other group because they were considered unholy, almost even inhuman.
Such was the hatred the Jews had for the Samaritans. There was at least compassion for Lepers. There was at least a consideration of pity and sorrow for where they found themselves. But Samaritans? I’d say that were even more outcast than lepers.
So Luke tells a story about a man who was a leper and a Samaritan. One day, this twice hated man, came upon a Jewish Rabbi. He had the humility and the boldness to ask for healing, and when he realized that he was healed, he returned to Jesus to say thank you.
Gratitude flowing from the most unlikely place.
I wonder what it would have been like to be one of the disciples and witness this once leper, still Samaritan, whom they culturally and inherently disdained, at the feet of Jesus offering something that people within their own culture group had failed to do?
This story is about both gratitude and sight.
Gratitude opens our eyes and shows us that the lines we draw, and the walls we build, and the rules we make about who’s in and who’s out, who’s worthy and who’s not, aren’t as real as the love and the connection that exists between us.
Gratitude makes the blind see.
Practice gratitude, and you’ll begin to see things you didn’t think were possible or even existed. I’d bet that the Samaritan was a grateful person long before the leprosy, and long before the encounter with Jesus. Because gratitude is something you practice. It brings you back down to earth. It reminds you that while you might be healed, and the others are losing themselves in celebration, someone did the work for you out of love.
In Luke 17, when Jesus told the Samaritan man to get up, I’d like to imagine that the two men, one a Jewish Rabbi, the other a Samaritan and ex-leper, embraced.
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Meister Eckhart.
Written by Liz Milani
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