[The gospel of the healing of the ten lepers] is about more than ingratitude. Key to understanding it, as is often the case, is to see what precedes it. And right before this passage Jesus has been telling the disciples that they shouldn’t be serving him out of the expectation of thanks. It’s where he tells the disciples that they should just say, We are unworthy servants. We have only done what we were supposed to do. This is along the lines of the famous Prayer for Generosity, inspired (but not written) by St. Ignatius to labor and not to seek reward.
Now, look, we all at some point need some reward. It’s not a crime to say to someone, Thanks. Or Well done. Or Good job. And it’s not a crime to appreciate being thanked. But I think what Jesus is getting at with the disciples is that it’s not the reason we do what we do. Mother Teresa once said our good deeds should be like stones in a pond. We throw them in and they create ripples, but they are largely unseen after they are done. Henri Nouwen said our actions should be hidden from others but known by God.
What’s the connection with the leper? Well, it’s a subtle one in Luke’s Gospel. The disciples should not expect thanks, but rather give thanks to the one who has saved them, as the Samaritan did: to Jesus. The disciples, and we, are indeed unworthy servants, and not masters, as Jesus often tells them. So they need to focus on thanking God rather than seeking thanks. Again, to labor and not to seek reward.
And the rewards come, of course, in our own lives. Jesus says elsewhere that for those who give up and sacrifice they will be rewarded a hundredfold in this life, not just in some future time, but in our lives. And we all know the rewards that we’ve been given.
But the reason we give up and sacrifice is not to get that hundredfold, it’s in response to the gracious gift of Jesus’s call to each of us, as well as his gift of love, of our individual vocations, and of our very lives.
--Fr. James Martin, SJ
Facebook, November 10, 2021
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