Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. One of my professors at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit was Fr. Earl Muller, SJ. Now, I know the Jesuits get a bad reputation, sometimes very much earned, but Fr. Muller, even with all his quirks, was a very faithful, orthodox professor. I remember him preaching on this Gospel, and approaching the account in a way that I have never considered. We usually dive right in to the fact that we should say thank you, and those other nine lepers who were healed were simply rude. But Fr. Muller had us examine our Lord’s words. What did He say? “‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’” That’s it. Nothing more. Never did Christ say, and then come back to me and say “thank you.” In fact, the Samaritan doesn’t even make it to the priest, as our Lord commanded him, but runs back to Christ and thanks Him. Yet, our Lord praises the Samaritan’s faith, and seemingly puts down the other nine.
As I first sat down to compose this homily, I immediately went to gratitude. After all, the Samaritan is praised for returning to thank Jesus, whom the Samaritan acknowledges as God. And I’ll likely get back to that point. But first, we should look at what was happening, which would have caught the attention of any early Christian who had any knowledge of the Jewish law.
Leprosy was not only a skin disease (it may not have been Hansen’s disease, as we now call it, but could have included any number of skin maladies). Leprosy, besides being an illness, also made one unfit for any kind of temple worship. If you could not be around people, there was no way you could go to the temple and worship God. You were cut off from the practice of your faith in its greatest sense. You were also cut off from your family, which, to any Jew, was everything. After all, the Jewish people themselves were, first and foremost, the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, aka Israel. The nation was basically the twelve tribes. And yet, as a leper, you had no share in that family, and so you really had no people, no nation, to which you belonged. You were totally cut off from the main ways in which people found belonging.
The old law had given the priests the authority to determine if the leprosy was truly cured, to act both as those in charge of worship, as well as members of the tribe of Levi, the family of Israel. The priests were the ones who could re-attach the leper both to worship and to family/nation. So our Lord, as one who came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, sends the lepers on their way so that they could be returned to worship and family.
Christ, throughout the Gospels, is creating a new law (see Matthew 5); redefining family (“unless you hate father and mother you cannot be my disciple”); and claiming to be the object of worship (“the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”). And it is this Samaritan who gets that, somehow, even though he was separated from the Chosen People. Somehow, this Samaritan recognizes that it is Christ who will restore him to proper worship and make him a part of a new family, those who follow the Lord. Perhaps he had spoken to the Samaritan woman from Sychar, who had dialogued with Christ and heard Him that that the day was coming when true worshippers would not worship in Jerusalem or at Jacob’s well, but in spirit and truth. Perhaps he had heard of our Lord saying that whoever hears the word of God and observes it is a mother, brother, and sister. But however it happened, the Samaritan came to recognize that the belonging that usually was found in temple worship and being restored to the family of Israel was possible through this man, the God-Man.
God is the one who gives us belonging through Christ. Christ is the one who broke down, as St. Paul says, the old barriers between Jew and Gentile, making them both one through the Blood that Christ shed on the cross. Christ restores us to worship through His forgiveness, which we receive in the Sacrament of Penance. In that case, the priest, acting both in the name of Christ the Head and the Community, restores us to worthy worship and to belonging to the family of God.
And for that, we should be thankful (I told you I’d get back to this point). Thanksgiving should come as naturally to us as breathing. It doesn’t necessarily, but that’s the goal, because everything is a gift. Nothing that we have has not come from God, either willed purposefully or allowed. The only thing that we can claim ownership of is our sins. And so we are invited to give thanks to God, for His mercy endures forever. Psalm 136 (135 in the Douay-Rheims) is the perfect example of this. The Psalmist praises God for His work of creation and redemption, and after each word of praises says, “for his mercy endures forever.” So for us, we can and should go through our day or week, thinking about what God has done for us, “for his mercy endures forever.” Maybe it’s our family and friends; maybe it’s our job; maybe it’s an easier drive to an appointment than we expected; maybe it’s a vacation; for our parish; for our opportunities to grow; for God’s strength when we avoid sin; for God’s mercy when we fall into sin and repent. Even for our crosses we should thank God, because they draw us closer to Him if we unite them to the Cross of Christ.
When we recognize what God has done for us, it should lead to thanksgiving, like the Samaritan, who does not follow our Lord’s word to the letter, but understands that what the priests were supposed to do, not of their own power but as a way of recognizing what God had already done, our Lord did. Today I invite you to give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures forever. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.