Ten Lepers Fr. James Jorgenson

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.