Beyond Only Thanksgiving

Today's Gospel reading is from Luke 17:11-19.  There we hear that 

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy met him.  
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, 
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”  
And when he saw them, he said, 
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”  
As they were going they were cleansed.  
And one of them, realizing he had been healed, 
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; 
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  
He was a Samaritan.  
Jesus said in reply, 
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?  
Where are the other nine?  
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”  
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; 
your faith has saved you.”  

In the reading, the ten men with leprosy call out to Jesus.  They call upon Jesus to heal them.  So too when we want something, we call out to God.  

I am reminded of an interview with Pope Francis which I recently saw.  In describing how people pray, the Pope remarked that often we ask God for things and we thank God for things.  The Pope explained that we are indeed called to ask God for what we need and to thank God for what God gives us.  Yet the Pope asked whether we also praise God and if we adore God, as God calls us to do.  When I heard these words of the Pope, I felt that they were helpful guidance for which I was grateful.  

Often when we pray, we only petition God for what we want and thank God.  Yet when Thanksgiving Day is over, do we thank God just as much?  Do we thank God enough?  It is so easy to get what we want and not thank God for it.  We can also easily get into a habit of taking what we have for granted.  We have so much; are we grateful to God for all of it?  

I was struck today too in the reading by how the one man who returned to Jesus to thank Him was a Samaritan.  The Jews and Samaritans were at odds with each other: neither esteemed the other well.  Yet only one man returned to give thanks and praise to God, and he was a Samaritan.  

It is so easy to rely on our preconceptions of who we think that people are based on their belonging to a certain group, which we believe makes them different from us.  However, we have much to learn from others, especially those who are different from us.  

I think of the gracious and magnanimous hospitality I received from Moroccans when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco.  Upon living there for two years, and being so warmly and generously received, I realized I had much to learn from people who had seemed so different from me.  

And why did that foreigner, the outsider, the different one, that one man receive the gift of healing from Jesus?  Jesus tells that one man that his faith saved him.  God works wonders in those who have faith in Him.  When we admit that we need God, God gives us what we need.  When we humble ourselves, God heals us.  

We have so much.  God has given to us so bountifully, and what He most wants to give us is so much more enriching than what we often request from Him.  We are called to thank God for so much, and to praise Him and to adore Him in His great love.  Having received so much from Him in His infinite love, which is so much greater than we are, we are called to be humble; we are called to realize that we were created to praise Him.  

All glory and praise and honor be unto God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.  Amen.