“Learning from Jesus – gratitude”
This week’s ‘Word for the Week’ by Margaret Killingray, from the licc comes close on the heels of my earlier post of Nov 1st about developing an ‘attitude of gratitude’, so I have simply copied and pasted her text below.
“Learning from Jesus – gratitude”
As Jesus entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance they called out, ‘Jesus, have mercy on us’. He said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests’. And as they went they were made clean. One of them turned back. Praising God, he prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, ‘Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’
“Genuine gratitude is hard to express sometimes – not so much the almost automatic thanks that is part of everyday courtesies, but the deep response to some unexpected and undeserved gift
So why, I wonder, did the Samaritan prostrate himself at Jesus’ feet to thank him, and the others did not? Was it because he felt he did not deserve such blessing? Because he did not assume that he was entitled to healing? He was a Samaritan, a despised outsider, who may have felt an amazed surprise that he too was included in such blessing with the others - the extravagant blessing of the renewal of social and family life, denied to those with leprosy.
Does this help us to understand the difficulty we sometimes have in expressing gratitude for gifts of significance? A culture that tends to expect success and despise failure; that pities handicap and seeks perfect good looks; that pushes concepts of rights and entitlement a shade too far, will not always feel that gratitude is the appropriate response. The job promotion is only what we deserve; the successful operation is what the surgeons are paid for; the clever children have inherited our genes; the lovely house is bought with the money we have earned. Gratitude can sound as if we are undervaluing ourselves! (And when bad things do happen, we can allow resentment and a sense of injustice to make them worse.)
We can pay lip service to a gospel that tells us we are sinners who do not deserve the grace and mercy of God, and act as if we think such a gospel is our rightful due. Indeed, gratitude to those through whom the good gifts come, whether big or small, should be the natural overflow of our thankfulness and praise to God for all that he has done for us. If the nine men with leprosy had understood that they were just as lost and pitiable as the Samaritan, then they too might have returned to kneel in gratitude at the feet of their Saviour and ours. ”
Margaret Killingray
The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity
St Peter’s, Vere St, London, W1G 0DQ (t) 020 7399 9555 (e) mail@licc.org.uk Visit http://www.licc.org.uk/ for articles and events
