What I’m Thinking: Appreciation

Ten were healed – one came back to offer Jesus thanks. The first step of thanksgiving is awareness of how blessed we are.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the seventeenth chapter of Luke (Luke 17:11-19), in which Jesus encountered ten sick men. Luke calls them lepers. Some of them may, indeed, have suffered from Hansen’s disease.

In those days, if you were diagnosed with a skin condition that they identified as “leprosy,” it was a double hardship. First of all, these skin diseases were not treatable in those days. Second of all, because they feared the effects of the disease and their possible transmission, those people were cast out, forced to live away from their friends, their neighbors, their relative, in small and harsh communities of their own.

And so, from a distance they asked Jesus to heal them.

Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests. That would demonstrate, first of all, that they had been healed from the disease, but also it would restore them to their homes, their families, and their community. On the way to the priests, they discovered that they were, indeed, healed.

One of them turned back – a Samaritan – and gave thanks to Jesus, falling at his feet. Jesus comment was, “Weren’t there ten healed? But only one returns to give thanks and it’s this foreigner?”

There were indeed ten healed. Jesus did not rescind the healing of the other nine. All ten returned to their communities, to their families.

The difference, I think, for this tenth, was that he had a deeper sense of appreciation. The first step of giving thanks is an understanding of what has happened. The first step of giving thanks is an awareness of the goodness in one’s life.

And that, truly, is the reason, I think, that Jesus, that other religious leaders, and that I, myself, stress thankfulness in human life. Because to be thankful is to know just how wonderful the things, the people, the world around us are.

To be thankful is to understand that we are blessed.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.