Where Are the Other Nine" - Luke 17:11-19 Allowing for Long-term Gratitude Part III

Where Are the Other Nine? – Luke 17:11-19

Allowing for Long-term Gratitude – Part III

Nearly seven years ago, I wrote separate and personal letters to my former teachers spanning first grade to high school.  As I sat in my office one day, a tidal wave of thanksgiving for these people flooded my mind and heart.  In the previous years, I had taught fulltime at an independent middle school and an inner-city public school in a Southern state where I lived for a nearly a decade.  The gratitude that I felt on that afternoon I could not have felt until I had taught.  I recalled the experience of awakening at 4:30am in order to prepare for work inclusive of assisting my young children and dropping them off to school to ensure my prompt arrival at 7:00am each school day.  I more greatly appreciated the seminal contributions of my teachers to my educational and personal preparation for life.  As it relates to compensation, I was shocked by the salary compression in the teaching and education profession.  It is incredulous that someone enters this field, works for three decades or more and only receives cost of living adjustments and not raises.  Practically, teachers retire after thirty or more years of hard labor at the same salary with which they began if they only receive increases to stave off inflation.  Beyond inadequate pay, teachers spend countless hours outside of the classroom in which they advise extracurricular activities, grade papers, prepare lesson plans, serve on committees and attend meetings.  Arguably, they do not receive minimum wages.  Nevertheless, as I rehearsed the breadth and depth of my few years of teaching, I was overwhelmed with a newfound realization of personal, professional and financial sacrifices that my teachers made.  I chose to concretize my gratitude in the previously mentioned letters.  I made a list of each of my teachers.  I searched the web for addresses and email addresses.  I wrote the one who were still alive.  In some instances, thirty-five years had passed since I had been a student of some them.  Genuinely, I wanted my teachers to know I am enduringly grateful for their labor of love, faithfulness and duty in their vocation.

I did not expect any responses from my teachers.  My purpose in writing was to celebrate their seminal contributions to my life and express my heartfelt thanks.  Surprisingly, a few of them wrote emails, responded with postal letters or called to thank me for my correspondence.  One response particularly impressed me.  One teacher said, “I walked in and out of that building for thirty-seven years wondering whether I was making a difference in anyone’s life.  I often asked myself, ‘Is it worth it?’ When I received your letter, I finally had my answer.”  Over the course of her career, this elementary school teacher would have taught minimally twelve hundred students.  Statistically, another five hundred of her former students share my wholehearted thanks but did not write to her for any number of reasons.  Nearly half of the persons whom she taught for nearly four decades share my appreciation.  Life’s busyness and competing commitments impeded their ability to concretize their gratitude.  Interestingly, it took nearly the length of her teaching career to receive formal thanks.  Like the nine lepers who were healed and returned to their daily affairs, her students proceeded with their education; some of them proceeded to college and graduate school, others entered a branch of the armed services; and the remainder  took jobs.  Chances are all of them felt grateful for her instruction and vocational willingness to empower them with a solid learning foundation.  She may have asked, “Is anyone appreciative of my teaching and me?”  Her questions parallel Jesus’ question, “Where are the nine?” In both instances, I posit her students and the nine lepers deeply felt gratitude but failed verbally to express it.  I conclude they paid it forward and demonstrated their gratefulness by sowing random and anonymous deeds of kindness in the lives of needful persons whom God mysteriously put in their paths.

“Where are the nine?”  Wait for them.  Thanksgiving will grow in their hearts and minds as time passes.  Within God’s mysterious ways, these healed lepers will verify their gratitude in the shadows of human pain and suffering.  Having received such an incalculable gift of love and grace, thankfulness compels these nine men to materialize their thoughts and feelings.  As we contemporary disciples are lepers in our own ways, we are recipients of divine healing, restoration and transformation.  The Lord may ask of us what He asked of them.  As we realize just how great, gracious and giving our God is, we will show our appreciation of Him through generosity of time, talent and treasure in healing someone in need as God guides us.