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

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

Allowing for Long-term Gratitude – Part II

Jesus tells the grateful Samaritan to rise and leave as the man’s faith has made him whole.  What is the role of faith in a miracle?  Biblical miracles are instantaneous.  In His sovereign prerogative, God suspends natural law to empower people with faith and glorify Himself.  Countless contemporary disciples ask for the benefits of similar supernatural acts of love and grace though they have the blessings of medical science.  Moreover, if the underlying cause of illness is a profound character defect, then the ultimate miracle will occur much later.  Transformation of character rarely happens instantaneously.  It is a lifelong process.  Faith necessarily equips the person requesting the miracle to remain steadfast in practicing spiritual disciplines; which reinforce adjustments in thinking and actions to achieve change of personality and principles.  Faith is willingness to obey God’s Word and guidance as we incrementally acquire the mind, heart and character of Christ.

“Were not all ten healed? Where are the nine?”  For many years, I harshly judged those nine men who miraculously received God’s grace as He recalls them from death to life, physically and spiritually.  What colossal and contemptible ingrates!  With the unrelenting and pure condemnation of uninformed adolescence, I wondered whether something worst occurred in their lives. I just could not understand how they arrogantly and indifferently trampled upon God’s grace and love.  With the hindsight of decades of life experience with myriad personal and professional successes and failures, my heart is more gracious and generous towards those nine former lepers.  As I have reached different milestones on the road of life, I realize the depths of human prodigality, ingratitude, brokenness and inclination toward sin particularly within myself.  Hence, I no longer think of these men as ingrates.  Rather, I extend to them the benefit of the doubt.  I suspect that they were as grateful as the Samaritan.  However, I imagine their gratitude formed from the moment of the miracle and grew within their inner person until it swelled and exploded one day in a defining moment of kindness and generosity.  Providentially, God put someone as broken as these former lepers were in their respective paths.  Looking upon those persons in need, possibly these lepers saw themselves on the day of their healing.  Banned from society and nearing death, they yelled in a final act of desperation to an unknown man whom they heard had the power to heal.  Seeing someone similarly situated, these healed lepers may have interceded and ask God to heal their neighbors as He had healed them.  I imagine these nine men became God’s ambassadors of love, grace, mercy and healing wherever they went.  Instead of demonstrating revolting ingratitude, these nine men teach us to be patient with persons whom we have helped as gratefulness evolves in time.  Gratitude is an internal  characteristic beyond being words and deeds that reflect a person’s appreciation.

Being thankful explodes in a person’s heart after cumulative experiences that create overwhelming gratefulness for God’s goodness and faithfulness.  As Jesus tells parables throughout the Gospels, there is no indication that He expects the hearers immediately to grasp the wisdom of His teachings.  He realizes their need to mentally and spiritually digest His words.  In time, after the Rich Young Ruler and others leave Jesus, the message of the parables implodes between their ears.  Likewise, it may take decades before a person becomes genuinely grateful to God and His human vessels.  In October 2000, Warner Brothers Production distributed the movie, Pay It Forward, starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt.  Its predictable saccharin plot managed to impart its title and primary premise into American social discourse and relations.  In the greater New York City area where I reside, people began to do random and anonymous favors for people without expecting anything in return.  The giver would recommend to the recipient that he or she demonstrate thankfulness by paying it forward.  I suggest the nine healed lepers did the same thing.  I imagine that they stumbled upon people and experiences that compelled unimaginable gratitude within them.  That confluence of circumstances hurled them down memory lane.  Vividly, they recalled the day on which they encountered Jesus who healed them.  They considered the reality that they were inches and minutes away from death.  Acknowledging that they were undeserving recipients of God’s grace, they became willing to share His unfailing love with other anonymous persons.  Their thanksgiving unfolded in time.

I cite two examples of delayed yet powerful and transformative gratitude.  The first comes from American political history and the second is personal.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia at his Southern White House.  Then Vice President Truman took the oath of office within a few hours.  On his first trip back to Washington on the presidential train, having visited his home state of Missouri, Truman arrived at Union Station.  The platform was mostly empty.  Dean Acheson and his wife were there to greet the newly sworn in President as an act of respect to the office and the man who then occupied it.  That act of kindness engendered considerable gratitude within Truman’s heart according to Acheson’s biographer, Professor Robert L. Beisner.  That act of respect for the new President from the Mid-West, who lived in the shadow of his predecessor, the Harvard educated, New York patrician, yielded the Secretary of State position during the Cold War.  Acheson was nominated partially due to the gratitude that swelled within Truman’s consciousness possibly a year following the greeting on the train platform.