Conversion begins with a cry out to God, it is continued through acts of faith and it is fulfilled through gratitude.
In today’s gospel (Lk. 17:11-19) Jesus is continuing his journey toward Jerusalem and he is travelling through Samaria and Galilee. As he begins to enter a village he is met by a group of lepers – a common reality of the day, lepers scratching out an existence on the margins of society, the edges of towns. The lepers do not approach Jesus but they know their need, so they cry out Jesus, Master! Have pity on us! In one form or another, each one of us can and should make this prayer our own. Conversion begins with the honest acknowledgement of our need before God and also the trust that our God does indeed care about us and our needs. The lepers remain at a distance but Jesus does not. He goes to the lepers. God is big enough and great enough to come to us in our need, our pain and our isolation but God is also big enough and great enough to not want us to remain there.
Go, show yourselves to the priests, says Jesus. Jesus does not heal them there on the spot as he has done in other circumstances rather he asks that they make an act of faith in going to present themselves to the priests. It is important to cry out to God but we also have to believe, we have to trust that God is caring and merciful and we have to show forth this belief. If we want to know the truth of a person we should not just listen to what he or she says; we should more importantly watch what he or she does. Our actions reveal what we believe. A person of faith is authentically known by the way he or she lives.
As they were going they were cleansed. So often we look for lightning bolts, flaming bushes or the rending of the heavens when it comes to things of faith. We forget that the life of faith is a journey … a daily journey. It is as we go along in the journey; it is as we make those daily choices that we are healed and converted from that which has held us bound. God does not need Hollywood special effects to accomplish his purposes. God’s greatness is found in the subtle, simple ways in which his will is made known and accomplished. God’s will is active all around us; we just need to gain the eyes to see it.
Maybe this is what happened to the other nine lepers (the ones who did not return)? Expecting a lightning bolt moment and apparently not getting one they wrote Jesus off and easily attributed their healing to some other cause. I think this happens quite often. God’s glory is continually revealed in our midst and yet we fail to notice because it does not fit “our understanding” of how God should act. Maybe we should let go of “our understanding” of how God needs to act and should learn how to focus on how God, himself, chooses to act. I think that the latter is the better option.
One leper does return. He was a Samaritan. He glorifies God and throws himself at the feet of Jesus in gratitude. Where are the other nine, asks Jesus (maybe with a slight chuckle as he is fully aware of our tendency to not see when we choose not to)? To the one who returned, he says, Stand up and go; your faith has saved you. “Stand up…,” these two words are truly important. In sin, we curve in on ourselves, we become hunched over spiritually and we can no longer stand erect in the full dignity in which we are made. We might look the picture of perfect health on the outside, but (in sin) within we are hunched over and little. By returning in gratitude this healed leper is not only healed without but also (and more importantly) within … your faith has saved you. Gratitude fulfills conversion. God loves us enough to not force his healing upon us. Gratitude is our opening the door to Christ.
Conversion begins with a cry out to God, it is continued through acts of faith and it is fulfilled through gratitude.
The Alternate Path 