TWENTY-EIGHT SUNDAY – C (Luke 17: 11-19) 2010

I heard a story of a woman with a package standing in a crowded bus. After a

while, a young man stood up and offered his seat. The woman was so shocked
that she fainted. When she recovered, she said “Thank you.” And the young man
fainted! Courtesy and gratitude are two of the “endangered species” in our
individualistic culture today.

Fr. Mark Link tells the story of a man who was fishing one night in a small boat
out in a bay. It was late and everything was quiet except for a man on the deck of
a yacht anchored in the bay.

The man had been drinking and occasionally he let out some incoherent
sentence, disturbing the stillness of the night. The fisherman ignored him and
concentrated on his fishing. Suddenly the fisherman heard a big splash. He
turned and, in the moonlight, saw that the man on the yacht had toppled into the
water. After an incredible effort, he managed to get the man back on his yacht. It
was then that the fisherman saw that the man was barely breathing. Frantically,
he gave the man artificial respiration. When the man seemed to be all right, the
fisherman put him to bed on the yacht and swam back to his tiny rowboat.

The next morning the fisherman returned to the yacht to see if the man needed
any help. The man was rude and abusive. At this point, the fisherman reminded
him that he had risked his life the night before to pull him from the water and
save him. Instead of thanking the fisherman, the man shouted at him and ordered
him off his yacht.

As the fisherman rowed away in his tiny boat, he could not believe what had just
happened. Looking up to heaven, he prayed.

“Lord, now I know how you feel. You gave your life to save us. But like the
man on the yacht, instead of thanking you, we treated you like an enemy and
ordered you to leave us along. Now I know how you must feel, Lord! Now I
know! And it breaks my heart!”

As we think of the story, two passages from the Scripture come to mind. The first
is a well-known passage from the prophet Isaiah. It is often applied to Jesus to
describe how the world has responded to his suffering and death.
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Isaiah writes:
“He was spurned and avoided … and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was
our infirmities that he bore, our suffering that he endured.” (Isaiah 53:3-4)

The second Scripture passage that comes to mind is today’s Gospel, where Jesus
heals ten lepers and only one – a Samaritan returns to thank him. And it is this
passage, perhaps, that most of us can best relate to. Just as Jesus did so much for
the ten lepers, so he has done for us and our world. And our response – for the
most part, is a lot like the response of the ten lepers. Only one out of ten of us
take the time to give thanks to Jesus.

And here, it is only fair to say that the reason we don’t take time to thank Jesus is
not because we are evil, or mean, or defensive like the man on the yacht. Rather,
it is simply because we get so involved in our everyday hustle and bustle that
we forget all about Jesus and how much he does for us every day.

There’s a striking story of an old tyrannical king – an all-powerful king. He was

able to impose his will on his subjects in all things. All things except one – He
was unable to destroy their belief in God. So he summoned his three wisest
advisers. “Tell me,” he said, “Where can I hide this people’s God so that they
will not be able to find him?”

Said the first wise man, “Hide their God beyond the farthest star; there they will
not find Him.”

“Not so,” said the second wise man, “One day these people will discover how to
fly beyond the stars, that day they will find their God. Rather, hide Him on the
floor of the ocean.”

“No,” said the third wise man, “One day these people may learn how to swim to
the bottom of the ocean; that day they will find their God. Rather, hide Him in the
everyday lives of the people; there no one will ever find Him.”

And this brings us to an important point. How does all this apply in a practical
way to our lives? What message do the stories of the ungrateful man on the
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yacht and the ungrateful lepers in the Gospel, and the tyrannical king hold for us?

The issue is – is your life a constant Eucharist? A Biblical thanksgiving – a

response: a response to God’s self-revealing, His mighty deeds in history, His
gifts to His people, His kindness to each man and woman. This presence of
God, this action of God never stops. He is always here. He is always active –
in the world – in the Church – in us. And so our response – discovery,
awareness, wonder, expression – must itself be a continual thanksgiving.
Otherwise God will indeed be a hidden God, hidden in the routine and in the
rat race of daily life, in the insensitivity and unawareness, of our daily lives.

At the very least, our stories invite us to take an inventory of our lives to see if we
may be treating people around us the way the man on the yacht treated the
fisherman.

At the very least, these three stories invite us to ask ourselves if we might be
forgetting God in our daily activities, and are we treating Jesus with the same
ingratitude of the lepers in today’s Gospel.

At the very least these stories make us realize that gratitude to God and all that
God has given us – should not be shut up and confined to one day a year – on
Thanksgiving Day.

At the very least, these stories invite us to pray this prayer – paraphrased from
George Herbert:

“You, who have given us so much,

Mercifully grant us one thing more –
A grateful heart.”

Today’s readings leaves us with a challenging questions – If a man or woman were

searching for God, would that man or woman find Him in your everyday life?

Let’s close with this passage from the prophet Isaiah:

“Give thanks to the Lord …

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Among the nations make known his deeds,

Proclaim how exalted is his name.

Sing praise to the Lord

For his glorious achievement.” (Isaiah 12:4-5)

In that spirit, let’s now return to the Table of the Lord to celebrate the Eucharist of
the Lord.