It only Takes “Thank You,” The Recognition of God’s Presence
2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19
Today, many Naamans are unable to reach Elisha for healing, and “Thank You” Jesus is few and far between! Leprosy, the disease of Naaman and the ten lepers of the gospel, goes beyond a skin disease and touches everything that separates us from God and one another. Our leprosy or divorces come in many guises, there are many instances of “us versus them,” cases of separations, animosities and strives. Brothers and sisters turn against one another because of money, poverty, ill-health, prejudices, name it. A lot of divorces besides marriages take place daily. An example, in our first reading, is the antagonism between Syria and Israel, which made it difficult for Naaman to access God’s healing power to those who need it. The war between Israel and Syria prevented both sides from appreciating what is good in each other, the divorce occasioned by war led to a divorce that manifest itself as leprosy — isolation, impurity and ostracism — the symbol of Naaman’s leprosy.
What is your leprosy, what is Naaman, and where is your Elisha? How to help all the Naamans to access Elisha, is the lesson of today’s readings. Naaman, in nearby Syria, couldn’t access healing before now because of superiority complex — Syria, under him as military commander, won military victory over Israel; therefore, Syria is mightier than Israel — can anything good come out of Israel? Naaman had to swallow his pride, when his house girl asked him to go to Israel to access healing from the prophet (2 Kings 5:1-5). He wanted to pay the prophet for his services, after his healing, because he went prepared for that, he was not interested in being a debtor to anyone, not even to a prophet. He forgot that a prophet mediates the presence of God, the prophet is not the healer, but God is. Elisha’s refusal to receive payments was the actual healing Naaman received – faith – because he confesses: “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel. . . . please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth, for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the Lord” (2 Kings 5:15, 17).
When our prides (leprosy) — racism, nationalism, holier-than-thou attitudes, educational achievements, military might, economic successes – are conquered and humbled, then healing takes place, we see the world differently, then the water of the Jordan and the messages of sacred Scriptures transform our skins, outlook on life, and attitudes into love, acceptance, accommodation and gratitude. Above all, we become humans again because we now take our places among other humans from whom we had ostracized ourselves. In fact, it is God that we ostracize from our lives which leads to leprosy, and the return to God is what the prophet achieves/mediates for us. Our unbelief and lack of faith is what attacks the externals of our body, our relationships with other human beings, and we call it leprosy — God renews our skins, relationships — we are born-again.
In the story of Naaman, we see that God’s gifts are always free, gratuitous and liberating. You cannot buy God’s gift, you can only receive it. Faith is God’s gift, when we possess it, then we worship him freely, we say “Thank You” because we see why we need to worship him without anyone explaining it to us — we become God’s debtors because, like Naaman, “we can count our blessings and name them one by one”. But when we need to be reminded of what God has done for us, like the gospel parable of the healing of the ten lepers, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” (Luke 17:18), then, there is a problem — we consider ourselves self-sufficient and God remains blocked and exiled from us.
No! God doesn’t want to be far from any of us, he dislikes divorces and separations, he wants to be close to us, he wants to live with us that is why “The Word took flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Leprosy is an unacceptable disease to God, so God transforms distance to proximity and nearness: “They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, ‘Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!’ And when he saw them, he said, ‘Go show yourselves to the priests.’” Jesus’ instruction to “go show yourselves to the priests” is an invitation to return to God’s house and God’s presence. To go to the priest is to go to the Temple, the house of God and the place of worship/gratitude for what God has done. It is like the return journey of Naaman, who went to Israel without faith, but returned to Syria with faith in God and full of gratitude.
It only takes “Thank You” to stop the divorce with and from God; yet, nine lepers couldn’t say that; they missed the opportunity to find faith in Jesus Christ, the faith that Naaman was able to find through obedience to the prophet Elisha, which the Samaritan leper found in Jesus – two strangers, Naaman and the Samaritan, to Israel. The fact that the ten lepers didn’t need to arrive at the temple or the dwelling of the priest tells the importance of encounter with or meeting God. It expands our horizon as to the places where we think God must be to the exclusion of others. It reveals the superiority complex of Naaman, who thought that the water of the rivers of Damascus (Abana and Pharpar) were better than those of Israel, his nationalistic jingoism — a form of mental leprosy — needed to be healed before his physical leprosy could be cured. The fight of supremacy between the Jews and Samaritans prevented nine Jewish lepers from returning to say “Thank You,” to worship God in Jesus Christ — “the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).
What form of leprosy keeps you and me away from God, and for which we need healing? Every priest/prophet/healer who fails to realize that God alone heals, and that he/she is just an instrument, needs healing! Every Christian who does not look for God in the priest and in the Church, but sees exclusively a human being and an edifice, needs healing. These two desiderata are the leprosy of today’s gospel: the Samaritan, who was not attached to the Temple in Jerusalem returned to Jesus to give him thanks because he realized God in him, but the other nine Jewish lepers neither realized the presence of God in Jesus nor in the priest/Temple — the highest form of ingratitude is to have lost God!
In Naaman, we see how obedience and humility lead to the discovery of God, possession of faith, and healing. Naaman listened to his slave girl’s advice and took up a journey in search of healing, and found God and faith besides healing. In the moments of discouragement and temptation, Naaman’s companions — slaves — encouraged him to obey the prophet’s instructions, leading to his bathing in the Jordan and his leprosy cured. Do you and I listen even to those around us and obey what God says to us through them? Indeed, who are those around us— sycophants or fellow seekers of God? Are we ready to embark on a journey of rediscovery of faith and closeness to God, as Naaman undertook?
We are often victims of blindness, so much so that we fail to see God in the good things that happen to us — “we fail to say thank you!” Out of ten lepers who encountered God, only the Samaritan who already had no Temple to worship in discovered a new temple/church — Jesus Christ. Yes, our closeness to our priests, our awareness of their weaknesses, sometimes rob us of seeing whom they stand for, and how God still works through imperfect instruments. Our holier-than-thou attitude rob us of God’s presence, faith, and gratitude to God.
One approach towards healing every kind of leprosy and divorce, is the suggestion of our second reading, “Therefore, I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, together with eternal glory”. Elisha had no problem embracing his poverty, so the wealth and gifts of Naaman are of no consequence to him, but Naaman found faith thanks to Elisha’s detachment from wealth and by mediating God to Naaman. When a priest stands in the way of people’s faith, he makes himself irrelevant both to God and humanity. A priest must always be a means to God and never away from God. A Christian must be able to go pass the imperfection of others, including priests’, in order to reach and access Elisha, the source of God’s blessings and free gift. “Thank You” is the language of those who see something good in others: are you one of those persons?
Assignment for the Week:
Pray the “Thank You Jesus” chaplet this week, if you think God has done something good for you.