This coming Sunday is the 28th Sunday in Year C with the gospel taken from Luke 17. The Samaritan fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  Some might argue that it reads too much into the posture to say that it is an act of worship (although I think that is a fair reading of Luke) – but in any event, is it an act of humility.  St. Bonaventure, sometimes referred to as the second founder of the Franciscan friars, wrote in his work The Tree of Life that humility is the guardian and gateway of all the other virtues and that gratitude is its first evidence.

While it is easy to become focused on the miracle, perhaps the more important lesson is the response from one who has been touched with God’s mercy.  Among the lepers there is the one, the Samaritan, who recognizes that God has acted through Jesus and thus he glorifies God (v.15). Glorifying God is a common response to manifestations of God’s saving work in Luke (2:20; 5:25-26; 7:16; 13:13; 18:4; 23:47) – and so returns to Jesus in gratitude. Gratitude may be the purest measure of one’s character and spiritual condition. The absence of the ability to be grateful reveals something also – perhaps a high degree of self-centeredness or a sense that we deserve more than we have received – thus there is no need to be grateful.

Culpepper (Luke, 328) writes:

This story also challenges us to regard gratitude as an expression of faith. At the end, Jesus says to the Samaritan, “You faith has saved you.” That faith was expressed not primarily in the leper’s collective cry for help, but in the Samaritan’s act of recognition and cry of grateful praise. Only his “loud voice” of praise matched the leper’s raised voices to call out for help at the beginning of the story.

In what sense, then, is gratitude an expression of faith? Does gratitude follow from faith? Or is gratitude itself an expression of faith? If gratitude reveals humility of spirit and a sensitivity to the grace of God in one’s life, then is there any better measure of faith than wonder and thankfulness before what one perceives as unmerited expressions of love and kindness from God and from others?  Are we self-made individuals beholden to no one, or are we blessed daily in ways we seldom perceive, cannot repay, and for which we often fail to be grateful? Here is a barometer of spiritual health: If gratitude is not synonymous with faith, neither response to God is separable from the other. Faith, like gratitude, is our response to the grace of God as we have experienced it. For those who have become aware of God’s grace, all of life is infused with a sense of gratitude, and each encounter becomes an opportunity to see and to respond in the spirit of the grateful leper.

Image credit: Jesus Healing Ten Lepers | James Tissot, 1886 | Brooklyn Museum | PD-US