Breaking the Word

28^th Week in Ord. Time, Monday – 10^th October 2022 — Gospel: Lk 11,29-32

Call to Repentance

The response of Jesus to the crowd’s demand for a sign begins and ends with Jonah. For Luke the sign of Jonah was not Jonah being in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, but it’s the call to repentance that Jonah preached.  As the people of Nineveh repented after the call by Jonah, so Jesus calls the crowd to repentance after his proclamation.  He refuses to give the crowds any other sign, because any demand for a sign means that they have not understood what Jesus is about, and what his mission is. Jesus also knows that for those who believe, no sign is necessary, whereas for those who do not, no sign is sufficient. Jesus’ call to repentance is a call to look at everything in a new light.

28^th Ordinary Sunday – 09^th October 2022 — Gospel: Lk 17,11-19

From Healing to Salvation 

If the Samaritan leper is taken as a model of gratitude, then today’s Gospel is often reduced to a lesson on social etiquette, to remember to say ‘thank you’ to those who help. In this way, the scene with which the story concludes – a group of discourteous persons and an unhappy Jesus – communicates sorrow more than joy. Instead, Jesus remains surprised: a Samaritan – a heretic, a non-believer – had a theological insight, which the nine Jews, considered themselves as heirs, educated in the faith and knowledge of the Scriptures, did not have. It is not that God needs or looks for our praise. Instead thanksgiving is a “gift” of ourselves to God. It is an awareness that floods our hearts with peace for today and strength for tomorrow.

In Jesus time, four categories of persons were treated as dead: the poor, the leper, the blind and the childless. All diseases were considered as punishment for sins but leprosy was the symbol of sin itself. Thus the ten lepers felt rejected by all: by the people and by God. Leprosy puts together Jews and Samaritans. The awareness of common disgrace and suffering gathers them in friendship and solidarity. They were aware that Jesus was a healer. Due to social rejection, they stood from afar and requested aloud to Jesus, not healing but only compassion. Instead, Jesus told them to ‘present themselves to the priests’. The ten lepers were cured as they were going along the way. The speciality in this miracle is that the healing did not happen immediately. The nine lepers go to the priest because they wanted to fulfill the law. The Samaritan turns back to Jesus, because he cannot go to the priest for they would not minister to him. He was regarded as a lawless sinner because he does not belong to the right religion.

The ten lepers were cured of their diseases but only one of them was saved (Lk 17,19). He was the one who responded straight from the heart; while the others were concerned about fulfilling the legal requirements. The Samaritan understood that Jesus was more than a healer, so he fell on his knees and gave glory to God. He only thought about giving thanks to God right where the grace of God found him: such is the faith which saves and transforms. He, the heretic, who did not believe in the prophets, had surprisingly intuited that God has sent in him the Messiah, whom the prophets announced: He opens the eyes of the blind, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead are raised to life and the lepers are made clean (Lk 7,22). He is the first to truly grasp that God is not far from the lepers and God’s salvation includes everyone, even the marginalized. The evangelist Luke emphasizes that God’s word announced ‘from a distance’ solves desperate situations and its efficacy remains intact for all times. He affirms boldly that God’s salvation comes to anyone who approaches Christ personally.