Once upon a time there was a farmer who thought the price of feed was too high. He decided to do something about it. One of his neighbors asked him how it was going. “Well,” the farmer said, “I just about had trained my horse not to eat anything when he up and died on me.” Church, there are certain things you have to do. You have to eat. You have to breathe. You have to sleep. These are necessities. If you don’t do them, you die. However, this business of necessity is a little more complicated than it appears at first glance. For example, it is necessary to eat. We all know that. But it is necessary to eat the right things. If you ate chocolate brownies for every meal pretty soon you’d get sick. That’s why mother always told you to eat your greens. Not just eating, but eating well is what’s necessary. It is necessary not simply to breathe but to breathe clean air. There is a reason that asthma has reached epidemic proportions in our community. The pollution, the industrial waste, the chemical soup poured into our atmosphere has undoubtedly impacted the quality of the air we breathe. Efforts by government to clean up the environment are not just do-good-ism but a prerequisite for our ability to thrive as a species. We must have clean air to breathe. And the scientists who study sleep have found out that there is a necessary kind of sleep that we must have. It isn’t sufficient to conk out – we must also have what they refer to as R.E.M. sleep, the kind of sleep that produces dreams. In the necessities of life there are certain pre-requisites that must be present in order for human life to flourish.
The spiritual life also has certain necessities that must be done or you will die spiritually. Some of them are obvious. You must have faith, you must pray, you must keep the commandments. But as in the natural world, there are added prerequisites to these necessities for genuine spiritual health. It is necessary to have faith which is more than the ability to simply recite back the catechism. We must have a faith which is not simply an intellectual idea but is in fact a relationship with the God who loves us just as we are. It is necessary to pray but in a way which is more than the recitation of words. We pray in order to communicate with God, to speak and to listen. The prayers we have learned are merely the starters for that communication to happen. And while it is necessary to keep the commandments it cannot be simply a matter of obeying a set of arbitrary rules. The commandments are a guide to promote living in a more just and peaceful world. Spiritual necessities are deeper than we might initially think.
All of which serves as an introduction to St. Luke’s account of the healing of ten lepers by Jesus. The story illustrates one of the not so obvious necessities in life: gratitude. At first, giving thanks might seem like an addition, a bonus, a good thing to have but more like icing on the cake than meat and potatoes. And that might be true in the work-a-day world. As a matter of fact, in the daily circumstances of life, all too often the efforts we make are unacknowledged and unappreciated. It is rare for someone to notice and express gratitude. The usual experience is criticism and complaint. Wouldn’t it be a great day if we remembered to thank the choir, if we thanked Darren for his efforts keeping our church in good order, if we thanked the catechists for the time they put into educating our children. A great day, yes. A good thing to do, certainly, but not strictly necessary. The generous don’t do the things they do in order to be appreciated and noticed but because it is there way of using their time and talent in the building up of the kingdom of God on earth. So gratitude in the realm of human interaction is a good and beautiful thing but not a necessary thing. Not so in the spiritual life. In the spiritual life gratitude is necessary. In the spiritual life if we don’t give thanks, we will wither up and die. Look at the encounter between Jesus and the lepers.
In the story the ten have a seemingly chance encounter with Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem. They take this serendipity as the occasion to ask for something. “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” Are they looking for alms? Are they looking for a healing? Are they looking for divine mercy? The generic word “have pity” doesn’t tell us. Jesus then sends them off seemingly unanswered. On the way, they realize they are healed and one of the ten, and not the one you might expect, returns and gives thanks to God. Then the pronouncement by Jesus, “Your faith has saved you.” The narrative illustrates why gratitude is necessary to the spiritual life. We have to be grateful because there are no chance encounters. It is not by accident that Jesus met the ten lepers. Nor are the seemingly random events of our life simple coincidence. They are providence. All those people God has woven into our lives are there for a reason. Perhaps this one inspires us. That one we are supposed to help along the way. The other needs our correction and guidance. And we, like the lepers, ask God for things. Maybe we ask for health or maybe for six good numbers or maybe for family harmony. Whatever our prayer, God takes it for better than we intend. God sends us on our way with the blessed assurance that, no matter what we are asking for, God will give us something better. Gratitude is necessary in the spiritual life because it shifts the focus off of us and puts it where it belongs – on God, on God’s love for us, on God blessing us.
That is why, for Catholics, giving thanks lies at the heart of our worship of God. The word Eucharist, which is the term for our worship service, is a Greek word meaning “thanksgiving.” In other words, we are at our very heart a thanksgiving people. We have to give thanks because we have a God who has given us the sun to warm us, the sea to wash us, the wind to cool us. We have to give thanks because God woke us up this morning and started us on our way. We have to give thanks because the Son of God shared a human life so that we might share a divine life. We have to give thanks because God has given us brothers and sisters to forgive and be forgiven by. We have to give thanks for God is good, all the time. AMEN!
