The Grateful One
2 questions from this event
The Grateful One—One of the 10 healed by Jesus from leprosy is normally given this title. After looking a little closer into this event of the healing, I share with you 2 questions that came to my mind .
A group of 10 ten personnes affected with leprosy came to meet Jesus. The social distance was maintained according to the customs of the time. One of them was a samaritain. We can assume that others were jews. Though jews and samaritains don’t have any relation between them (remember the story of Jesus asking for a drink to a Samaritain woman), those nine jewish affected persons didn’t have any problem to include the samaritain in the group.
Are the rules of separation (jews vs samaritains) applicable when they were affected with leprosy?
They asked Jesus for healing, and Jesus told them to show themselves to the priests. Priests were the authorities who could attest their ritualistic cleansing. So more than any religious significance, the attestation of the priests was the sign of their social re-integration.
And on the way, they got healed. The nine continued in their journey as commanded by Jesus. It is almost certain that they didn’t come back to thank Jesus even after the attestation by the priests. But this one samaritain came back to Jesus. When nine obeyed Jesus completely (by going to the priest), the samaritain didn’t obey Jesus, but did a gesture of coming back and saying “thanks” to the person who was responsible for the act. And interestingly Jesus doesn’t seem to appreciate specifically the obedience, but this simple act of gratitude is extolled?
Do rules and regulations help us to forget the simple human gestures of love, kindness or decency?
