Be Thankful

A word of caution. Today's post was inspired by a sermon from a guest preacher at our church, but you don't have to be a Christian, or practice any religion to understand the message. The scripture on which it reflected describes a scene in which ten lepers, quite literally untouchables forced to live apart from the rest of humanity are healed by Jesus. One of the ten, a Samaritan we are told, upon being cleansed of his disfigurement returns and prostrates himself before the Son of man and gives thanks. Of the other nine no more is told, but Jesus tells the Samaritan that he is not only healed but made whole by his faith.

Even if you are not a student of scripture you probably have heard the expression the good Samaritan, indeed the encounter between Jesus and the leprous Samaritan is not the first or only story told about these people but you may not know that Samaritans were not held in high esteem, quite to the contrary the only thing worse than a leper in the eyes of the Israelites would be a Samaritan leper. Yet, in both these stories it is the Samaritans, despised above all others, who display both humanity and thankfulness.

What should any of us, not least, those who do not profess a faith, take from these stories? Is there any universality, any truth we can glean from this message? The longer I thought about that question the more I came to understand that the superficial lessons, regarding thankfulness and compassion, were just that, convenient placeholders instructing us in the meaning of gratefulness. I am not a theologian, just someone wrestling with some difficult questions so please do not think I have any special insight. But it seems to me that these two stories have a special application to where we find ourselves presently.

There are many on our world today who lay claim to a particular hegemony that is, we are told, centered on being a Christian. But what that means to one person is starkly different to another. Being a Christian is for some being a member of an exclusive club, one comprised exclusively of white people, of those who consider themselves racially, intellectually, and morally superior to everyone else. What is more, members of this club who hold themselves by divine right above the rest of us have no qualms about subjecting us to their rule, their version of morality, their politics, and their vision for our country and the world.

I cannot claim to comprehend their vision or their objectives but I do know that it has nothing to do with Christianity or Jesus. In fact, the most extreme members of this club, disparage Jesus, see him as a soft, hand wringing, socialist apologist, the kind they most despise. These are people for whom compassion, empathy, selflessness, is synonymous with being woke. And to their thinking there is nothing worse than being woke.

What does this have to do with the Samaritan stories? To my mind, everything. Neither Samaritans nor lepers were members of any club--they were as many of us are considered today, outcasts. Outcasts as a consequence of their beliefs, of their outward appearance, of their racial identity and professed customs. Yet if anyone displayed an innate understanding of Jesus' purpose it was these cast offs. What these stories tell us is that being a good Christian, has nothing at all to do with believing in Christ, or even in God, and everything to do with who we are as human beings.

I don't lay claim to being a Christian, though I attend church regularly, and by outward appearance it is a label I do not disdain. I lay no claim because for me it is not a badge or sign of membership, but a way of life, of regard for my fellow human beings, yes even those whose regard for me is nil, who would just a soon see me and those like me gone from this earth. We live today in a world of division, one in which we are set against one another, where vast numbers of people are demonized. Humanity has been here before, many times before and survived at great cost, only to repeat the same mistakes and to forget the lessons. In the end we all have a choice as to how we wish to live, mine is to be a Samaritan.