This is the gist of the reflection-not-a-homily I gave this morning on Luke 17:11-19.
Gift-giving season is upon us, in case you hadn’t noticed. I expect everyone’s email is overflowing with reminders to buy stuff for so-and-so, time is running out, and so on. It can be a little exasperating.
To receive a gift as a gift is to enter into a couple of things.
- The gift itself is something free
- It comes from a giver
- You are the receiver
Receiving the gift binds the giver and the receiver, whether we like it or not. There are times when we don’t like it much at all, being bound to another. At best, these moments are the awareness of a reciprocal obligation. He got me something, and now I have to return the favor. At worst we start trying to triangulate and calculate what the giver is really up to. What does he mean by this? What does he really want.
The proper response to a gift, however, is gratitude and joy. We see throughout the scriptures, and especially in the Psalms, that the one who has been blessed by God, rescued from darkness, or otherwise set right - this person rushes to give thanks and praise to God, just as the Samaritan leper did in today’s reading. Encountering Jesus, he met him as a prophet - the scene invokes very strongly the story of Elisha and Naaman the Syrian. After his healing, on the run, he realizes that this healing came through Jesus, and he returns to render the homage due to a king. The intersection of healing, prophet, and king mark the advent of the Israel’s long-awaited messiah, just as we are waiting today.
The healing leads to joy, praise, and finally, thanksgiving to God: εὐχαριστῶν is the word Luke uses. To be a eucharistic people is to find in the Lord our joy, born of the gratitude we hold for the gift of His very self - given to us in the sacraments, and especially so in the Eucharist - along with our very existence, and all the good and beautiful things that fill it. This joy and gratitude is something we owe, believe it or not, as a matter of justice. How so?
Justice is what happens when we render to another what is due, and what we owe our creator is basically everything. We can’t give him everything; someone else has already done that for us. What we can render back to God is our gratitude, whether we ‘feel’ good about it or not doesn’t really matter. Recognizing a gift as a gift is an act of the intellect and will, as is our faith in the sacraments.
As we prepare to prepare for this season, let’s make it our intention to see the gifts around us for what they are, and especially so as we approach the altar. We can, and should, habituate ourselves to gratitude and thanksgiving. If we can make it our second nature in this life, it can become our sole nature in the next.