Homily on the Twelfth Sunday of Luke
On the Healing of the Ten Lepers
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
On the Healing of the Ten Lepers
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Dear brothers and sisters, today we are offered a very edifying Gospel story about the miraculous healing of ten lepers by our Lord Jesus Christ. The Evangelist Luke narrates that the Lord, going to Jerusalem, passed between Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten lepers, who stood afar off, and cried with a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." And when He saw them, He said to them, "Go show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. But one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him; and he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus said, "Were not ten cleansed? Where then are the nine? How is it that they did not return to give glory to God, except this stranger?" And He said to him,"Arise, go your way: Your faith has made you well" (Luke 17:12–19).
Dear brothers and sisters, the present Gospel tells us about the duty of Christians to thank God for all His ineffable bounties to us. About the ungrateful the Lord said: "How is it that they did not return to give glory to God?" Gratitude is a feeling implanted in us by God, by which we express gratitude, appreciation to the person who has done us some good deed. Ingratitude before people is the most gross and intolerable vice, and ingratitude before God is already a grave, unnatural crime. Nature itself draws our hearts to gratitude to its benefactor. After all, even dumb animals and wild beasts express, as best they can, their gratitude to the person who has done them good.
If our very nature draws us to express gratitude to a person who has done us some good deed, then how much more should we thank God, from whom we receive everything! Everything that people give us, they give not their own, but God's gift, for every gift is perfect and the gift comes from the Father of lights (cf. James 1:17). And what are human mercies in comparison with the mercies of God?
God's mercies are endless, and human mercies are insignificant. The Lord is our Maker and Creator, from Him we received our very being and life. He created our body. He breathed into us an immortal soul, which gives life to our body. He gave us reason, by which we differ from unreasonable animals. He gave us free will, which makes us self-governing in our actions. He gave us a heart capable of enjoying the gifts of God's goodness and experiencing happiness, joy and blessedness in life.
The Lord God is our Provider and Preserver. He commands the sun to shine upon us, which warms, illuminates and delights us. He does us good, sending rain from heaven, giving also fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness (cf. Acts 14:17 ). He commanded the earth to bring forth many different fruits, by which our body is nourished and strengthened, and makes many different kinds of animals serve us. And the mountains, and the seas, and the rivers, the birds, the fish, the earth, the air - everything serves, according to God's determination, for our benefit and enjoyment. His Divine eternal power supports us and preserves our life in the midst of everything hostile to us in the world. "By Him we live and move" (Acts 17:28). Not to see all these blessings of God means not to be aware of one's very existence, not to feel one's own life, to become a complete stone, an insensitive and lifeless person.
But this is not all, for the loving Heavenly Father "so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). The only begotten Son of God so loved us that He took upon Himself the sins of the human race, became incarnate and became man for our salvation, endured humiliation, spitting, blows, beatings, suffering on the cross and a shameful death for our sake, being crucified with the wicked, shed His Blood for us and laid down His life. The Holy Spirit, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, so loved us that, not disdaining our impurity, descends upon us, revives us, dead in sins, sanctifies us, who are defiled and unworthy.
How many times have we responded to God's love with our sins, our unrighteousness, our iniquities, yet the Lord not only does not destroy us, but has mercy and spares us, does not deprive us of the gifts of His goodness, patiently awaiting our conversion and repentance, not wanting anyone to perish, but that all may come to repentance (cf. 2 Pet. 3:9). If after this infinite goodness and mercy of God I remain ungrateful before the incomprehensible love of God, consider the Blood of the Son of God shed for me as nothing, neglect the invaluable grace of the Spirit of God, then what am I worthy of, if not final rejection from the face of God and eternal condemnation and torment?
Therefore, our whole being, our whole life, our nature, our happiness in the present and future age demand that we not remain insensitive to the blessings of God, not be ungrateful before His goodness and mercy, not insult His truth and holiness with our insensitivity and ingratitude. "What shall we render to the Lord for all that He has rendered to us" (Ps. 115:3)? For His endless love for us, we can repay Him in no other way than with sincere, whole-hearted love for Him. Our Lord requires nothing else from us: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind: this is the first and great commandment" (Matt. 22:37–38).
Thus, he who loves Him with all his heart, who does not give his heart to the power of carnal passions, who is ready to sacrifice everything carnal and earthly for the glory of the name of God, for the Christian faith and piety, for the honor of the gospel and the Cross of Christ, and not to spare his own life for the Lord who loved us, is sincerely grateful to the Lord for all His innumerable and unspeakable blessings. "For who shall separate us from the love of God?" says the Holy Apostle Paul, "Neither tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us" (Rom. 8:35:37).
Remembering the unfailing blessings of God, we must always and for everything glorify His holy name, and this gratitude of ours to the Lord must be expressed in raising to Him a prayer of thanksgiving, a prayer that is sincere, heartfelt and pure. And the Lord looks upon a grateful person with favor and love, fulfills his good requests and sends him new mercies. Our ingratitude testifies to the callousness and rudeness of our heart, to our forgetfulness and lack of understanding of God's blessings, to our dissatisfaction with our situation and other vices of our soul. And we, sinners, to which person do we show more mercy: to the one who values our good and gives thanks for it, or to the one who treats our blessings with disdain? Of course, to the first. So the Lord deprives ungrateful people of His mercies.
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us not forget to always thank the Lord for His great mercies and blessings to us sinners, especially spiritual mercies - for the forgiveness and cleansing of our sins and iniquities, for all the gifts of God's grace, for the hope of salvation given to us by Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us also give thanks for the most adversities and misfortunes of life, for the most sufferings and sorrows, for they too are mercy to us from the Lord, Who, according to His true word, through our many sorrows leads us into the Kingdom of God (cf. Acts 14:22 ). Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
