The Wisdom of the Foreigner

"Was none found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" (Luke 17:18).  Jesus comes upon ten lepers and heals them all.  Nine of the ten are Jews.  One is a Samaritan--a "foreigner" by Jewish standards.  The Samaritan is the only one who "returns" from his excited path toward the priest, kneels at Jesus' feet and offers words of thanks.

Jesus wonders at this behavior.  The one who is least likely to "get it" is the one who is grateful.  How can this be?

Could it be that the other nine felt entitled in some way to the healing they received?  It may not be that they were so sure of their own righteousness.  After all, they likely assumed that their leprosy was punishment for some kind of sin.  On the other hand, they certainly saw themselves as more deserving of healing than the Samaritan outcast.  In all likelihood, he was a leper among lepers, standing on the outside of the outsiders.  He knew that he was entitled to precisely...nothing.

What goes into the experience of gratitude?  A sense of entitlement to any degree will reduce the possibility of gratitude.  The more entitled we feel in this life, the more miserable we will be.  We can think our way through this.  Let's assume that we really are entitled to something--a good life and a decent living, for example.  Any drop off from that standard will be experienced as a loss.  Maintaining that standard will increase the levels of expectation and entitlement.  Then the potential for disappointment and grievance will increase even more.

When we think we deserve the good things of life, we are setting ourselves up for bitterness.  We are a loss-averse species and experience even imagined loss with great grief.

We should probably read this story from Luke in conjunction with the previous verses.  It is easy to read those verses about "worthless slaves" as bad news.  In fact, those verses are the counsel of gratitude.  Don't assume that you are deserving of any of the good things in this life.  All that we have is a gift in one way or another.  No one is really a "self-made" person.  Everything good comes from God alone.

Choosing that view of life is the express highway to happiness and contentment.  That view means choosing serving over self.  It means choosing humility over entitlement.  It means choosing gratitude over grievance.  That view of life entails "returning" to Jesus (another way to describe repentance).

How can the foreigner get this?  He is the only one in the bunch without any basis for feeling entitled, even if merely by comparison. That dawns on him and he returns to express his gratitude.  So he leaves blessed and healed in ways the others did not experience.  He leaves the happiest of them all.

Gratitude is always a choice.  It is a choice that produces real happiness every time.  Where do you anchor your entitlements?  How does life change for you if you see them as gifts today?