Luke 17:17-18 ... Jesus said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine -- where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?"
In the list of sins in II Tim. 3:1-9, the seventh is being "ungrateful." Perhaps every reader knows what that means ... or do you? Of course, anyone can tell what it means in words, but do we show the mean-ing by our deeds? We know in our head what many things mean, but the deeds that proceed therefrom frequently indicate we do not show the meaning in what we do. And, my friends, true meaning is shown in action far more effectively than in words. In Jas. 1:22 we are told to "prove yourselves doers of the word (of God) and not merely hearers who deceive themselves." A "hearer" in the Biblical sense is one who both hears with the ears and understands with the mind. James refers to those who hear and per-haps understand well enough, but who feel no motivation to express in action the message coveyed in what they heard. In the New Testament we are often taught to be grateful for what people give or do for us in kindness rather than to repay a debt. But so much of the time we show little gratitude for the favor received.
In Luke 17, Jesus healed ten lepers who were doubtless jubilant they were rid of the loathsome disease. And yet, of those ten, only one returned to thank Jesus. That man was a Samaritan, a member of the non-Jewish enclave in their land whom they despised. It is generally claimed by those who must deal with large groups of people, that we in the United States are typically the most ungrateful people on earth. In agreement with that is my own experience as an educator. Quite a number of seniors (12th graders) asked me to write a letter of referral to help them gain admittance to a perferred university. I always wrote those letters, each one consuming an hour of my precious time when I was very busy. Only three times in my 42-year career did a student bother to thank me for the effort. One was a girl from China, one a girl from Cuba, and the third was the mother of a girl from Germany. Not one Ameri-can student ever showed such gratitude. Evidently, they thought I owed them the favor, which I did not. Thus I see ingratitude as a great problem here that needs to be addressed. In future articles in this series, I intend to do just that.
