The story of the ten lepers often bring much reactions whenever it is read. Such was the same reaction the brother who sat beside me in the Church muttered when the priest finished proclaiming the gospel.
I’ve a deeper feeling that most of what we do anytime we come across this passage of the Bible is to ask, why will the other nine not appreciate Christ for curing them from such a deadly disease. And when the priest was reflecting on the readings of today, he mentioned that the only one that came to say “thank you”, was a foreigner, the other nine were Jews. Since Christ was a Jew, and considering the upheaval Christ had proclaiming to His kinsmen, they still had this feeling that since He’s the son of a carpenter, why will we even thank a commoner like him? This is a great challenge to so many people in the world. We respect and offer praises to those who are famous, but hence it comes to those we can trace their geology like Jesus, we pride over it and even ask ourselves, why should I kneel before this person?
In every side, our arguments can be sound no matter how we present our facts and evidences. But I’m not comfortable with those who’d always be worried with the other nine. Why will you be worried about it at the first place? How many of you have thanked God for making you whatever you are today? How many of you still pray when you realise that everything is now turning out to be good for you? Most us would like to be a part of Naaman who went out in search of where they would get solution to their problems, but would not like to be like him again after getting a relief from what’s hooking them up. But we are still the same people who go about judging others who didn’t come to greet Christ.
If I can recall what Christ said to the ten lepers, he demanded they should go and show themselves to a priest. On their way, they got cleansed. And on a second thought, the other nine may be struggling to see a priest before the other one saw a priest before them and came to show appreciation. Mind you, they aren’t heading towards the same direction. So the other nine who had wanted to obey the instruction of Jesus to see a priest, were judged by the crowd to be ungrateful and unconcerned. You see? That was a quick judgement.
We are often too forward to judge others. We judge people not considering what may have been their problems, their difficulties, their setbacks, their inabilities, their shortcomings, their lacking. These are of course what the crowd refused to check on. We are only masterminded on why they failed to be grateful. A good Christian, should not however be only pointing at peoples faults and weaknesses. We should learn how to embrace others who are not as strong as we think we are. We ought to comfort other’s frailties and look for a way to put them on track. A good Christian should at least ask a question before drawing a conclusion.
How many of us actually cared to give the remaining nine a call to know what’s their present condition before we finalise our judgements on them?
-Princewell Okwuoha.
