My work in the church has given me a new appreciation for the story of Jesus’ healing the ten lepers (Luke 17:11-19). As you remember, only one of the ten bothered to thank him. This passage often becomes the basis for sermons and lessons on the importance of gratitude. That’s a true interpretation, of course, but it’s not necessarily the whole story.
Those of us who are active in church ministry can learn something else from the model Jesus provides. When we give of ourselves, what do we expect in return? When we offer cups of cold water in Christ’s name, what response do we foresee? Quenched recipients smiling shyly at us, their eyes shining with gratitude?
Jesus told his disciples, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matt. 10:8). But he also said, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves” (Matt. 10:16) and “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (John 15:18). Do we expect a higher thankfulness ratio than Christ received?
The hard realities
A couple of years ago, a friend and I transported some used living room furniture to a local woman who had no income. As we hauled it out of my pickup truck and set it up in her home, she stood silently, watching us. Eventually she asked, “Could you get me a footstool, too? That way my guests won’t put their feet on the coffee table.”
Several times in the ensuing months she phoned me, inquiring about the footstool, which never materialized. One day she called and announced, “I need some new furniture.” When I asked why, she explained, “I moved to a different house. I left that furniture in the other place. It was old, and besides, the couch had a broken leg.”
I wanted to scream.
Another time, a woman telephoned our church in a panic, saying her food stamps were delayed and she was going hungry. As emergency needs liaisons for our church, my friend and I filled several grocery bags with food from our own pantries and delivered them to her. Accepting the food, she asked, “Can you find me a roll-away bed? I’ve got nowhere to sleep but the floor.”
When I returned a week later, having found a bed, she watched from her window as I single-handedly carted the bed across the street in rush-hour traffic. She waited while I assembled it for her and then flatly stated, “The food you brought me was poison. I was so sick I almost died.” Stunned, I asked whether she had perhaps contracted the flu, which was going around at the time. She insisted we had poisoned her.
A man living in a shack needed bunk beds for his two sons, who had no bed at all. He couldn’t say anything when we brought the furniture, because he lay drunk and unconscious on the floor the whole time we were there.
A woman newly arrived in the United States borrowed some of my clothes till she could find a job. Then she left town, taking my clothes with her.
Another woman, invited to a wedding, complained that our church’s Clothes Closet, which offered free clothes to anyone in need, had nothing suitable. I invited her to my house to borrow one of my dressier outfits, but she never showed up. When, at her request, I took her some bags of my clothes as a gift, she handed them back to me. “These aren’t what I had in mind” was all the thanks I received.
A family who visited the Clothes Closet while I was there decided the free clothes weren’t enough. They stole my purse.
That’s six, and I could easily give you three more to represent the nine lepers who received thanklessly. But what about the tenth?
The tenth was a woman, a frequent clothing recipient. One Christmas, she handed me carefully wrapped packages containing four pairs of hand-crocheted booties, a pair for each person in my family. They were colorful and toasty warm.
I was touched, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was the same woman who, whenever her children outgrew donated clothes, returned them to the church for other needy people to use.
Do we give to be thanked?
Clearly, cups of cold water are not always graciously accepted. The question is, so what? I can’t find any verses where Jesus promised his followers little gold stars to paste on their foreheads each time they cleansed a leper. Certainly Jesus didn’t walk around with gold stars all over his face. Thorn scrapes and spit and slap marks and tears, yes. But no gold stars.
I began asking myself, Why do I feel the need to be thanked, anyway? No doubt, part of it is pride: How dare you not appreciate my efforts! Part of it may be my sense of decorum: Don’t you understand common courtesy?
Perhaps we feel disgust: You act as if the world owes you this aid! Or fear: If I were in crisis, would I be grateful for people’s support or mortified by my own dependency?
When victims say thank you, our inner turmoil at seeing their helplessness is assuaged a little. Ah, we think, we have done the right thing. We have made a difference. When they’re unresponsive, we feel impotent: So the gift didn’t count! Of course, we can’t always know whether our offerings matter to the recipients or not.
But when Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” he never promised that the brothers would care. The fact that some are (or seem) ungrateful is irrelevant.
Hidden benefits
Ironically, there can be unexpected compensations for giving without expecting thanks.
My 7-year-old daughter had a boy in her first-grade schoolroom who trailed far behind the class in his reading progress. Trina gathered her own set of two dozen beginning-reader books, which she was long beyond, and took them to class so the struggling boy would have a wider variety of easy books to read. Another time, she eagerly selected half of her collection of stuffed animals and declared them a gift for the children of Clothes Closet visitors.
Her 10-year-old brother, Sean, has been known to remove money from his piggy bank and slip it into the church collection plate without informing anyone of his intentions. And he has decided the most exciting part about Christmas morning is watching the expressions on people’s faces as they open their gifts.
Somehow, as these children grew, as they rode in the pickup truck delivering furniture, as they watched the freezer being diminished to feed strangers, as they colored pictures at the Clothes Closet while waiting for their mom—somehow these children got the message. They realize they have freely received; they are learning to freely give.
So, we are back to the story of the lepers. Yes, Jesus is reminding us to be grateful to him, to not take his presence in our lives for granted. But he also says, “See what happened to me? See the callousness with which they receive?” Then he turns right around and gives all over again (Matt. 18:35-43).
When we touch people in need, some may say thank you, to our great pleasure. But if no one says thanks, Jesus is still our model. Even when we receive a tepid response, the clear, cold water must still be freely given.
Suzanne Werkema was emergency needs liaison for Ferry Memorial Reformed Church in Montague, Michigan.
