Other Sunday and Holy Day Readings
28th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Cycle C)
Readings:
2 Kings 5:14-17
Psalm 98:1-4
2 Timothy 2:8-13
Luke 17:11-19
Abbreviations: NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name YHWH (Yahweh).
God reveals His divine plan for humanity in the two Testaments, and that is why we read and relive the events of salvation history contained in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. The Catechism teaches that the Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).
The Theme of the Readings: Being Grateful to God
"May our love for you express itself in our eagerness to do
good for others" is the petition of our opening prayer in this Sunday's
liturgy. Being "grateful" is dependent on remembering all the good things God
has done for us, and that "remembering" should generate our thanks and our
gratitude to a loving God who calls us His children. We who have been redeemed
and have died to sin in Christ (through faith and baptism) should heed St. Paul's
last words to St. Timothy: If we have died with him, we shall also live with
him. A Christian's life is a sign of gratitude and appreciation for the
gift of redemption and the promise of eternal salvation that God has graciously
given us.
In the First Reading, a Gentile shows his gratitude to God for his physical healing after he bathed in the waters of the Jordan River by making a profession of faith to the God of Israel. The healing waters Naaman experienced were a foreshadowing of Christian baptism in which believers are healed spiritually of the ravages of sin and death to rise out of the baptismal waters regenerated to a new life in Christ. Naaman's healing foreshadows the spiritual healing Christ offers to all peoples of all nations through the ministry of His universal Church.
In our Responsorial Psalm, we praise God because, like the miracle God worked in the conversion of Naaman, "The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power." In the Magnificat, the Virgin Mary's canticle of praise celebrates these same actions of God's love and His faithfulness to His people. God's mighty works reach their climax in the Incarnation of the Messiah and His death and victorious Resurrection. In this climactic act, God reveals His justice to all the nations of the earth (Lk 1:46-55). The Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception with Psalm 98.
The Second Reading is from St. Paul's second and last letter to St. Timothy, written from his Roman prison cell shortly before his martyrdom. Paul wants Timothy to understand that the Christian life requires not only a witness for Christ but also endurance and even suffering. Paul follows this hard teaching with the assurance that, even if we stray from the narrow path to salvation, Jesus is faithful in continuing to call His own (those who belong to Him in Christian baptism) to repentance and salvation until they reach the end of their life's journey and join Him in glory.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus heals ten men of leprosy. The only man who returns to thank Him is a Samaritan. When Jesus calls the man a "foreigner," He identifies him as an outsider and not a privileged member of the Sinai Covenant like the other nine Jews He also healed. Jesus judges the man's cry of gratitude and glorifying God as evidence of his conversion and tells him, "stand up and go; your faith has saved you." Ironically, it is a man who is not a member of the covenant with Israel who returns in gratitude to give thanks to God while the Jewish lepers did not. It is a sign of future events concerning Jesus and the Jews. The Jews who accepted the gift of healing without expressing their gratitude have missed out one the most extraordinary moments of their lives as will their covenant brothers who reject the Messiah and His works!
The lesson for us is that we must guard against being like the ungrateful nine lepers who accepted the work of God and then abandoned Him in continuing their secular lives. We must strive to be like Naaman the Syrian, to be like the one leper who returned and to follow the example of the Virgin Mary, who demonstrated her gratefulness to God through her obedience and faith. We must acknowledge God's gifts, and we must daily turn back to Him in repentance and gratitude. The Christian walk is one of constant repentance and conversion in seeking out our Lord and Savior and in giving thanks to Him in the celebration of the Eucharist. We all want to hear those words of Jesus to the one grateful leper on the day of our judgment before the throne of God, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."
The First Reading 2 Kings 5:14-17 ~ The Gratitude of General Naaman
14 Naaman went down
and plunged into the Jordan seven times at the word of Elisha, the man of God.
His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean of
his leprosy. 15 Naaman returned
with his whole retinue to the man of God. On his arrival, he stood before
Elisha and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in
Israel. Please accept a gift from your servant." 16 Elisha replied, "As the LORD [YHWH] lives
whom I serve, I will not take it"; and despite Naaman's urging, he still
refused. 17 Naaman said, "If you will
not accept, please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth, for I
will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the LORD
[YHWH]."
Naaman was a Gentile general who served the king of Damascus, and he suffered from the disfiguring disease of leprosy. In desperation, he sought out the Israelite prophet Elisha and asked for healing through the power of Elisha's God. At first, Naaman resisted Elisha's order to immerse seven times in the waters of the Jordan River, but he finally submitted and was healed. In gratitude, the Gentile returned to the prophet and acknowledged that Yahweh, God of Israel, is the one true God. He offered the prophet a gift, which Elisha refused, saying that he is only God's servant (verse 16). Naaman then requests two loads of dirt from the land of the God of Israel with the promise to no longer offer sacrifice to other gods (verse 17). Naaman's request for earth from Israel so that he can properly worship Yahweh demonstrates the pagan mindset that identifies a deity with the land where the people worship him as their god.
The story of the Gentile general offers several theological insights:
The healing waters Naaman experienced become a foreshadowing of Christian baptism in which believers are healed spiritually of the ravages of sin and death to rise out of the baptismal waters regenerated to a new life in Christ (Jn 3:5-7). Jesus referred to the miracle of Naaman's healing in His first teaching which He gave at His hometown Synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4:27. In that teaching, Jesus told the congregation: "Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." In this episode, Jesus' references to the prophets Elijah and Elisha (Lk 4:24-27) serve to identify Jesus also as a prophet from God and to identify the Israelites as suffering from the same ungrateful attitude as the people in the time of those prophets. At the same time, Jesus emphasizes God's willingness to turn to the Gentiles, as He healed Naaman. It is a foreshadowing of what is to come when many Jews reject their Messiah, and Jesus sends His Gospel message of salvation out to the Gentile nations (Mt 28:19-20) as prophesied by the 8th century BC prophet Isaiah (66:18-21).
Responsorial Psalm 98:1-4 ~ Praise God for His Wondrous Deeds
Response: "The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power."
1 Sing to the LORD a
new song, for he has done wondrous deeds; his right hand has won victory for
him, his holy arm.
Response:
2 The LORD has made
his salvation known: in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
Response:
3 He has remembered
his kindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation by our
God. 4 Sing joyfully to the LORD, all
you lands: break into song; sing praise.
Response:
The beginning and end of this Psalm are almost identical to Psalm 96, but in the case of the invitation to worship addressed to Israel, Psalm 98 presents Yahweh as a victorious king who rules over all nations. Verse 1 begins with a call to sing to the Lord in celebration of the great things he has done for Israel (verses 1-3). It is Yahweh who led Israel out of slavery in Egypt; it was a victory witnessed by all the Gentile nations in which God revealed His justice (verse 2). He has done these things because of His love for Israel and His faithfulness to His people (verse 3). Then in verse 4, all the earth is called upon to join in singing God's praises in gratitude for His mighty works.
In the Magnificat, the Virgin Mary's canticle of praise celebrates these same actions of God's love and His faithfulness to His people. God's mighty works reach their climax in the Incarnation of the Messiah and in His death and victorious Resurrection. In this climactic act, God reveals His justice to all the nations of the earth (Lk 1:46-55). The Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception with Psalm 98.
The Second Reading 2 Timothy 2:8-13 ~ Remember Jesus and
be Faithful
8 Remember Jesus
Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David: such is my Gospel 9 for which I am suffering, even to the point of
chains, like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. 10 Therefore, I bear with everything for the
sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is
in Christ Jesus, together with eternal glory. 11 This saying is trustworthy: If we have died with him, we shall
also live with him; 12 if we
persevere, we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us. 13 If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for
he cannot deny himself.
St. Paul is writing to St. Timothy from his prison cell in Rome during his second Roman incarceration. During his imprisoned in Caesarea (Acts 23:33-35; 24:27) and his first imprisonment in Rome, Paul's condition was more like "house arrest" in that he could receive visitors, and he could even teach the Church by proclaiming the Gospel "without hindrance" (Acts 28:16, 30-31). However, the tone of this letter is one of solemn resignation. He can receive visitors, but many of his former friends have deserted him (2 Tim 2:9, 15). He has come to the end of his "race," and he wants to prepare Timothy to carry on in his absence. In this passage, Paul begins with a summary of the Gospel he has preached about Christ (verse 8) and concludes with what may be part of any early Christian hymn (verses 11-13). The message of the saying/hymn is that through baptism, Christians die spiritually with Christ with the hope that they will live and reign with Him forever.
Paul also wants Timothy to understand that the Christian life requires not only a witness for Christ but also endurance and even suffering as the final judgment will show, and as Paul's own experiences demonstrate. His sufferings, including his imprisonment for preaching the Gospel (verse 9), are helpful examples to other faithful Christians for obtaining the salvation and glory available in Christ Jesus (verse 10). Following this reminder is the warning that Jesus will be true to defend those who are faithful but will disown those who deny him (12-13). Paul is referring to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 10:32-33 when Jesus said: "Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father" (also see Lk 12:8-9). Jesus will stand as our advocate before God's Throne of Judgment and will acknowledge those who have accepted Him as their Lord in their earthly lives, but as for those who deny Christ before men, He will also deny before the angels of God. However, Paul follows the hard teaching in verse 12 by the assurance that even if we stray from the narrow path to salvation that Jesus is faithful in continuing to call His own (those who belong to Him in Christian baptism) to repentance and salvation (verse 13).
The Gospel of Luke 17:11-19 ~ Gratitude of One and
Ingratitude of Nine in the Healing of the Ten Lepers
As he was continuing his journey to Jerusalem, he
traveled through [between] Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was entering a village, ten lepers met
him. They stood at a distance from him 13
and raised their voice, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" 14 And when he saw them, he said, "Go show
yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed. 15 And one of them, realizing he had been
healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; 16 and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked
him. He was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus
said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? 18 Has none but this foreigner returned to give
thanks to God?" 19 Then he said to
him, "stand up and go; your faith has saved you."
8 As he was
continuing his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through [between] Samaria and
Galilee.
The last location mentioned in Luke 13:31 indicates that Jesus
was in the territory of Perea on the east side of the Jordan River, ruled by Herod
Antipas (son of Herod the Great) in addition to the Galilee. That Jesus was in
Perea for a time is also recorded in John 10:40 when Jesus withdrew across the
river into Perea after He attended the Feast of Dedication in December of the
last months of His ministry that will reach its climax in the spring. St. Luke
lists Samaria before Galilee, therefore, the word translated "through" might be
better translated as "between" (an acceptable alternate translation) making the
location of His travels "between Samaria and Galilee." St. John notes that
Jesus returned across the Jordan from Perea into Judea to raise Lazarus from
the dead (Jn chapter 11). Then Jesus withdrew to the region of the Judean
wilderness to the north of Jerusalem, which could be the southern part of the
district of Samaria (Jn 11:54), and Luke 17:16 may suggest that location.
Jesus is making His way toward the Jordan River Valley and down to Jericho (see
Lk 18:35); from Jericho, He will make His way up the mountains to Jerusalem.
12 As he was
entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him 13 and raised their voice, saying, "Jesus,
Master! Have pity on us!"
Jesus entered an unnamed village (presumably on the border
between Samaria and Judea) where ten lepers greeted Him at a distance. The
number "ten" may be significant. In the symbolic meaning of numbers in
Scripture, ten is the number signifying perfection of order in God's divine
plan; for example, there are ten commandments, there are ten Egyptian plagues,
and there are ten virgins in Jesus' parable representing the communities of the
Church (Mt 25:1-13).
The ten lepers stand at a distance because those suffering
from contagious skin diseases were "unclean" and were not allowed to enter
villages (Num 5:2-3) or to approach a "clean" person (Lev 13:45-46). They
cried out for mercy and begged Jesus to heal them. The outflowing of God's
mercy is, according to St. Luke, part of the expectation concerning the
visitation of God (see Lk 1:50, 54, 58, 72, 78).
14 And when he saw
them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they
were cleansed. 15 And one of them,
realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; 16 and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked
him. He was a Samaritan.
As in His other encounter with a leper, He tells them to be
obedient to the Law and to show themselves to a priest. Jesus is giving them
the instruction a Jew must follow if becoming healed of a skin disease to be
received back into the community. See Lk 5:14;
Lev 13:49; Lev 14:2-4, 19-20.
Their obedience in following His instruction leads to their healing. Presumably, Jesus healed all the men, but only the Samaritan returned in gratitude to thank Jesus. He is the one who would not be welcomed at the Jerusalem Temple or by a Jewish priest. A Samaritan would have to go to his priest who was an illegitimate according to the Law. His act of prostrating himself at Jesus' feet and giving thanks is a sign that he acknowledges Jesus as an agent of God. In writing that one man "thanked" Jesus," St. Luke uses the Greek word eucherestein; it is the verb form of the noun that gives us the word "Eucharist" (means "thanksgiving"). The same word appears in the account of the Last Supper (Mt 26:27; Mk 14:23; Lk 22:19). This event is another positive example of a non-Jew outsider who is a Samaritan (see Lk 11:29-37 the Parable of the Good Samaritan).
17 Jesus said in
reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? 18 Has none but this foreigner returned to give
thanks to God?" 19 Then he said to
him, "stand up and go; your faith has saved you."
Jesus asks three rhetorical questions in verses 17-18:
When Jesus calls the man a "foreigner," He identifies him as an outsider and not of the Sinai Covenant; the man is one who is outside the covenant like a Gentile. Jesus judges the man's cry of gratitude and glorifying God as evidence of his conversion and tells him: "stand up and go; your faith has saved you." This event is the fourth time in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus has used this phrase to conclude a healing miracle (the sinful woman in 7:50; the bleeding woman in 8:48; and He will use it for the blind beggar in 18:42). He will use the phrase four times in Luke's Gospel. Ironically, it is a man who is not of the covenant who returns in gratitude to give thanks to God, and the Jewish lepers did not. It is a sign of future events concerning Jesus and the Jews.
The Jews who accepted the gift of healing without expressing their gratitude have missed out on one the most extraordinary moments of their lives as will their covenant brothers who reject the Redeemer-Messiah and His gifts! The lesson for us is that we must guard against being like the ungrateful nine lepers who accepted a work of God in their lives and then abandoned Him in continuing their secular lives. We must strive to be like Naaman the Syrian, and like the one leper who returned to thank Jesus, and to follow the example of the Virgin Mary who demonstrated her gratefulness to God through her obedience and faith. We must be grateful for God's gifts, and we must daily turn back to Him in repentance and gratitude. The Christian's walk of faith in journeying through this earthly life is one of constant repentance and conversion in seeking out our Lord and Savior and in giving thanks to Him in the celebration of the Eucharist. The Catechism teaches: The Eucharist is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that he has accomplished through creation, redemption, and sanctification. Eucharist means first of all "thanksgiving" (CCC 1660). We all want to hear those words of Jesus to the one grateful leper on the day of our judgment before the throne of God: "stand up and go; your faith has saved you."
Catechism References (* indicates Scripture quoted or
paraphrased in the citation):
2 Kings 5:17 (CCC 2099-2100*)
2 Timothy 2:8 (CCC 437*), 2:11-13 (CCC 2641*), 2:11 (CCC 1010)
Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2013, revised 2019 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.