Reflection - Reciprocity

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http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111517.cfm
Wisdom 6:1-11
Luke 17:11-19

When you stop to think about it, the account of the ten Lepers offers an annoying challenge to our concept of God. Ten are cured. Only one returns with praise and thanksgiving. So, what or where is the challenge? As is so often the case with our fragmentation of the Gospels in the daily Scripture readings, it helps to consider the day’s passage in the context of what has gone before or what immediately follows.

In my Bible, this section of Luke has been given the heading: Some Sayings of Jesus. Here Luke has recorded words that Jesus was reported to have spoken, but which did not fit smoothly into Luke’s larger narrative. Nevertheless, Luke wanted to include them; and he did so in such a way as to provide a context which he found meaningful. So we find an image Jesus offered - that of the servant coming in from the field - being followed immediately by the curing of the ten Lepers. Consider the first of the two.

"Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down at table'? Will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, and put on your apron and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink'? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?” (Luke 17:7-9)

A simple story; but when read in its larger context, it becomes somewhat provocative. And what is that context? Jesus is speaking to his followers about the proper behavior of those who would be disciples and the passage resolves this way:

“So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.' (Luke 17:10)

In other words, the disciple who does what he is told does what is expected; and that obedient behavior is not deserving of either thanks or compliments. Neither will thanks or compliments be offered. On the other hand, as we proceed in our reading to the story of the Lepers, we find a different perspective on the same subject, and we recognize immediately the inappropriateness of what happens. Ten are cured. Only one returns with praise and thanksgiving. As we hear the details we are instantly struck by the apparent ungratefulness on the part of the nine - Certainly Jesus was.

Most peoples live with an ingrained or in-culturated sense of reciprocity, and that sense spans the full spectrum of human behavior. So we have those endless citations of Leviticus 24, a passage which Jesus himself refers to: “An eye for an eye. . . “ Similarly, we have the balance to that verse in Leviticus 19, which finds its most common expression in “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” These teachings even have a counterpart: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” We find reciprocity expressed with even the simplest of human behaviors. I hold the door for you; you respond with thank you. You retrieve something I dropped; I express my gratitude. The annoying part comes when we try to apply this sense of reciprocity to our relationship with God. It doesn’t fit.

Jesus never says “You’re welcome.”

God never says “Thank you.”

Now this exclusion of reciprocity as an appropriate expression of divine-human interaction tends to leave an uncomfortable vacancy in our understanding and we readily fall back on the numerous Scriptural verses which speak of reward. Even the Psalmist says it: “Surely there is a reward for the righteous." (Psalm 58:11)

But the meaning of reward can be a moving target. The dictionary offers three.

“Reward: Something offered or given in return for a service performed.” Do we really get a prize if we live life well? In the parable there is nothing offered or given in return for the servant’s performance of his regular duties.

“Reward: To give something as a token of gratitude or admiration.” Are God’s favors restricted to the righteous such that He extends them as a thanksgiving gesture to us or because He admires us? Again, in the parable, the master expresses neither gratitude nor admiration for what the servant does.

“Reward: A stimulus that serves to reinforce a desired response.” Though this definition offers some semblance of an appropriate description, it is the most rudimentary of reasonable applications. We voice it when we say in the Act of Contrition: “Because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell.”

When we talk about God and rewards certain principles must be kept in mind.

• God’s blessings are freely offered and freely given and nothing we do affects their being offered.
  
• God’s blessings are not offered at one time and withdrawn at another. When Jesus speaks of the final judgment, the King says to those at his right hand:

Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; (Matthew 25:34) 

FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD! The Kingdom is always there and the opportunity to enter is always offered. It has been so since before the beginning.

• Nothing we do or don’t do makes us deserving of the Kingdom. Presuming that we end up eternally there, it will not be the result of our efforts or achievements.
  

“He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust alike. (Matthew 5:45)

Our relationship with Our Father is not a reciprocal one in the normal sense of that word. I find the parable of the prodigal son is most eloquent in portraying the richness of the relationship while still making clear the matters we have reflected on today.

For the younger son, the one who decided to see the world, the Father’s love was always available. For the elder son, the one who stayed at home and did as he was told, for him too the Father’s love was always available. Did one son deserve love more than the other? Did either son ever deserve love to begin with? Was the Father’s love born of the elder son’s righteousness? Was the Father’s love diminished by the younger son’s self-centeredness? His love was freely offered, freely given and never withdrawn. St John states it well: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us. (1 John 4:10) Both reciprocity and reward lose their meaning in such an environment.

It remains for us to live in the word of the Lord like the servant who does as is expected; for there we can enjoy in the now his presence and his love.

It remains for us to continually give thanks for the healing which He so gratuitously offers; for such is life within the Kingdom.