Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time Luke 11:29-32 Privilege comes with responsibility
In today’s Gospel, the crowd asks Jesus for a sign, something spectacular to prove He is truly sent by God. But Jesus reminds them that the greatest sign is standing right before them: He Himself is God’s gift and revelation. Like the Ninevites who recognized God’s voice through Jonah, and the Queen of Sheba who sought wisdom from Solomon, the people were being invited to recognize and respond to God’s presence in Jesus. Yet many failed to see Him for who He was.
This passage is a sober reminder that privilege always comes with responsibility. The people of Jesus’ time had the extraordinary privilege of seeing and hearing Him directly, but their refusal to accept Him became their condemnation. The same lesson applies to us today.
We have two great privileges as Christians. First, the Word of God—the Bible. It is easy to forget how much it cost to place Scripture into our hands. Saints like Wycliffe and Tyndale gave their lives to make God’s word accessible to ordinary people. Today, we can own a Bible freely, yet how often do we allow it to gather dust? A book that costs so much deserves more than to be unread.
Second, we have the freedom to worship. Many before us shed their blood for this right. Yet, tragically, some use that freedom to neglect worship altogether. Freedom is not a license for indifference—it is a responsibility to give God the honour He deserves.
If we possess Christ, His Word, and His Church, then we are heirs of the greatest treasures of God. But with these gifts comes the challenge: will we truly live them, or take them for granted?
Let us recognise Jesus as the sign of God’s love today—and respond with faith, gratitude, and fidelity.
Ten men stood at a distance. Ten voices cried out in unison, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” And ten bodies, ravaged by leprosy, waited for a miracle. It was a haunting chorus—desperate, raw, and strangely unified. These were not friends. They were not family. They were not even of the same faith. Nine were Jews. One was a Samaritan. And yet, here they were, bound together by a common affliction that had stripped them of everything—status, community, dignity.
Leprosy had done what centuries of religious division could not. It had dismantled the walls of hostility. Jews and Samaritans, who would not even share a cup of water, now shared the same dust, the same pain, the same hope. Sometimes, it takes suffering to reveal the truth: that the identities we build around ourselves—our caste, our creed, our purity—are fragile illusions. When the skin begins to rot, when the body begins to betray, we remember what we had forgotten: that we are all human. That we are all broken. That we are all in need of grace.
I remember the story of an Indian village in 2018, submerged in floodwaters. A high-caste woman, who had spent her life avoiding the touch of those deemed “untouchable,” found herself stranded. And it was the very men she had shunned who lifted her onto their shoulders and carried her to safety. In that moment, the flood became a baptism—not of water, but of truth. The truth that adversity washes away the lines we draw between ourselves. The truth that salvation often comes from the margins.
All of the ten were healed, but only one returned. And we risk reducing this gospel to a moral lesson on gratitude—as if Jesus were merely disappointed that nine forgot to say “thank you.” But the Gospel is not a lesson in etiquette. It is a revelation of how grace is received, how marginalization is dismantled, and how salvation is recognized. The gospel today is not a lesson in manners. It is a confrontation with our spiritual blindness. All ten persons with leprosy were healed. But only one returned. Only one worshipped. Only one was saved. The others received the miracle—but missed the Messiah.
And here is where the story turns sharp. The nine who did not return were Jews—men raised in the Scriptures, schooled in the rituals, trained to recognize the hand of God. And yet, they walked away. Healed, yes. But unchanged. The Samaritan, the outsider, the heretic, the one who had no theological credentials, saw what the others could not. He saw that Jesus was not just a healer. He was the Savior. He was the fulfillment of the prophets. He was the God who does not dwell in temples, but walks among the wounded.
There is a psychological tragedy here. The nine were so conditioned by their religion that they could not see beyond it. They did what they were taught—go to the priests, show yourself, fulfill the law. But they missed the moment. They missed the presence. They missed the Person. Religion, when reduced to ritual, can become a veil that hides God rather than reveals Him.
In Mark’s Gospel, we read that after healing a person with leprosy, Jesus could no longer enter the city. He had touched the untouchable. And in doing so, He became unclean. He chose exclusion. He chose marginalization. He chose to stand where the persons with leprosy stood. That is the scandal of grace: it does not flow from the center to the margins—it erupts from the margins toward the center.
And the Samaritan? He becomes the first theologian of the New Covenant. He sees what the scholars missed. He understands what the priests ignored. He intuits that God is not far from the persons with leprosy. He does not escape them. He embraces them. He touches them. He heals them. And in doing so, He condemns the religion that excludes, judges, and marginalizes in the name of purity.
This is the joy of the Gospel: that the impure, the heretics, the marginalized are not only closer to God—they often reach Him first. They do not come with entitlement. They come with need. And in that need, they find grace.
So let us ask: are we among the nine, or the one? Do we seek healing, or do we seek the Healer? Do we want miracles, or do we want relationship? Because not everyone who is healed is saved. The nine walked away with clean skin. The one walked away with a new heart.
May we, too, be touched. May we, too, be changed. May we, too, return. And may the Lord say of us, as He said of the Samaritan: “Your faith has saved you.”
May we, too, return. May we, too, see. May we, too, be saved.
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