Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
When I was manager at the Men’s shelter we often served a man named Sundance. He was a troubled man; but when sober he was the most polite, grateful, and gracious person you would want to meet. I prefer to think that this was who he was.
Anybody who has volunteered or worked “down at the mission”, even for a day will have met a Sundance.
I wonder sometimes, why it is that someone like Sundance was so grateful. He had little to nothing, and had taken away–at one time–what he did have; so why would he remain thankful?
Why is it that so many of us who go through life “earning” our way, slide into a half-conscious “I’m owed what’s coming to me”, frame of reference?
Lisa S. alluded to this attitude when pointing out the differences between a banquet put on for donors and a banquet we put on for the street. (Hope Mission had it’s Spring banquet last weekend.) She pointed out that of course there are practical and logistical reasons for some of these differences…location of the venue, the size of the event and so on.
But–keeping in mind that this is a generalization–it was this one difference that stuck out, a starker one that earned no justification: It’s like we believe the Jesus-gospel but adopt a John Adams-entitlement outlook.
Now I’m off to look in the mirror.
