We can be so eager to punish mistakes — ours and the ones others make. But that doesn’t seem to be what Jesus is doing.
This week’s gospel is a bit of a puzzle for the astute reader. On the face of it, we may be led to think that Jesus healed a bunch of people and most of them screwed up by not saying thank you.
This is nonsense. Relatable, of course. And definitely a common response, for sure. But nonsense nonetheless.
How eager are we to condemn someone as ungrateful when they don’t say thank you? There are few things we relish more than such righteous outrage.
It is quite debatable to characterize these people as making a mistake, or worse, misbehaving because they took Jesus seriously when he said “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Let us not make a mistake of thinking that Jesus is calling them out for doing what he asked them to.