28th Sunday in Ordinary Time ( C )

INTRO:
There was once a very wise and compassionate rabbi who served a congregation in a small European village.

The villagers loved the rabbi and often came to him to pour out their hearts with their woes.

There were: Nagging spouses,
Peoples with aches and pains,
Lazy children

The rabbi listened patiently day in and day out to things like:
Why is God making my life so difficult?
Why must I suffer more than others?
Why can’t my life be as profitable as his or as comfortable as hers?
The rabbi heard it all over and over again.

Then the rabbi came up with a plan.

He announced to the congregation, “Place your troubles in a bag with your name on it,” the rabbi said. “On Friday, just before the start of Sabbath, we will hang the bags on the great tree in the center of the village. Everyone will be allowed to exchange troubles and go home with those of your neighbor rather than your own.”

The rabbi’s proposal was enthusiastically greeted by the villagers, eager at the prospect to exchange their troubles for someone else’s, imagining that their lives would be easier and happier from that day on.

On Friday, just before sundown, the villagers gathered beneath the tree with bags in hand. They tied their bags to the branches and the rabbi offered a blessing.

Then the rabbi directed: “Now, if you will all move about inspecting the bags, you may choose someone else’s troubles to take home, thus freeing yourselves from your own.”

The villagers rushed to the tree and began peering into the bags of those they thought had happier lives than they did. But before long the villagers grew quiet, moved by what they read of the plight of their neighbors’ struggles and disappointments – and feeling foolish. And wiser. Each family then sought out their own bag and walked home to celebrate Sabbath.

The rabbi smiled. It was just as he had hoped. The villagers had come to realize the sorrows of others.

THEY BECAME MORE THANKFUL FOR WHAT THEY HAD – AND KINDER TO ONE ANOTHER.

CONCLUSION

There is this tendency in life to COMPLAIN about what we have or don’t have versus what JESUS commends in the one leper; to be grateful for what good or little we experience in life!

This story, meant for the church, found only in LUKE, is NOT ABOUT leprosy, but can be about the attitude of GRATITUDE commended in the ONE LEPER. That one LEPER is the CHURCH, you and I, and it is that grateful attitude that CHRIST wanted in the early church and wants in us today.

For everything that we have in life is something for which we are to be grateful. Think about it and be grateful!