In 1958, a couple of us in college went to see a production of
Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” And the company that was doing it in
Connecticut, they were doing it with Brooklyn, New York Jewish
inflections and intonations. A brilliant production! And the leading
actor who played King Lear was Morris Karnofsky. He was only about
so big but he was a wonderful actor, playing King Lear. You remember
the story. King Lear gives away his entire kingdom to his two
daughters who then proceed to give him the heave-ho and toss him out
of the castle and leave him out in the wind and the rain. Anyhow, it
was a beautifully done Jewish production, and the matinee that my
friend and I attended, they bussed in retirement homes for Jewish
people, elderly Jewish people. Buses came in to see this production.
And the poignant scene where King Lear realizes what his daughters
have done to him, “How shahpeh than a soipent’s tooth it is to have a
thankless child!” (in Brooklyn accent) And, as we were leaving, all
these buses going back to Jewish retirement homes, one aged gentleman
said to his wife as he was getting onto the steps of the bus, “Sadie,
he said it all! How shahpeh than a soipant’s tooth to have a
thankless child! Sadie, he said it all!” And he got onto the bus
back. I think of that guy and his wife whenever we come to this
gospel together on a Sunday, the nine lepers who never said thank you.

Anyhow, as usual, I go to the scholars, the authentic Catholic Bible
Scholars. There are six of them that are first rate throughout the
world. The opening sentence of several of them went like this: “The
story of the ten lepers has deep Christological, soteriological,
eschatological and peripatetic logical importance.” ... Right,
right. Now, in line with that, with this highly scholarly language,
employed naturally by scholars, every time we are together at Mass on
Sundays there’s always another priest sitting over there, not the
pastor today. But it was the same in the Wall Street Parish, from ‘93
to ‘99. The Wall Street Parish, for six years, there was always
another priest sitting there, listening. It’s HIGHLY intimidating and
you wonder, “Am I preaching so he’ll like it, so I’ll be absolutely,
theologically on the button. I won’t be too left wing, too right
wing? I’ll stick to the Scripture?” You know what my boss at Wall
Street once told me? “I can’t watch you. I just can’t watch you!” In
any event, there are insights, and we don’t have to be trying to
impress each other. The point of the priest giving a talk is to try
to contact people with what he believes and what you believe, and we
share that. And so, I have asked some of you, over the past couple of
weeks, “Why do you think this is an important gospel?” Not scholars,
but you as humans. And a couple of you who have been kind enough to
drive me around gave me a couple of reasons. I would like to give you
nine possible reasons why nine people didn’t say thank you.

The scholars conclude that the importance of the gospel is that Our
Lord’s mercy and healing and cleansing is for everybody, even a
Samaritan. One of the scholars, in a human moment, wrote, “What could
be worse than a Samaritan leper?” to Jewish people. Samaritans were despised. They
were athiests. They were amoral. They were rotten. And to be a
Samaritan leper and Jesus heals that guy! OK. Here are some of the
reasons. The main reason the scholars give is that the other nine
didn’t go back because they saw the Samaritan guy making his way back
to see Our Lord to say thank you. The other nine were devout Jews.
And they had no intention of associating even remotely on the road
with a Samaritan. That, to me, may be scholarly but it seems a little
thin.

So, here are some of the other reasons we can wonder why don’t people
say thanks to each other or even to Our Lord. So, number 1 was the
scholar. Number 2: I want to go home. I just want to go home! I want
to take a bath. I want to get a haircut. I want to see my kids. And I
want the biggest glass of Manichevitz in the town! That seems so
absolutely natural. I want to go home.

Number 3: I want to see Rebecca again. Before I got this disease I
had the body of a male underwear model. Now that I’m all clean again,
I want to see Rebecca, and go on a date. I want some love back in my
life.

Number4: When I got leprosy, I realized that there was no God. If
there were a God I wouldn’t have gotten leprosy. And, since there was
and is no God, and therefor, this carpenter is not God’s messenger,
and therefor, there are no such things as miracles, the fact that my
leprosy has faded indicates it was the new diet I’ve been working on.
New herbs, new essences, a new beet that I have been chewing on. It
just happened coincidentally to kick in at the same time that I met
this carpenter. It was diet. (There are people who say that about
places like Lourdes too.)

Number 5: Wow, I used to be a CEO before I got this disease. I made
big money in a big company. I shall return and make big money, become
a tycoon of finance again and, in time, I’ll mail him a check.
Eventually, I will pay him in cash.

Number 6: And this is the one some of may identify with a little
bit. For years I’ve had leprosy and for years I have stayed on the
outskirts of the town as Jewish law demanded. For years, I’ve rattled
my little bell, saying “leper coming.... leper coming.” For years,
I’ve waited on the outskirts for people with large polls to shuffle
some big bag of food or maybe some old clothes so we could scoop them
up. And for years and years and years, I’ve said, “Thank you....
thank you.... Oh, thank you.... Thank you.” Well, I’m clean now and I
will never, ever say “Thank you” again! Never, to anybody. That kind
of impacted rage, some of us may understand.

Number 7: Wait a minute! Are these other critters going to go back
and say thanks? Are they all kind of going to be talking among
them.... I’m not going to hang out with this bunch any longer, these
retarded oysters. Their breath is bad. They didn’t have the education
I..... I’m not going to go back with them. And the only one who seems
to be going is that Samaritan, that outcast, that pagan! No, no thank
you. I’ve been with this bunch long enough.

Number 8: Oh, oh. Uh oh. I caught a glimpse of that man’s eyes when
he healed me, those incredible, magnetic eyes that looked right down
into my heart. If I go back and look him in the face and see those
eyes again, he may ask me to join his group, be an apostle. Oh, no. I
don’t want that. I don’t want to make a committment to him, and I
know he’ll kind of look at me as if I should join his group because
he did me this big favor. Uh-uh! No way!

And number 9: Let’s make this a lady, which is sheer sexism but....
so we don’t always think of them as men. They weren’t. Well he must
know that I’m grateful. I mean if he’s omniscient, and he must be
omniscient to have all that power to cure leprosy, he’s omniscient.
He knows everything. He knows I’m grateful. I want to get my hair
done. I’ll eventually thank him, but since he knows everything.....
Well, you know, Lord, that I’m grateful. Besides, it would be so
embarrassing for me to throw myself at his feet, embarrassing for the
poor man, ... and me. Later....

Anyhow, those are the reasons why some of us, especially maybe the
last one, “Well you know I’m grateful!” Evidently, Our Lord likes to
be thanked, in his human nature, in the nature he now has in
Paradise, in the Eucharist in a couple of minutes, in his human
nature. In today’s gospel, “Where are the other guys? Where are the
other guys?”

OK. Now, the pastor, as I said before, is away. And a classmate of
mine had a stroke. And he was the epitome of good health, and he had
a stroke this week, and I thought “Let me say a couple of things now
that the pastor is away and can’t say ‘Keep it short.’ “ Just a few
quick things that I want to say, even though they will take a couple
of extra minutes, about politics and a little joke and about you.

About politics: Catholics at each other’s throats, left-wing, right-
wing... For six years, in the Wall Street Parish, there were two
priests even older than I if you can imagine such a statistic. And
they were classmates, and they sat at the end of the table. We had
many priests in the Wall Street Parish! We did, because we heard
confessions all day, as I told you. We had a priest from Dublin. We
had a priest from Sri Lanka. We had a priest from London, and a
couple of us guys. And the two guys at the end of the table. They
were classmates, wonderful priests! They were good guys. But every
night for six years, they would fight, as many Catholics still do,
Abbot and Costello.

“The thing that we’ve got to push in our preaching and our teaching,
as Catholic priests, we’ve got to fight the horror and hell of
abortion. That’s it! That’s the Catholic issue.”

Costello: “There are other sins beside the sin of abortion. There are
other sins beside the sins against sex. There are sins of violence
and opression and social awareness of the poor.”

“I am pro-LIFE!”

“You’re not so much pro-life as pro-birth.”

“Read the Commandments.”

“You check out the Beatitudes. I don’t even know if you are a worthy
Christian.”

“Well, I don’t even know if you are ever aware of what Jesus had to
say about the poor and the oppression and....”

Meanwhile the tuna casserole is getting colder and colder..... And
the Sri Lanka priest would look at me and I would look at them. Six
years.... furious at each other. What kind of priest are you? What
kind of Catholic are you? Left wing..... Right wing..... But I later
heard from people who came to the parish to go to confession that,
when you went to confession to either of those two priests, they were
the souls of gentility, intelligence, and kindness. Often the word
“sweetness” was used, in the best sense. They had very sweet help to
give us. But boy! At the dinner table, Catholic against Catholic!
And, even at election time, you see things on cars, even in this
parish, this one and this one.... You wonder, coming to Communion
together? They are at each other’s throats. OK, why can’t they pool
their resources. We’ve got so many enemies as it is. You use your
dynamism and your energy for this issue. And you use it for that. But
don’t be at each other.

I found an article in a magazine, “Health and Science,” (not the
natural indigenous reading on my reading list), Scientific American,
about Abbot and Costello. It says here, (An exhaustive study): “There
may be a liberal cognitive style hard-wired into the brain. There may
be a conservative cognitive style (politically, theologically) hard-
wired into the brain,” says vast research. So they are wired that
way! OK. Great. That’s good. You’re both for good things. You are
both against bad things. But, let’s not fight each other.

OK. Number 2: There are only like two more to go. It’s a joke. I’m
very bad at formal jokes. I used to hear so many when I was a young
priest. “Hey, Father, you heard the one about the priest, the
minister and the rabbi?” Yes, a thousand times.... But this is a very
small one, and I like it. It’s very short (and the pastor’s not
here.) So... It’s an Easter season. It’s a Monday and a beautiful
Spring in Jerusalem, two thousand years ago, and Pontius Pilate is
talking to Joseph of Arimethea. Pontius Pilate says, (He’s very
indignant.) “Joseph of Arimethea, you are the most distinguished and
respected Jew in our entire community here in Jerusalem. How you,
Joseph, could lend your tomb, your over-ground crypt, your posh
coffin to that carpenter from Nazareth, is beyond me!” And Joseph of
Arimethea says, “Pilate, Pilate take it easy. It was only for the
weekend.” I love that joke!

And the last thing is I finished a book, (before I get a stroke and
can’t recommend it to you) It’s a new book, one volume,
“Civilization, a New History of the Western World.” One volume. I
love one volume books that tell you everything. But it’s a work of
deep scholarship, first rate mind at work. And do you know, this non-
Catholic writer, in the history of Western Civilization, lavishes
credit on the Catholic Church, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, up
until the Enlightenment.... how the laity, (That’s the word he uses,
not the bishops or the popes, the laity. That’s you!) the people in
the parishes, all through Europe, for hundreds of years, taking care
of the sacraments, bringing up the kids to hear about Christ, and the
parish priests, not the big shots, keeping Europe alive, spiritually
and culturally. And he says, towards the end of the book, he says “
The laity in the Catholic Church still keep the Church going.... the
laity!” It’s a beautiful book and it’s readable. In any event, when
you go to Communion today, in honor of the one leper who came back,
even if you’re carrying a cross, and in a bunch this size some of you
must be carrying a heavy cross today, or a big worry, pick one small
thing and thank Our Lord at Communion. Otherwise, you may hear a
voice hissing in your ear, “How shahpeh than a soipent’s tooth to
have a thankless child!” You said it, Sadie! Amen.