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? - Luke 17.17-18

As a species, we aren't very thankful. A recent study reveals that random acts of kindness receive a "thank you" only about one time in twenty.

The good news is that most people will help when asked, gratis, with no negotiation or prior expectations. Across cultures, granted favors exceed refusals at roughly a seven-to-one ratio. "Ask and ye shall receive," it seems, is a general truth not limited to prayer. Which is fortunate, because the same study reveals that people request assistance about once every ninety seconds! 

So we get what we want eighty percent of the time but acknowledge the help on only five percent of those occasions.

It is interesting that the experiment focused, not on institutional or business settings, but homes, where people know one another. We are least grateful to those we know best. In fact, most languages, spoken in small communities of close relationships, lack any word for "thank you"! 

Something similar may have been at work when Jesus confronted ten scruffy lepers somewhere in the wilds of Palestine. The nine Jews may have looked at the thing as part of the perq package of their heritage: Of course a Jewish messiah would heal Jewish lepers. Jesus was family; he wouldn't expect acknowledgement from the home-folks. Anyway, they may have thought they'd said "thank you;" the study revealed we over-rate our own gratitude on a regular basis.

The Samaritan, however, remained enough of an outsider that he could still be shocked by grace. 

Two interesting notes: First, this story, found only in Luke's gospel, comes toward the end of what scholars call "The Journeyings Toward Jerusalem." In 9.51, Jesus "set his face to go to Jerusalem" and to the cross.  Second, Jesus tells the Samaritan to "get up," the Greek word used for the resurrection of Christ. 

Jesus went to the cross that we might know the resurrection from death in sin to life in the Spirit. Have you said thank you today?