sermonboy.com

Thanksgiving

Luke 17
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus* was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he entered a village, ten lepers* approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ 14When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’* feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ 19Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’


“Okay, now say ‘thank you.’”
“Thank you.”
“Okay, now say it like you mean it.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you really say it like you mean it?”
“Not really—thank you.”

Have you heard this dialogue before? Or how about this one:

“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“No really, I’m sorry.”
“Okay, sorry.”

That one was two Canadians trying to pass in a narrow aisle. It seems some (maybe most) of us were trained up to be polite. It is one of the gifts we give our children, called politeness or perhaps the more general heading of etiquette. As I typed this I realized that I had no idea how to spell etiquette, even though I have some etiquette and have been using the word for 40 or so years now.

Thank heavens for spell check and Google then, because I can now spell it and tell you that it began life as a French word. It came into it’s own during the reign of Louis XIV, in the form of little cards scattered all over Versailles that said things like “keep off the grass.” So the French word that literally means “tag” or “memo” crossed the Channel to become rules of behaviour in polite society. So you pretend you don’t know.

Of course it starts smaller than anything you might find at Versailles. “Don’t hit mommy,” is an early example, or “share that with your sister,” or “use your napkin.” Our parents send messages, direct or indirect, on how to behave, how to react, and how to acknowledge others. We tend to learn them, but do we take them to heart?

While passing on the way, Jesus begins a period of group healing. Ten cry out, and never wanting to waste time, he healed them all. He cautions them to go to a priest, for verification and the way for ex-lepers to reenter society, and they are “healed on the way.” Ten lepers, 30 seconds of interaction, and Jesus’ work is done.

But wait. One turns back. Now he is on the ground, praising God for the gift of healing and thanking Jesus. Jesus notes the absence of the other nine, and says ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

As I was raising my now fairly polite son, I realized that while etiquette can be taught, you can’t make anyone feel it. You can create in them the automatic responses “thank you” and “here, let me get that for you” but you can’t teach gratitude. Thankfulness is a worldview—not a set of rules—and as such, cannot be taught. Maybe the message of Luke 17 is that one-in-ten will be truly grateful, a clear signal that maybe our Lord was a little tired the day he met ten lepers on the road.

Now Jesus, being Jesus, did not retract the gift of healing on the nine ungrateful ones. Grace is grace, and whatever the nine failed to do did not warrant returning them to lives of pain and isolation. The only difference between the nine who fled and the one who turned back was the blessing-of-sorts that concludes the passage: ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’

‘Get up and go on your way’ is consistent with the “now go, and tell no one” approach that Jesus brought to most of his healing ministry, and really just a restatement of the original command to see a priest to verify the healing. But the second thought, “your faith has made you well,” is both a theological conundrum and a historically regrettable statement all at once.

First, the regret: Out of context, the statement “your faith has made you well” creates the impression that degree of faithfulness and the opportunity for healing go together. For as long as there have been believers there has been the misapprehension that my ability to heal hinges on the level of faith I have somehow achieved. The shadow side of this, of course, is the sense that if I fail to heal I am somehow lacking in faith or trust or some other impossible-to-measure element.

I can say with certainty that God is a source of healing and new strength, but I cannot tell you how and I cannot tell you why some and not others. To accept this unknowing, this ultimate mystery, is my definition of faith. To remain devoted to a God I cannot fully understand takes faith, and the ongoing sense that something far beyond my level is comprehension is happening. To say “your faith has made you well” must mean something else.

Over his doorway, Karl Jung engraved the words “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” (vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit) He didn’t write it, he found it in the writings of Erasmus, who found it among Greek sayings, who said it belonged to the Spartans. Some translate it to ‘Acknowledged or unacknowledged, God is present.’ Either way, the adage recognizes something that every parent of the teenager knows: Some day they will appreciate me, acknowledge me, and understand why I do the things I do. Until then, I’m just in the way.

So God is present to ten lepers through the gift of healing, and for nine God is unbidden. For the one, fallen to the ground, God is bidden and very much present. ‘Your faith has made you well,’ says Jesus, recognizing that for one-in-ten at least, God is the source of healing. You were going to be healed anyway, but in your case, leper number ten, your faith has made you well.

Thinking way back to last week, I mentioned the myth of self-reliance and the abiding sense some possess that you create your own reality, your prosperity, even your health. One wonders about nine lepers, passing by the way, crying out for healing. Was it bad parenting that led them away? Did they somehow think that they brought about their own healing, by simply crying out? Did they doubt the veracity of the healing they received, wanting verification before making a fuss? We can’t know, we only know that one came back.

Every once and a while I will offer some feedback or make a comment about something and the person will say “can you write that down and send it to me” or “can you say more” and I get the sense that if no one offers an opinion, opinions don’t really exist. Remember the tree falling in the forest? Like the tree that no one hears, when we don’t voice something, it’s like the thought never existed. I can feel grateful, but if I don’t tell someone, it’s like I was never grateful at all.

So it is with nine lepers, undoubtedly grateful, but unable to turn back and say it. We can correctly assume that at some future date, maybe pressed by friend or family, the silent lepers will say “Jesus made me well, and everything changed.” Maybe they will give God the glory, in a future moment of reflection, then tell their story. But we didn’t receive that story, we received another one, and it forces us to ponder what it means to be truly grateful.

Sometime soon, maybe today or maybe tomorrow, Jesus will say “Get up and get your turkey, your faith has made you grateful.” Plenty of people will feel thankful, for a good land, for the harvest, and for the farmers. But only a few will say it out loud, or make a fuss, or make an extravagant prayer, and to them we can say, “your faith has made you grateful.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 6:22 AM