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Thanksgiving Sunday

Luke 17
11 On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with skin diseases approached him. Keeping their distance from him, 13 they raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, show us mercy!”
14 When Jesus saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” As they left, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw that he had been healed, returned and praised God with a loud voice. 16 He fell on his face at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus replied, “Weren’t ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 No one returned to praise God except this foreigner?” 19 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up and go. Your faith has healed you.”


I think we all know the magic word.

So, who decided that ‘please’ is the magic word? How magic can it be if kids are continually needing to be prompted to use it? Is it magic because it allows things to happen that wouldn’t otherwise happen unless the magic word is employed? That just sounds like quid pro quo: I’ll give you the magic word and you give me what I want. No magic there, kids.

And what about the coda on this little exchange, the well-worn phrase ‘you know what to say...’ or 'what do you say...?' Clearly, being a kid should come with some sort of handbook, or at least a cue card, because the first time I say ‘you know what to say’ the kid just might not know what to say.

It might be fun to mess with the kids some time and add a new one, something like: ‘You know what to do next...‘ Poor kid. ‘What, go to bed? Wash my hands, get the mail, walk the dog, do my homework, get a job?‘ I suppose there would need to be some parental convention of agreed upon and largely vague questions before you can add another.

There is another one, and it’s always the saddest moment of the day, because inevitably some parent is going to say ‘what time is it now?‘ And of course, there is only one answer to that question: Bedtime. I used to tell Isaac that some day he would look forward to bedtime, like me, and it won’t seem like cruel and unusual punishment. At 22, he remains unconvinced.

For today, it’s the second question that becomes our focus, the nature and tradition of saying thanks. It’s the theme of our reading, quite by coincidence, and it also the theme of the day, with our ‘horn of plenty’ here and the bird that’s been taking up too much space in your fridge.

Now, some will try to convince you that Thanksgiving as we know has strictly Canadian roots. ‘Look to Samuel de Champlain,’ they will say, ‘and his Order of Good Cheer.’ Poppycock. I think we’re mature enough to accept the fact that our ancestors who walked away from the republican madness south of the border crossed the Niagara River one day and brought Thanksgiving with them. Canadian turkeys may never forgive us.

But if we look further back, before colonies and pilgrims, we see a rich tradition of giving thanks. The Romans did it four times a year, with the autumn festival specifically geared to the grape harvest, and everything good that comes from that. Then these festivals were ‘baptized’ (or stolen) by the early church, and by the time St. Augustine arrives in Canterbury (597) a fully-formed tradition of ‘Ember Days’ was ready for sharing.

Ironically, the name ‘Ymber’ seems to have Anglo-Saxon roots, and may predate both Augustine and his Christianity. Either way, by the Middle Ages the good people of England are alternating between fasting and eating ember pies and giving thanks for the harvest. It even came with it’s own little rhyme:

Fasting days and Emberings be
Lent, Whitsun, Holyrood, and Lucie.

Okay, so it wasn’t every kids favourite nursery rhyme, but I’m sure they loved the pies, which look suspiciously like quiche, which is fine by me.

Of course, I will be in the doghouse with a certain OT scholar if I don’t tell you that the earliest Thanksgiving tradition can be found in Deuteronomy 27, Leviticus 7, a bunch of Psalms, 2 Samuel 22, 1 & 2 Chronicles, and so on. The Hebrew Bible is filled with words and rituals that surround the need to give God thanks. And parallel to the North American experience, it centres on giving thanks after you enter a new land, a promised land, with the double irony of also entering a land inhabited by others. And of course there is the triple irony that both over there and over here we are still working out how to share the land.

Moving from the Hebrew to the Greek, we also move from the macro concern of giving thanks for all that God has done for the people of Israel, to the micro concern of those who give thanks after meeting Jesus. Our story is just such a moment, a moment repeated throughout the Gospels, but told no more simply than in Luke 17.

Ten men appear and ask for mercy, relief from the pain and isolation of a dreaded disease of the skin. Even before he heals them, he directs them the local priest that he confirm what will soon happen. As they moved away they are healed, and one turns back to give thanks. He was a Samaritan, estranged from a Judaea Jesus, but thankful nonetheless. Jesus then asks three incredulous questions and sends him on his way. The questions:

Weren’t ten cleansed?
Where are the other nine?
No one returned to praise God except this foreigner?

Hear the eerie similarity to where we began this rambling journey?

What’s the magic word?
What do you say?

You might imagine that the ratio might be a little better. Seriously, only one turned back? I can see one ingrate in ten, or two at the most, or three on a really cloudy day, but nine out of ten? In a kind of weird echo of the parable of the lost sheep—the one where the shepherd leaves ninety-nine to fend for themselves for the sake of the one that was lost—here Jesus has lost nine-of-ten but receives thanks from one.

So maybe this is a coded message, a kind of antiquarian survey of thankfulness, that says ‘here, this is typical of my day, what’s it like in yours?’ Well, how are we on the thankfulness scale? Do we rate better than a one-out-of-ten?

I’m just not sure. We are known worldwide for our ability to apologize, but what about saying thanks? I might argue that both as individuals and as a nation we’re pretty self-satisfied, perhaps a little too convinced that we did all this on our own, that we are somehow the authors of our own good fortune, and not the grateful children of the living God.

Argue with me over cookies, but I meet lots of people who will credit their hard work, their cleverness, their ability to carry on while others failed, and neglect to mention the Maker of All. Now maybe they’re just not in church, so God isn’t top-of-mind, but even here we tend to imagine that we’re the faithful ones, when in fact it’s God that’s faithful to us.

This, then, brings us full circle to the question: does God need our thanks, or the thanks of the nine-of-ten who would rather see the priest and grab a beer then say a simple thanks to Jesus?

Notice that the healing happens anyway. There are apparently no ‘take-backs’ when it comes to healing lepers, and the nine seem to live out their lives in the same way they would have if they had bothered to say thanks.

But now we’re in the territory of another famous parable, this time the parable of the lost son, mostly known as the prodigal son. Suddenly we’re cast in the role of the older brother, constantly giving thanks (or staying home with the father) while the other brother just walks away. They get the fatted calf, and newly smooth skin, and we just get whatever we had before.

If there is no reward for saying thanks, no punishment for the nine-of-ten, then why bother at all? Well, just as prayer has the most profound effect on the pray-er, so too with giving thanks. Thanking someone may lighten their day, or give them a sense of worth, but the most profound effect is on the thanker.

When we thank God, or thank others, we are acknowledging a connection, a link to God, or the fact of our common humanity, or both. Being thankful is act of connection, tying together the threads of our being to a wider being and to Ultimate Being to create a new fabric—knit together for the betterment of all. May we embody that fabric, and be made new, now and always, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 4:50 AM