Orinda Community Church
Sermon for the Ninetieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 7, 2007
“Gratitude”
Kirk R. Thomas, Preaching
TEXT: Luke 17:11-19
The scripture passage we just heard about the ten healed lepers is an interesting but strange story. It is one of the miracle stories, of course, but it is a little different then the other miracle stories that we have in the gospels. What makes it different? Well, for one thing, Jesus doesn’t touch these folks; instead, the miracles sort of just happen. And also everybody isn’t healed—well, they’re all healed of leprosy—but something extraordinarily happens to one of them—the tenth leper—something different happens, and this is the key to the whole scripture passage.
Let’s review for a moment what we have just heard. What is this situation? Well, we have Jesus and his disciples walking through a part of the landscape that includes the area called Samaria, or at least nearby. This is a different kind of place than the rest of the Jewish nation, and here there they come upon some lepers. The word “leper” is the one that is used in many of our biblical translations, but it probably refers to a more general condition—any kind of skin rash—although I think the idea of these people having leprosy is good for the message here because this is a particularly awful disease. It disfigures tremendously and even worse, not only is it incurable, at least until modern days, but it is also communicable. In their own way, the ancients understood that there was danger here so they created a way of dealing with this kind of danger by making people with this condition anathema, by causing them to be known as unclean in their religious practices. If you had a skin disease of any kind, not just leprosy, you were unclean, which meant that you were not fit to do the rituals, like being in the Temple; but you also could not be amongst ordinary society, so you were cast-out really. In those days to be cast-out was a very grave matter indeed. It meant that even your relatives and friends could not approach you—in fact, no one could—so you were truly an outcast if you had this kind of affliction. Also it meant that you had to go about the world begging for anything you could get. You were probably hungry and begged for food. People would stay away from you, and you were required more than likely to tell them that you were so afflicted, on pain of death probably, and this continued right up almost until modern times. People would have to go about warning folks: “We’re coming. We’re coming. Stay away from us.” In later ages, there would be bells and signals like that.
So these people knew that they were outcasts, and what did they do? They called out to Jesus. They must have recognized him. They must have known who he was. Word must have come ahead. So out of desperation they said, “Jesus, have pity on us.” Well, these folks didn’t have much else. They were the worst of the worst. They were in need more than anyone. They were more than just the poor, they were the retched. There was nothing else for them so they were desperate, and they really wanted a new life. They needed a resurrection, and they had hope that Jesus could provide this. Word of his miracles must have gone before him.
So the healing occurs, but it’s very strange because Jesus just says, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” Now that’s not what he said in the previous miracle stories. That’s a different kind of response. But what does that mean? The people reading this in ancient times would have understood immediately because this refers directly to Leviticus 14:1-32, which is a very long passage that describes ritual purification when you have skin diseases. Basically, you are hoping you have a skin condition that can be healed—leprosy would not be that way, but other skin conditions presumably might get better. If you were healed you went to the priest, and the priest had to verify that in fact you were clean again. An elaborate ritual went on for 8 days that involved sacrifices and various cleansings, and the priest would intercede for you, and finally at the end of that process you were declared ritually healed, if not literally healed, and allowed back into society again, allowed commerce with your friends and your neighbors. This was a big deal, so Jesus was telling them to do this, to go to the priest. But they hadn’t actually been healed yet, had they? This is the miracle of the story. Somehow, in the process of making their way to the priest they were healed. We can only imagine how awestruck people at that time listening to this story must have been by the idea that Jesus just told the lepers to go and do the ritual purification even though they probably didn’t believe they were candidates for it. However, by the time they reached the priest, miraculously they were alright.
We presume that these ten lepers, or at least nine of them, went through the process of the priestly purification that made them ritually clean again. And then afterwards they just went about their lives again, happy no doubt that they were healed. But one of them did a lot more. One of them was so overjoyed, so grateful for his healing that he came back to Jesus and he praised God. We can only imagine how thankful that man must have been to realize that he was healed and could again be a regular human being; that he could have a life again. He thought he was all but dead, and now he was resurrected into a new life because of Jesus. So, in his overwhelming gratitude, he gave thanks to God. This was not the normal reaction to healing. This was more. This was a transformation. The other people were cured, but the tenth leper was more than cured, he was made whole. The nine lepers are not criticized for failing to be thankful, but for failing to be thankful and grateful to God through the act of Jesus. What’s the difference? The difference is that being thankful in the traditional sense was just a process to go through. But Jesus expected more of folks. He wanted them to be grateful in the most profound way and, in doing that, they were expressing the most blessed form of praising God. And that is what the tenth leper did.
So, in this story who was clean and who was unclean? The nine were healed and were socially redeemed, accepted again in society. The tenth one is healed, but not accepted in society again. Why? Because he is a Samaritan. Aha! There is a hook in this story, and it makes all the difference. What is a Samaritan? Well, we know that the Samaritans lived in the Holy Land in proximity to the Jewish folks. And, as a matter of fact, if you are not aware of it, Samaritans worshiped Yahweh. So why weren’t they like the rest of the Jews? Well, there is an historical reason for this, and it has to do with the Assyrian conquest of the Holy Land.
Remember, the Assyrians were the ones who conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel and took away ten of the twelve tribes. In contrast to the Babylonians who were to come directly after, who just took people back to their Mesopotamian heartland to live in exile until they could return, the Assyrians were more ruthless. They took those ten tribes and spread them all throughout their vast empire. They put them in various towns and cities all over that part of the Middle East, and they repopulated the conquered Israel that the ten tribes had occupied previously with Assyrian people or people from other parts of their empire. Those people came to Palestine and eventually, over time, adopted the worship of Yahweh, which was what their Jewish neighbors there did, the inhabitants of Judea to the south. The newcomers became Yahweh worshippers but they didn’t have the same traditions that the Jewish people had. For one thing, they didn’t look to Jerusalem as the center of their faith. They built a separate temple on top of Mount Gerizim, within that small area which is still known even today in the Holy Land as Samaria. There are still some Samaritan people who worship there, and their worship is very similar to Jewish worship; they also worship God, but they are of a different race; they are the descendants of the Assyrian folks. That’s why the Samaritans were considered inferior by the Jews. They were “foreigners” as far as the Jews were concerned. People had long memories in those days. So this tenth leper was a Samaritan who was healed but not accepted.
Jews thought the clean were those who accepted the rules. That’s piety, right? You do what is expected of you, the minimal amount at least. However, the Samaritan leper did more. He showed humility and gratefulness, and this is what Jesus noticed and thought was so wonderful about what he did. The Samaritan was an outsider who Jesus blessed. Luke often uses this theme in his gospel—the outsider who becomes the insider and the insider who becomes the outsider. This is so typical of Jesus’ mission, turning things topsy-turvy from what one expects, shaking us up and making us realize there is more to faith than just the rituals and the formal things that we do. This special difference is reflected in the actual words that are used in this passage. When the ten lepers are healed, the word in Greek is iaomai, which means “cleansed” or “cured” or “healed,” just as we would expect. But when Luke wrote about the tenth leper he used a different word sozo, which means more than “healed;” it means “saved” or “made whole.” It is much greater than iaomai.
This story tells us that gratefulness is at the very heart of redemption. We are grateful for what we receive, not for what we do for ourselves. We are grateful when we humbly accept God’s will, when some expected good thing comes our way. When gratefulness is paired with adversity, as in this story of people with leprosy, transformation can occur. Gratitude can transforms us and gives us new life.
An example that came to mind right away is Nelson Mandela. Here is a man who was imprisoned for decades, who suffered a lot. He was not free to move about; he was not free to express himself; he was a prisoner. Life seemed to pass him by. He spent years and years on a desolate island, placed there by a government that didn’t want anything to do with him. Now I would suppose that a man like that who finally gains his freedom would be very angry and bitter, and he would have every right to be in most of our minds. But, what is particularly amazing about Nelson Mandela—who comes as close to a modern day saint as anyone I know—is his gratefulness. He was grateful for his freedom. He was grateful for the transformation that occurred in his country. And his attitude made all the difference to his countrymen. Instead of a racial war that he could so easily have encouraged, there was a reconciliation. South Africa today, although far from perfect, is a much better society than during Apartheid. Hope is there because of Nelson Mandela. That is the transformation that can occur with true gratitude.
Worship is all about gratitude. Whenever we are grateful we are worshiping. Whenever we realize something is good in our lives that is a moment of worship. We cannot help but feel the overflowing of gratitude when we worship. In 1984, Brother David Seindl-Rast wrote a book called Gratefulness Is the Heart of Prayer, which says it all, because when we pray we are grateful, and whenever we are grateful we are praying.
The challenge of this story for us is to imagine how we would behave if we were one of the ten lepers? How do we express gratitude? Are we superficial about it? Would we return to Jesus with gratitude, or would we superficially thank God and then hurry back to our normal lives? That’s the kind of gratefulness the nine lepers showed. But when gratefulness is deeper amd more profound, lives can be transformed. Like Nelson Mandela, they are never the same again, and we see that; we see how they are open to the love of God and express that to us all. How often have we made vows to God in return for some favor, only to be forgotten later? Have we really thanked God for what we have, or have we just gone to the temple and conducted the rituals expected of us without grateful prayers and worship that can transform us and make us whole? Are we like the nine who were simply cleansed, or are we like the one who was made whole through deep gratitude? Can we pray that God help us recognize and be thankful for the gift of healing and wholeness that we receive through our relationship with Jesus? That is the whole point. The tenth leper had a relationship with Jesus, which made all the difference. In that relationship, Jesus challenges us to be deeply, humbly and joyously mindful of God’s mercy and abundant grace. This incredible gift transforms the ordinary into an extraordinary blessing, and reminds us that God is present in each and every moment of our lives.
Thanks be to God!