"On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!' When he saw them, he said to them, 'Go and show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, '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?' Then he said to him, 'Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.'"
-Luke 17: 11-19
Always say thank you
That’s what my parents told me, and I suspect that’s what you were
taught when you were little. You should
always be gracious. It’s just common
manners, after all. It seems, though,
that we sometimes underestimate how important it is to show our gratitude. Sometimes we just don't say thank you.
The story of the 10 lepers is a
story about gratitude. These 10 individuals lepers stand
far off away from Jesus and raise their voices to him, asking for mercy, or
ptiy, depending on your translation.
Rather than keep his distance, which is what the Law allowed, Jesus
actually speaks to them and tells them to go and show themselves to the
priests. He doesn’t actually DO
anything, but as they head off, they are made clean--perhaps in an instant or over the course of several miles traveled. The 10 lepers are overjoyed, no doubt thankful
to be rid of their disease, but only one of them, a Samaritan, returns to say
thank you.
An artist's depiction of the 10 lepers.
Only one. The British
scholar William Barclay says that there is no story in all the gospels that so
poignantly shows the ingratitude of humanity than this one. So often when we get what we want—or when we
get what we think we deserve—we don’t take the gracious road. I know I’ve done that. Going through the grocery line, or a paying
my bill at a restaurant, I end up, all too often, not saying thank you and showing my appreciation. It could be that I simply think to myself, "Well, it's their job." Thus, I don't HAVE to say thanks, right?
Maybe that’s what the lepers thought. Maybe they thought, “Oh, here’s Jesus of
Nazareth. The prophet. The healer.
It’s his job to make us well.”
Maybe that’s why they didn’t say thank you; well, except the
Samaritan. He understood that one should still show gratitude, no matter what.
So what compels him to come back to
Jesus? At the end of their encounter
Jesus says to the Samaritan, “Your faith has made you well.” Faith.
The word translated as faith is pistis,
and it’s a word that can also be translated as trust. Your trust as made you well. This guy trusted Jesus, and I suspect he trusted him not because he perfomed a service for him, but because Jesus met him in a way that no one else had. Jesus didn't keep his distance the way others did, and Jesus actually spoke to him, while others did not. Jesus treated him as a human being. The Law barely acknowledged the unclean lepers as human beings, but Jesus sees the man for who he is. By calling out to him, Jesus invites him into a relationship, into a new way of living. And for that, the Samaritan trusts him. As my favorite theologian says in a sermon on this gospel: pistis,
faith, is the life we choose to live into when life seems impossible, when
we place the weight of our trust in the goodness and loving kindness that is the
center of all reality. Jesus’s statement
that the Samaritan’s faith has made him well is not about belief, not about the
idea that if the Samaritan hoped hard enough Jesus would heal him. Instead, it's about radical trust, the kind of trust that the Samaritan had in Jesus, and that trust leads to a deep sense of gratitude.
Do we trust Jesus? True gratitude is rooted in this trust.
We cannot say “Thank you, Jesus!” and mean it with our whole heart if we
do not trust Jesus when he invites us into a changed way of being. From the moment that he came back and said
thank you, the Samaritan’s life was changed.
Not only was his skin made clean, but his very soul was made clean. And that new relationship with Jesus is what
compelled him to come back, to show gratitude that was born from pistis, his own trust in Jesus, and
Jesus’ trust in him.
As I drive around Randolph County I can’t help but see these yellow “Thank you, Jesus!” yard signs. I
don’t know where they came from, but I love them! Some of them are in your yards! I have no doubt that the folks who have put
those signs out are, indeed, thankful to Jesus.
But for what, exactly? Are they thankful
for the stuff Jesus has given them in exchange for their prayers? Or are they thankful for the relationship
that Jesus has called them into? Are they thankful that he has called them into new ways of being? Are they thankful that he has saved them, healed them, and made them well? I
wonder what other ways they have shown their gratitude, beyond the yard
signs.
What about us? Have
we had faith and trust in Jesus that has led us to changed lives? I suspect so, that’s why so many of us go to church, right? Surely we trust Jesus. Surely we desire to say thank you to him; after all, the word Eucharist means "thanksgiving," so when we celebrate that sacred meal each week it is, in fact, an act of giving thanks. But what other ways can we show our gratitude in both our corporate worship and our everyday lives? What, then, does it look like for
us to be gracious? For some of us that
gratitude looks like offering our time to Jesus, just spending time with him in prayer or being with the people he loves. For some it
looks like offering our God-given talents for Jesus’ service, either in church or out
there in the world. Still for others it looks like giving of
our treasure and resources, remembering that all we have comes from God, thus we give back in order that those treasures may be used to benefit all of God’s
children throughout the world. There are as many ways to say thanks as there are people who read this blog! It doesn't matter how we show our thanks, only that we show it. Somehow, someway. What does it look like to show such gratitude born of a radical trust and faith in Jesus?
