All The Same
"Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Did none of them return to give thanks?
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Years ago a member of our family stopped sending a birthday gift or Christmas gift to one grandchild because they never wrote a thank-you note. Everyone else continued to get a gift. I was sad, angry, disgusted, even damning, asking, has the gift been for love, or to be thanked?
Life has changed, and Time moves on, and I too know how it is to send a gift to one I love who never bothers to thank me: it leaves me feeling unloved, unappreciated, ignored as though I don’t exist.
So, there’s a paradox. Apparently, Jesus feels it too, or Luke would not have told this gospel story. But God is Grace, which is love that is unconditional, free, no strings attached, no cost, no requirement for a thank-you note. Maybe a hope, a longing for love returned, common courtesy, some response, an expression of gratitude, appreciation, just a text with a smiley-face. Yet with Grace, the gift is given regardless.
God is not like us. Unlike a family member cutting off one grandchild, our lack of gratitude does not change how God loves us (where love is not a feeling but how people are treated). Evidently, to go by today’s gospel, God is touched if you give thanks, still, all ten lepers were healed, and, “where are the nine?”, they are not the bad guys, they are running off joyful, happy, exuberant, healed. And God is not small, God is not petty: none of the nine had love withdrawn or leprosy restored because he was an ingrate.
God loves you no matter what; it’s up to you to give thanks, or not. Including that this gospel story is read during stewardship season in case the preacher wants to use it to pitifully shame you into turning in your pledge card - - “Don’t be one of the nine!” Mind though: that would make the story about you, and the story is Jesus bringing Grace, the love of God, not only to you, The One, but to outsiders and ingrates.
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If you have been in my Confirmation classes, you know about our Communion service, our liturgy of Holy Eucharist:
Eucharist (literally "good gift") means “thanksgiving” - - it’s all about giving thanks to God. In fact, the main prayer is called The Great Thanksgiving. We have six forms of The Great Thanksgiving in the Book of Common Prayer, and three more in EOW (Enriching Our Worship), another liturgy book approved for The Episcopal Church. Each Great Thanksgiving is different, but the substance is the same for all nine of them.
First, the priest asks the congregation’s consent to celebrate Holy Communion (“Let us give thanks to the Lord our God”)
Then we go into a prayer, ancient or modern, at the eight o’clock service we use an ancient form, at ten-thirty we use a contemporary form.
Different words, but they all have the same substance:
We praise God for God’s mighty acts of love in our salvation history with God.
Bringing ourselves, our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice, we offer God our gifts of bread and wine to be used to feed us spiritually (the technical term is “oblation”, offering).
We repeat what Jesus did and said at the Last Supper: Taking bread, Blessing it, Breaking it, and Giving it to feed his friends. (Called the Words of Institution).
Theologically, we “do not forget” - - we make it a point to remember that Jesus gave himself to save us (the technical term is “anamnesis”, literally, “not forgetting”).
We pray God to send his Word and Spirit into the outward Bread and Wine such that they symbolically, actually, inwardly become God himself (the technical term is epiclesis, which means “invocation” as we invoke the Holy Spirit).
The entire service is framed as our act of praise and thanksgiving to God, climaxing in God feeding us his own physical Body, making us inwardly part of God and God part of us. The Eucharist is both incredibly exalting - - and terribly humbling.
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It’s a shame that of the ten lepers in Luke’s story, nine surprised and disappointed Jesus: only one turns around and comes back to give praise and thanks. Luke takes pains to make sure we know that the one grateful man was not even one of us, he was a Samaritan, an outsider, someone we despise but God loves. In today’s terms, he was not a White man, he was Brown, or Black, or an illegal immigrant.
Ninety percent! Most of us are not mindful of God or grateful to God for the gifts of creation, life and love. Most people don’t bother to give thanks.
God loves you all the same.
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Sunday, 9 October 2022: homiletic endeavor by the Rev Tom Weller in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida. Text: the gospel reading (scroll down).
I have tried to do with this gospel story, a different twist from what I've ever done with it in the forty or so years that I preached it every three years. It came out shorter than, but basically what I had in mind. Which is fine; and at this age, already semi-retired and fading, I don't expect to be preaching it again!
RSF&PTL
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The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke (17:11-19)
People Glory to you, Lord Christ.
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." The Gospel of the Lord.
People Praise to you, Lord Christ.
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art pinched online