ONE OUT OF TEN

ONE OUT OF TEN

Luke 17: 11-19

A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church by Carter Lester on

October 21, 2007

How many times did our mom or dad say it to us? How many times have we said it to our own children or grandchildren? And how many times do I hear said in the halls of the church during the weekday when parents pick up their children at our HENS preschool? You know the question: “Did you remember to say thank you?” What a victory it is when our young children utter those two magical words on their own without any prompting from us!

We can treat today’s Bible story – the healing of the ten lepers in Luke 17 – as yet another way to remind our children about the need to say thank you. Nothing like having Jesus and the Bible to back you up! No wonder we find this story in nearly every children’s Bible storybook.

But this story is not just for children. Indeed, it is very much an adult story. When we read it at a deeper level, the story of the ten lepers leaves us asking questions – of the text, and of ourselves. And much like Jesus’ parables, there is an unexpected twist in the end.

Ten lepers call out to Jesus from a distance: “Jesus, Sir, have mercy on us!” As you may recall, leprosy then was a much feared disease – not only because of the pain and disability caused by the rotting away of skin and even hands and feet. But also, because leprosy was a sentence of exile. Since no one then knew how leprosy was spread from one person to another, lepers were banished to live in little colonies outside the villages and towns. Often, as here they would live near well-traveled roads to make appeals for charity. But even then they were forced to keep their distance.

When Jesus hears the lepers’ cry and sees them, he calls out to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Jesus’ instruction is consistent with the requirements of Jewish law then that any leper cured of the disease was required to have the priest certify that the leper was cured. There was also a ritual for having lepers declared clean so that they could return to their family and community. What is interesting here is that Jesus sends the ten lepers off to the priest before they are actually healed.

But on the way to the priest, the ten suddenly realize that the leprosy has disappeared. Ten are healed, but only one out of the ten turns back to Jesus. He runs back to Jesus, praising God with a loud voice, and then throws himself at Jesus’ feet and thanks him. He is from Samaria, that is, an outsider, one looked down upon by good Jews as being a heretic. Then at the end, there is the surprising twist: Jesus says, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

“Made him well?” But weren’t all ten lepers healed of their leprosy? What does Jesus mean by this – what takes place in this Samaritan that did not take place in the other nine?

Before we get to that question, there are a more basic set of questions to ask first: Why do you think the Samaritan came back? Why do you think the other nine did not?

Various answers have been suggested. Perhaps his mom or dad just did a better job of drumming into him the importance of saying “thank you.” Perhaps it made a difference that he was a Samaritan. An outsider and a leper, he was doubly rejected and doubly scorned. Cured and befriended by Jesus, he may have felt doubly blessed. Or perhaps as a Samaritan, he felt no need to go to the Temple like the other Jews, so he might as well turn around and go back to Jesus.

The fact is Luke does not tell us why only one out of ten comes back. All we know for sure is that for whatever reason this Samaritan goes rushing back to Jesus to say thank you, and Jesus is glad to see him.

What about us? Are we more like the nine? Or the one? Based on the odds in Luke 17, you certainly have to say that there is a good chance that we fail to be as grateful as we should. Which should lead us to ask ourselves: What keeps us from saying, “thank you,” to other people?

Some observers worry about the sense of entitlement present in our affluent culture with its emphasis on individual freedom: “Part of the illness of life today,” one man writes, “is a deeply ingrained felling of entitlement, the notion that I am somehow entitled to things, that I owe no one anything and have no responsibility for anyone. It is a deep self-centeredness that assumes everything is my right, my due, an attitude that replaces concern for the community with my own needs. It enables me to maintain my distance in the illusion of absolute independence.”[1]

Perhaps that is the case, or perhaps it is a matter that we are uncomfortable with receiving help from others. We are proud and want to be independent and self-sufficient. We fail to say thank you because we do not want to face up to the fact that we need other people’s help.

Sometimes our lack of gratitude arises from our envy of what others have. We find it much easier to focus on what we don’t have rather than what we do have.

And sometimes, we mean to say thank you, but we just get too busy, or we are too tired, or too excited. Or we just forget.

When I was a young man, the person held up as a living saint and example, much as Mother Teresa is today, was Albert Schweizer, a remarkably talented musician, theologian, and physician who spent most of us life in Africa as a medical missionary. In his book, Memoirs of Childhood and Youth, he writes:

“When I look back upon my early days, I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or what they were to me. At the same time, I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without my having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, while he [or she] was still in the flesh.”[2]

Whom have we forgotten to thank? Whom do we need to thank before it is too late?

You see, gratitude is not just a matter of good manners. Gratitude is a matter of good relationships. Gratitude knits our lives together, because when we say, “thank you,” we recognize how interdependent we are, how much we have received from others. And when others say “thank you” to us, we feel like our lives have more meaning. It is hard not to smile when someone says thank you to us, whether just in passing in our everyday lives or in an e-mail, phone call, or note. It is good to hear that you have helped some other person, whether in little ways or big ways.

Who do you need to say “thank you” to in some way this week? What are you going to do about it?

Thanking others is important, but that is not the end of the message here. Let’s remember: the Samaritan is not just thanking a physician and teacher. He goes back to thank Jesus. Which brings us back to that last statement by Jesus in verse 19: “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” What does Jesus mean by this? What takes place in this Samaritan that did not take place in the other nine who were also cured of their leprosy?

Look again at the Samaritan. He is moving closer to Jesus. The other nine – they are going the other way. As great as the gift of a physical healing is, it is nothing when compared to the spiritual healing of a closer relationship with the Giver of the gift. As someone has put it, “the nine lepers got the healing, but not the healer; they experienced a miracle, but not the miracle worker; they received the gift, but not the giver.”[3]

Jesus has given us and the rest of the world an irreplaceable gift: “He bore our sins that we might be dead to sin and alive to all that is good.” Jesus, the Great Physician, pitched his tent among us so that He might cure us all of our sin sickness, the disease that makes us want to keep our distance from God, the disease that can kill us.

But Jesus does not just want to give us a cure. He wants to give us himself, a gift we can only receive if we turn back towards him.

Will we be like the nine and take Jesus’ gifts for granted and go on our way? There are plenty of people who go to church and pray for help in a crisis. But then, when the crisis has passed, a quick prayer of thanks may be said, but life goes back to normal, and God becomes an afterthought.

Will we be like the nine – or will we be like the one who turns around and runs back to the Giver of the gift with awe, joy, and above all, gratitude?

What is worship, but “one leper turning back” overwhelmed with gratitude?” (Martin Luther). What is prayer, but one leper turning back overwhelmed with gratitude? What is our offering of time, talents, and money to the work of the body of Christ, but one leper turning back overwhelmed with gratitude?

Worship, prayer, giving – in light of the great gifts we have received, how can we ever just go through the motions? How can we ever just take the gifts for granted and turn our back on the Giver? How can we not find it in us to throw ourselves at Jesus’ feet with awe and joy and say, “thank you!”

Gratitude is important not because Jesus sets it as a precondition for him to love us. Nothing could be further from the truth. Christ loves and does good for the ungrateful, just as he heals all ten of their leprosy.

No, gratitude is important because it acknowledges our dependence on God and propels us closer to Jesus – and that makes all of the difference.

Gratitude to God for what God has done in Jesus Christ is not just a once and done thing. Gratitude is a habit to cultivate every day because God sends blessings our way every day. And gratitude keeps our souls well, no matter how bad life may become. Because through gratitude we cannot help but recognize that there is a light in our lives that the darkness can never overcome. Never.

Martin Rinkhart was a poor Protestant pastor in the walled city of Eilenberg in Germany. At one point, war engulfed Eilenberg and refugees streamed into Eilenberg for the protection of its walls. Inside the walls, there was nothing but plague, famine, and fear. One after another, the pastors took ill and perished, until at last only Martin Rinkart was left. Some days he conducted as many as fifty funerals. Finally, the fighting concluded, and there was peace.

Knowing the source of his blessings, Rinkhart wrote these familiar words:

“Now thank we all our God With heart and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things have done, In whom this world rejoices.”

Friends, every day is a Thanksgiving day. Let us stand and sing Rinkhart’s hymn with the joy and fervor of that unnamed Samaritan leper. Let us stand and sing hymn #555, “Now Thank We All Our God.”