Thankfulness

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well" (Luke 17:11-19).

Many years ago, a boat was wrecked in a storm on Lake Michigan at Evanston, Illinois. Students from Northwestern University grouped themselves into rescue teams to help. One student, Edward Spencer, saved 17 people from the sinking ship. After it was all over, he was so exhausted that he had to be carried back to his room. Yet the only worry that he voiced was, "Did I do my best? Do you think that I did my best?"

Decades later, the story of this rescue was being shared at a meeting in Los Angeles. A man in the crowd announced that the heroic student from Evanston happened to be right there in the room. Edward Spencer was invited to come forward; now an old man with white hair, he slowly climbed the steps to the speaker’s podium, while the room was filled with applause. Mr. Spencer was asked if anything in particular stood out in his memory. "Only this," the old man replied: "of the 17 people I saved, not one of them thanked me."

Such ingratitude is nothing new. In Luke, we see a notorious example from the life of Jesus. Jesus had been walking through the countryside, teaching about God’s kingdom of love. On this particular day, He was walking in an area populated by Galileans and Samaritans. Both of these groups were sneered at by the upper-crust Jews of Jerusalem. The people of Galilee were Jews, but they lived along major trade routes with other countries and they tended to adopt un-Jewish ideas and practices from the strangers that they dealt with. But in the eyes of any Jew, the Samaritans were much worse. These were the people who had come in and settled after many of the native Jews had been forcibly deported hundreds of years earlier. These foreigners had intermarried with the Jews who were allowed to remain, and their religion was so polluted with heathen beliefs that it was only barely Jewish. While a pious Jew could tolerate a Galilean, he would have nothing but contempt for a Samaritan.

Jesus was walking along the borderland between these two cultures, when His attention was caught by a group of ten lepers. In our modern world, AIDS is the dreaded disease passed along by human contact that has no cure; in Jesus’ time, leprosy was such a disease. Leprosy was a contagious disease of the skin. Those afflicted were required to live away from all other people and they could not be touched—to touch a leper was to become unclean and unable to worship in God’s holy Temple. Since lepers were cut off from everyone else, they banded together to find shelter and food. Under these conditions, it is not surprising for Jesus to find among these lepers both Galileans and Samaritans.

But even though they lived as social outcasts, these lepers had heard of Jesus and His miraculous acts of healing. So when Jesus enters the area where they live, these ten men call out for help. They do not approach Jesus; out of respect for His health and the health of those with Him, they maintain their distance. But their voices can be heard, and so they cry "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"

This is a cry of faith. The ten afflicted men address Jesus as their Master, as someone who has power and authority. By addressing Jesus the way they do, they are announcing their belief that Jesus even has mastery over matters of life and death. They plead for mercy; they ask Jesus to free them from the living hell that their lives have become, living in sickness and isolation.

Jesus always seeks to strengthen the faith of those who trust in Him. So instead of giving them an instant cure, Jesus tells the men to go and show themselves to a priest. Only a priest had the authority to declare that a leper was free of disease and could move back in with family and friends. Of even greater importance, only a priest could offer a sacrifice on the leper’s behalf to make him clean before God once more, and thus be able to start worshipping in the Temple once again.

By telling the men to present themselves to a priest for inspection, Jesus implied that they would be found clean by the time that they arrived. But to walk away from the Savior, still diseased, required an act of faith. They had heard that Jesus was able to cure leprosy, but if they left, would they be able to find Him again? However, each of these men had faith in his heart, faith that Jesus could and would make good on His promise, and so they left Him. Luke tells us, as they went, they were cleansed. Because they had faith, they received the blessing of Jesus.

But only a Samaritan, after realizing that he was cured, came back to thank Jesus. What of the other nine? We are not told what went through their minds, but they were men like us and we can hazard some guesses.

Some of them may have been so overjoyed at their cure that their first thoughts were of the future—reuniting with family and friends, moving back home, buying new clothes and getting back to work. They may have gotten so wrapped up in the blessings of life that they forgot about giving thanks until Jesus was long gone.

Some of them may have figured that a trip back to Jesus to thank Him was unnecessary. After all, when they had been declared cured by the priest, they would be giving an offering in the Temple anyway, so why take the time to double back and thank Jesus now?

Some of them may even have felt that since they were Jews and Jesus was a Jew, He was only doing what God had sent Him to do, to minister to the needs of God’s people—no need to thank someone for doing their job, is there?

But the Samaritan reacted differently. He did not let his new health distract him. He did not put off giving thanks ‘til later. He did not take this great blessing for granted. As soon as he saw that he was healed, the Samaritan turned around and came back to Jesus, prostrating himself in humility and thanking Jesus publicly.

In God’s eyes, we have all been lepers. All of us were born with a disease that no human physician could cure, the disease of sin. Like leprosy, sin cuts us off from contact with others. Sin causes us to hurt each other through harsh words, greedy selfishness, or thoughtless betrayal. We constantly desire to get our own way, and we make each other mad when we can’t agree on who should get his way. We hurt each other, and because of that hurt we stop trusting each other. When we stop trusting each other, we stop telling each other how we really feel, because we are afraid to be vulnerable. Eventually we stop sharing anything meaningful with others, and our lives become a lonely prison of distrust and fear. Sin isolates us every bit as much as leprosy or AIDS can.

But Jesus came to free us from our sickened isolation. Jesus became Master over sin by dying on the cross; sin’s power to do harm was exhausted on Jesus, who proved Himself stronger than sin. The curse of sin is death, and Jesus broke that curse by rising alive from the grave, alive never to die again. Because Jesus overpowered sin He is the Master of all, the Master who can show mercy to those who cry out, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"

Jesus cleansed the ten lepers from their skin disease; as a result, they were able to walk the streets with their loved ones again, and even more importantly they were allowed to return to God’s Temple and sing praises to their Lord. When we plead for release from the oppression of our sins, Jesus cleanses us; with our sins forgiven, we have the courage to apologize to those who we’ve wronged, and we have the love to forgive the people who have hurt us. It is the forgiveness of sins that makes it possible to live together in trust, instead of living isolated in despair. But of even greater importance is the fact that Jesus’ forgiveness allows us to approach our holy God once more, and offer Him thanks for His great mercy towards us.

Jesus said, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?" Our Lord expects a response from us for His blessings. Jesus does not expect us to repay Him for all that He has done for us—that is clearly an impossibility. But He does look for our gratitude and praise. Jesus does not want us getting so distracted by His blessings that we forget about the Giver of the gifts. Jesus does not want us to make Him a lesser priority in our lives, somebody that we’ll get around to thanking later. And Jesus does not want us to take His blessings for granted. Jesus looks to see if we are truly grateful for what He did on the cross for us. Jesus wants us to say thank you. We can say thank you by singing praises to Him in church. We can say thank you to Him when we give Him credit for our blessings as we talk about our lives with our neighbors and friends. We can say thank you to our Lord by making time every day to tell Him how important He is to us in prayer.

Jesus does not focus His attention on the wonders of this world—He focuses His attention on you. Jesus does not make you a secondary priority—your eternal welfare is His first priority. Jesus does not take you for granted—He loves you, He protects you, and He seeks to strengthen your faith through the offering of His gifts of Word and Sacrament. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for Your forgiveness, Your love, and Your care. May You be first in our hearts as we are first in Yours.