20. Sunday after Pentecost, 10/10/2010

Sermon on Luke 17:15-17, by Steve Saxe

15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?

In last week's Gospel reading, Jesus spoke of a master NOT thanking a slave for doing what was commanded, making the point that when we do what we ought to do, we do not deserve thanks from the one to whom obligation is due.

In this morning's gospel, thanklessness is not only addressed, it's seen in action. The kind of thanklessness that our parents hounded us about if we failed to acknowledge a benefit: a gift given or a kindness shown. Do you remember mom or dad saying "don't forget to write a thank-you note" after Christmas or birthday? The parental hounding was intended to teach us that kindness should be recognized. A benefit given deserves an expression of gratitude.

This morning Jesus shows us how gratitude & faith in God are inseparable. Giving thanks is what Christians do; how they live. For faith that receives Christ's benefits produces a living thanks. A "thank you" that is seen not only in the formalities of polite behavior, such as thank you notes, but in active response.

Consider the change seen in the healed Samaritan leper in vs. 19: Get up & go on your way; your faith has made you well. What is significant in this gospel is NOT the fact that 9 were ungrateful & one thankful, but the connection seen between life & gratitude. For notice how the thanks of that single leper emerges out of a living faith in God just as a reflex follows a stimulus! And Jesus' words, "Your faith has made you well," are said to only one of 10 that are healed.

But what about the other nine? Weren't they well? Jesus had indeed healed them, but not because they had faith & were thus able to receive healing; Jesus healing action was given out of His mercy! In this instance, faith wasn't a requirement for healing from Jesus! Both the miraculous healing and faith were the result of Jesus' kindness! Yet...even though ten received mercy, only one praised God & gave thanks to Jesus. How do we explain the lack of gratitude?

Have you ever wondered why some people receive healing from God & get better while others don't? Some Christian teachers make the claim that "If you just have enough faith, God will heal you." As if healing is some sort of proof or guarantee that comes with genuine faith! Nonsense! Let us note that Jesus only mentions faith after the group healing, not before! The other nine certainly experienced a miracle; they were healed, and they went to the temple as directed for the required exam & declaration of cleansing by the priest. Yet only one out of the group of 10 returned. Prompting Jesus to ask: "Were not 10 made clean? But the other 9, where are they? It is only then that Luke tells us that the one was a Samaritan -a foreigner.

Samaritans were from north of Judea who were considered outsiders the covenant of Israel. Though they believed in the God revealed in the Torah, they didn't even consider the temple necessary, and like Gentiles, were restricted in access to it. That this particular Samaritan was also a leper meant that he was excluded on two counts: first, for the social stigma of being a Samaritan, and second, for having an illness that by the requirements of Levitical Law meant separation from the healthy community.

So our Samaritan leper was excluded on two counts, but he does what he can! That something more than healing had happened to him was clear! For not only was he cleansed, but he was also "made well" His encounter with Jesus brought faith; something more than miraculous healing! And it was this living faith that prompted him to turn around, return to Jesus and give praise & thanks to God! The God that the healed leper saw revealed in the man Jesus. And so he did what we say in the liturgy of the Sacrament: it is right to give Him thanks & praise!

This lone leper had gained so much more than healing; He saw God in action, and by faith recognized Jesus for who he is: Messiah & God. For he praised God with a loud voice & prostrated himself at Jesus' feet because He recognized in Jesus something that the other nine, who were heirs to the covenant of Israel did not see.

We know that the place to praise God is at the feet of Jesus. Faith connects the praising God and worshiping -falling on one's face at his feet- and thanking Jesus. The other nine who were healed may have believed that their cure was from God, but they failed to make the connection between God seen and known in Jesus of Nazareth. The nine may have praised God during the entire journey to the temple, but only one -an outsider- saw what could only be seen by the gift of faith: Jesus is God in the form of human flesh!

Author Robert Barron puts it this way:

Origen of Alexandria once remarked that holiness is seeing with the eyes of Christ. Teilhard de Chardin said with great passion that his mission as a Christian thinker was to help people see, and Thomas Aquinas said that the ultimate goal of the Christian life is a "beatific vision," an act of seeing.

God in Jesus not only healed the one leper; He also made him "well." So well, in fact, that His way of knowing and seeing God changed, prompting a turn around with praise, thanks & worship. Made alive in Christ, the lone Samaritan leper offered only what he had: thanks.

Can we do any less? As Christians, we believe and confess that God's grace is directed to all people and that Jesus Christ gave Himself for the sins of the world. Yet we know that increasingly, only some people respond with praise and thanks to God for what He gives in Jesus; and though we cannot explain why, we know that like the 9 lepers, some just don't "get it" when it comes to Christ. They resist and reject what Christ offers.

Fr. Martin Luther once said that "the only thing we bring to our salvation is sin and resistance!"

So we, who claim salvation by grace know that the ONLY reason that we believe is because God made it happen! He didn't wait for us to have enough faith, and then forgive our sins, heal us or do something else! God does not tell us, "If you only have enough faith, I will send Jesus to suffer and die for your sins." It is because we had no faith that he sent us Jesus. As Paul writes in Romans 5:8: "God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us." The Christian faith we depend upon and believe does not begin with us, but with the God who acts first and only in order to give us faith. Who acts when we are unable to do so; who acted for our life and salvation when Jesus took on our humanity and then offered that perfect humanity on the cross...and who acted 3 days later by destroying sin & death. It is those same "acts of God" that lead us to belief, and that faith prompts us to respond with living thanks and praise. Which is exactly what we gather here to do this morning in the liturgy of the Eucharist; a word that means "thanksgiving."

At this altar, the same wellness that Jesus brought to the Samaritan leper is offered to us in our sin & resistance. The act of God in Christ's cross, "given & shed for you" is what makes us well...as well as one can be. Alive to God through the forgiveness of our sin and resistance.

The rest of the world may be like the nine lepers. Graced by God in so many ways, but not recognizing the source of such blessings.

We have been graced by the Holy Spirit to see, believe, to turn, and to do as Luther says in the conclusion of the 1st article of the Creed: Therefore I surely ought to thank and praise, serve and obey God. This is most certainly true. Such is the thanks found and formed in the living God revealed in Jesus Christ. It is indeed a living thanks! Amen!

Pr. Steve Saxe

E-Mail: lcgs1601

(top)