Day of Thanksgiving, 11/26/2020

Sermon on Luke 17:11-19 | by Paul Bieber | 

Luke 17.11-19 Revised Standard Version

¹¹ On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance ¹³ and lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” ¹⁴ When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 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 said Jesus, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? ¹⁸ Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Giving Thanks and Saving Faith

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

Thanksgiving Day is an American holiday and a Christian occasion (not even a Commemoration, much less a Festival, on the Liturgical calendar). When the Mayflower landed at Plymouth (not England; rather, what would be called Massachusetts) in 1620, hard times lay ahead for the colonists, the Pilgrims, who signed the Mayflower Compact. Half of them did not survive the first winter. When, in 1621, they finally brought in a harvest, they celebrated with the Wampanoags, the local Native Americans (with whom they lived in peace until King Philip’s War in 1675). (Canadians also celebrate Thanksgiving Day, but theirs is in October and traces back to the explorer Martin Frobisher in 1578.)

Celebrations of Thanksgiving Day in the United States were pretty sporadic until President Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving in 1863. In some ways 1863 is a turning point year in the American Civil War—the Emancipation Proclamation, the fall of Vicksburg, the battle of Gettysburg—but hard times still lay ahead for our divided nation. But, as the Mayflower Compact had based its commitment to “just and equal Laws” on the Christian faith of the Pilgrims, so Lincoln invoked “the ever watchful providence of Almighty God . . . [i]n the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity,” in calling for the observance of a Day of Thanksgiving.

As the global pandemic drags on and the man who will probably become the next President predicts a “dark winter,” hard times lie ahead for our divided nation. The Pilgrims who survived their sea voyage and dreadful winter gave thanks to the God whose providence had nevertheless appeared to them in the form of a harvest. Americans in the midst of a Civil War that took the lives of 620,000 of their countrymen nevertheless gave thanks to the God whose providence transcended and even somehow encompassed newspaper lists of the dead. Can we Christians find some gratitude even on this dark and divided Thanksgiving Day, which Americans in many states have basically been forbidden to celebrate?

The story of the ten lepers whom Jesus encountered on his way to Jerusalem is always the Gospel for Thanksgiving Day. It begins with the appropriately socially-distanced lepers—per the public health guidance of Numbers 5.2–4—crying out to Jesus for mercy. We have cried out for mercy through this year, if not for ourselves, then for family and friends afflicted by the virus. That is our vocation as Christians: to be in prayer at the place where mercy is found in the midst of pain.

Jesus sees the lepers and grants them mercy. Rather like Elisha healing the Syrian leper Naaman in II Kings 5 by sending him to wash and be clean, Jesus simply sends the lepers to the priests, who, in accordance with Leviticus 14, would make the offerings that would certify  the lepers’ cleansing. Even simpler than “wash and be clean,” Jesus’ command is that they act as though they have been cleansed. And all ten lepers have the faith to obey this command: they go, and as they go, they are cleansed. No more than Elisha does Jesus have to come out and call on the name of the Lord and wave his hand over the spot and cure the leprosy.

Well, then, why hasn’t Christ the healer brought the pandemic to a merciful end? Should we imitate the ten lepers and act as if he has? Alas, there are no priests to offer the levitical sacrifices, and no temple in which to offer them. And the story isn’t about imitating the ten, anyway. It’s about imitating the one: the one who, surprised by his healing, stopped obeying Jesus’ command to go to the priests. Rather, he turned around, praising God. But not even this is the point of the story. Praising God is a standard response in Luke–Acts to the working of a wonder.

It’s not the faith to obey and its not praising God when something unexpectedly good happens right in the midst of hard times. It’s what the Samaritan leper does next. He prostrates himself before Jesus in worship and gives him thanks–eucharistōn. He recognizes that the wonderful thing in the story is not his healing as such, but the healing presence of Jesus. He goes back to give thanks, even though that means disobeying Jesus’ command to obey the ancient Law.

The one cleansed leper’s turning back to Jesus to give him thanks shows that his response to the surprise healing is not simply obedience, nor a generalized praise of God, but more than these. It is courageous trust in the surprise recognition of the gratuitous nature of life itself, of life as given. This trust is gratitude, which shows itself as thanksgiving. Jesus recognizes this as he gives the cleansed leper a new command: Rise—anastas—and go your way. Pistis sou sesoken se, which is a bit stronger than “your faith has made you well.” Sōzo is “to save.” Rise, your faith has saved you.

Our vocation in hard times is to be in prayer at the place where mercy is found in the midst of pain. That place is the healing presence of Jesus himself, and in his death and resurrection above all. Our trust in him, his dying and rising, finding life by losing it, is the faith that saves, even in dark and divided times. No Thanksgiving Day Parades, no football as we had enjoyed it before Covidtide, no family gatherings in California at least, but there is the gratuitous gift of life itself, and our gratitude that shows itself as we pilgrim prisoners of hope give thanks for the gift, and the voice of the Giver that responds to our gratitude with a new command: Rise, your faith has saved you.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net