Luke 17:11-19

Thanksgiving Sunday | October 8, 2023 | Luke 17:11-19 | Brad Everett |

Our gospel for this Thanksgiving Sunday begins with 10 lepers approaching Jesus as he enters a village. The 10 keep the appropriate distance from our Lord which was important, because leprosy was and is a highly contagious disease, and avoiding contact with someone infected was the main way of preventing its spread. This also meant that lepers were effectively banned from their community. Living on the outskirts, family or friends would leave food or other supplies for them but there was always the distance, never any close contact. Thus, lepers not only suffered physically from the disease, but also emotionally and mentally, isolated from family, friends and loved ones – their only real companions being others who were likewise afflicted.

They obviously know of Jesus and the healings he performed as they called to him by name, asking him to have mercy on them.

Jesus’ response is rather odd compared to the other healing accounts in the Gospels. He doesn’t go to the lepers, touch them, pray for them, or even make a declaration about their healing. Instead, Jesus simply tells them to go show themselves to the priests. According to the law of Moses, the priests were the ones who examined individuals infected with skin diseases to determine whether they had the disease or were healed. The priests weren’t thought of like doctors who treated the disease, they simply made the determination of clean or unclean.

Yet, even with no touch, prayer or pronouncement about healing, the ten go as Jesus told them to – a stunning display of faith on their part. And as they went, as they were walking to see the priests, the lepers were made clean, completely healed of their disease.

Then one of them noticed that he was healed, and rather than continue on to see the priests and have the healing officially confirmed, he turns back, praising God with a loud voice and throwing himself at Jesus’ feet thanking him.

Jesus expresses some surprise, perhaps disappointment that only one of the ten returned to give praise to God, and that the one was a Samaritan – a foreigner i.e. not a Jew, who wouldn’t be expected to do such a thing.

Notice that nothing is said about the other nine – there is no indication that their neglect to return and give thanks affected being cured of leprosy.

But Jesus does make a significant statement to the one who returned – “get up, go on your way, your faith has made you well.”

The English rendering of this might make us think that Jesus is just talking about the man’s physical condition – i.e. he acted in faith to Jesus’ instruction to go to the priests, and as he did was healed of the sickness.

But there is a deeper meaning here to “made you well” – which can be overlooked perhaps because of the huge value we place on physical healing, often to the exclusion of other, even more crucial kinds of healing that God wills to work in us.

The connotation of the Greek word here is, made you whole, saved or rescued you, which addresses more than the obvious physical issues the man had.

Faith didn’t simply play role in curing his disease, it did something much more – it drove him back to Christ. It didn’t leave him merely glad to be healed of leprosy for this life, rather his faith led him back to the one who could give him eternal life.

His thankfulness is evidence of the healing God worked and the wholeness to which he was restored.

Thankfulness is a good barometer of one’s faith life, because one who is thankful is properly oriented towards God.

Now being thankful does not mean looking at the world through “rose-coloured glasses” or living in willed, blissful ignorance, refusing to acknowledge any of the hardships or challenges that life can bring. Nor is thankfulness only paying attention to God when times get hard and fixating on the question “why me?”

Rather, thankfulness is the ability and willingness to look to and for God in any and every situation, good or bad – trusting that He is present, perhaps not as we might expect or even want, but as He knows we most need.

And sometimes it really is a matter of trust – because there certainly are situations where one is hard pressed to see God’s presence, but thankfulness trusts not in what we might see or even feel, but in Jesus’ promise never to leave or forsake us.

Extreme circumstances aside, more often than not, thankfulness is a matter of being mindful of God and the blessings large and small, ordinary and extraordinary he has so graciously given. To be fair, encouragement towards thankfulness can sound trite, some version of “when life gives you lemons make lemonade” – unless the object of that gratitude is God.

So, for example in my life – it would be easy to get upset about the mountain of laundry we have until I recall God has not only blessed me with a large family (five people create more laundry than only two, or one), but that we have clothes to wear. Dirty dishes are evidence that we have food to eat. The cooler weather of fall and then winter don’t bring me much joy but I do have a warm, dry house. Days when I get frustrated by administrative matters with the congregation or the larger church (and to be honest I have a fairly low frustration level) I remember to give thanks such things are my main stresses with the church, unlike our brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world who suffer under persecution, whose very lives are at risk because of their faith.

In this way, gratitude isn’t dependent on the circumstance, because the object of our thankfulness isn’t so much given situation than God who we trust to be present in it. It is about keeping our focus on Him. The leper who quickly returned to Christ – it wasn’t just that he was healed of this disease but that by God’s grace his faith made him whole, turning him back towards his creator and saviour.

Thankfulness, gratitude, giving glory to God for all things, we know we are on the right track, because our attention is not on “all things”, but on God who is with us in the midst of it all, working for our life and salvation.

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Brad Everett

Ascension Lutheran Church

Calgary, AB, Canada

everettsts@gmail.com