Learning to be thankful (Luke 17:11-19)

Trinity 19 (10^th October 2010)

Text: Luke 17: 11-19

 

I put the theme today as learning to be thankful because we are not naturally thankful people.   Somehow, one way or another, the attitude of gratitude seems to be missing.  There are many reasons why.  It may be due to that fact that we often don’t realize how blessed we are.  Some people are always looking at what they are lacking at, and so It is hard for them to be thankful for what they have.  A great deal of time we don’t know how thankful we ought to be, until what we have is threatened to be taken away.

Someone once said that gratitude is the source for all other Christian virtues. If that is true then it is also true that ingratitude can be attributed to the many problems we have in this world.  When people are ungrateful they often take for granted what God has done for them: they may think good things happen because of them and that often leads to pride. They will think that without them, things will never get done.  They may even think God owes it to them; that they deserve His blessings.  But I want to tell you that when we reach that point, we can no longer be useful to God.  In fact we become an obstacle to God’s purpose.

Our gospel reading for this morning gives us an example of people taking the Lord’s blessings for granted.  Of the ten lepers healed, only one returned to thank Jesus.  While we may like be critical of the nine lepers, yet, they are a reflection of our churches and our own personal lives.  How many people are truly thankful people? How many people really give thanks to God “in every thing” as instructed in 1 Thessalonians 5:18?

Let us look at the story again: I am sure all of us are familiar with it but it does us no harm to study it again, and hear what God is trying to say to us through the story of these 10 lepers.  We don’t know much about these guys, except that we know one of them was a Samaritan.  Obviously, they came from different backgrounds, and they might be of different ages.  But somehow, their common suffering brought them together.

We need to understand that leprosy was a feared disease in those days because there was no known cure. The Mosaic Law pronounced a leper as being “unclean”. He would be unfit to enter into the tabernacle, or the Temple, to worship.  According to the law of the day (Num. 5:2-3), a leper must leave his town or village.  He could no longer live with his family and mix around with his friends.  The Law also required that he wore torn clothes as a sign of extreme sorrow, and that his face must be covered and he would have to shout “unclean” whenever anyone came close to him.  No other disease was a bad as leprosy in those days. To suffer from leprosy was essentially to suffer alone until you die.  The leper was made an outcast from society because of fear that the leprosy would spread and infect others.

The suffering of a leper was not just a physical suffering or bodily discomfort. He also suffered from great loneliness.  To be a leper meant no intimacy with anyone, no friendship with anyone: a leper is a total outcast.  The Jews believed that leprosy was inflicted for the punishment of some particular sin: it was a mark of God’s displeasure.  If you were a leper, you essentially lost everything, your family, your job, and your property.   At the same time, it was this suffering that brought these ten men, who had been driven to live in a remote valley on the border between Samaria and Galilee, together.  (In case you may be wondering how these ten lepers knew Jesus would be coming to a place near them, I want to tell you that they got the news from family members and relatives who came to give them food).  As they could no longer work, the lepers had to be fed by family members and relatives.  So everyday they would come and lower down food and water with ropes, from the hillside into the valley.   It was on one of these days that the lepers received news that Jesus was coming to town.

So they waited for Jesus on the day that he was supposed to enter the village. When they saw him, they cried out “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”   And Jesus responded by simply telling them “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  And as they went to see the priests, they discovered the white spots and the open sores had disappeared.  

It is not too difficult to imagine their joy after being healed from that terrible disease that had plagued their bodies for so long.  Surely we would expect to see them running back to Jesus, thanking Him for cleansing them and giving them their lives back.  Instead only one man, a Samaritan, ran back to Jesus, praising God in a loud voice, fell at Jesus’ feet, and gave Him thanks and praise.  The other nine just walked on to see the priests.

The question that I want to ask here is: why was this Samaritan different from the other nine men?   What are the possible reasons that made him stop and run back to Jesus. There are four things that I want to bring out here. First of all, it was his perception of gratitude that made him different. This man was sensitive to the power of Christ working in him. He realized that Jesus had made a change in his life.   This is also true with us.  One way we can be different from others is by the way we perceive the ways that God has blessed us.   The fact that we are Christians and knowing the true God and his Son Jesus Christ is a blessing in itself that should keep us ever thankful.  The devil will do his best to keep our minds off these blessings of God.  He will constantly try to make feel discontented or dissatisfied, as I mentioned 2 Sundays ago.  

So we need to realize how much blessing we have in the Lord, because it is only then we can be thankful; and when we are thankful, our hearts will be full of love for the Lord.

The second thing that made the Samaritan different was when he saw that he was healed, he turned around immediately to give thanks to Jesus.  Even though Jesus had given the command to go to the priest but he delayed, he turned around and returned to Jesus because he realized the priority of gratitude and worship.  

Indeed God may command us as a Church to do many things, but we are first called, to give glory to Him above everything else.  When we forget this, we get ourselves distracted with building projects, with activities and programs, or trying to fulfil all the ritual requirements.   I believe as a church, we need to stop every now and then to give thanks to God.  Indeed we need to do God’s work, but we need to stop being busy and perform the higher calling, which is to give thanks and praise. 

Why is giving thanks so important?   If you are too busy to give thanks to God, you will soon find that your obedience has become a job to do; and you lose the meaning of what God really wants you to do.  That is when we start to complain and quarrel over little things, express our dissatisfactions and grouses:  and without realising it - we have become unthankful people.  That is why it is proper to give thanks and praise to the Lord for what He has done in our lives. Gratefulness and thankfulness keep us in proper perspective.

Third, as the Samaritan approached Jesus, he glorified God.  In other word, he made the Lord glorious; he manifested the worth of the Lord.  (That is where we get the term “worship” – it is manifesting the worth of God).  He came to Jesus and fell down before Him and gave Him thanks. And notice the extra blessing he receives as a result of this.  In verse 19, Jesus said, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

The man received something that the others did not receive.  He was not just healed of his leprosy but a new power was given to him that day.  That verse indicates that something great had started to happen in his life. It confirms that he was not just healed of leprosy; he was also forgiven of his sin and he had the faith to follow Christ.  All people, like the nine other lepers received various blessings from God, but not all end up having a deeper fellowship with Jesus Christ.  This man didn’t just receive healing and cleansing for his physical body, he received inner healing, cleansing for his soul and renewed heart. He was made whole.  On the other hand, the other nine men were rushing to the priest because they wanted to get the health certificate that declared them fit to go home, to return to their work, and to mingle with their friends.  But they forgot the one who made it possible for them to enjoy all these things. 

Are you enjoying the blessings of God now?  Have we allowed these material blessings to transform us into a “people of praise”?   

There can be a fourth reason why this Samaritan stopped and went back to Jesus to give thanks, while the other nine went on to see the priest.  I believe that Jesus was putting their faith to the test when he told them to go to the priest.  As they turned to obey, they were healed.  As I had pointed out earlier, a priest had to certify any healing before a leper could resume a normal life and resume contact with other people.  The nine were so eager to resume their normal lives, and as they rushed to see the priest and to perform the cleansing rituals that they forgot to give thanks.  Why didn’t the Samaritan join them, and instead turned to give thanks to Jesus?

I want you to remember that the Jews hated the Samaritans.  They were regarded by most Jews as illegitimate half-breeds, and they were not welcome at the Temple in Jerusalem.   Perhaps the Samaritan was thinking to himself, “What is the use of seeing the Jewish priest in the Temple of Jerusalem?  Any way the priest would not want to see me and declared me clean because I am a Samaritan.”   So he returned to give thanks to Jesus.  And that turned out to be a better decision than going to the priest and perform all the cleaning rituals!  Remember, it was Jesus who told the 10 lepers to see the priest so that a cleaning ritual could be done to enable them to return to society.  But when one of them did not go, but instead returned to give him thanks, Jesus said the man made a better choice compared to the other nine.  In his state of rejection, the Samaritan discovered that giving thanks was more important than performing religious rituals.

I do not want to be too critical about our Anglican Sunday worships, but sometimes our Church tend to have too many rituals at the expense of thanksgiving and praise.  We must remember that most of these rituals were developed in Europe during a period when people believed that worship of God must be formal, sombre and dignified.  So the practices of exuberant and joyful worship – dancing, the raising and clapping of hands were considered disrespectful.  Today we want to reclaim and encourage exuberant and lively worship, but it seems that rituals are not that easy to replace in some of our churches.  We are still bound by the idea that worship must be sombre and formal.         

Jesus asked the question: “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” I believe that Jesus is always asking the question about those who have been saved by His grace.  How many of the hundreds of people who have been baptised and confirmed each year, continue to come back to give him thanks and praise?   How many people have been blessed with material wealth, continue to give support to the church financially?  How many people who have been healed give themselves to serve in God’s church?  This story tells us that ten men got new bodies; but one got both a new body and a new heart because of his thankfulness.  Don’t forget to give thanks because that very word means a lot to Jesus.