Anna Pinckney Straight

First Presbyterian Church ~ New Bern, North Carolina

October 9, 2022

“Wholly Grateful”

Luke 17:11-19

11On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" 14When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

 

On the way to Jerusalem. 

That part is consistent. 

Luke has already established, in earlier verse,

that Jesus has a destination, a purpose to this trip. 

We begin, being reminded where Jesus is going.

 

But then, Luke takes us to a place that isn’t really on the map,

the region between Galilee and Samaria. 

There isn’t, actually, a region between Galilee and Samaria.

 

One scholar suggests it is the borderlands.[1] 

 

Another scholar suggests that it Luke is intentionally creating an

in-between space, writing: [2]

but the vagueness and ambiguity of the geographical reference in 17:11, therefore, is suggestive. Jesus is walking through a liminal zone, a place of transition, a place “between,” where neither Galilean nor Samaritan is at “home.”

 

And this is an important place for us to consider. 

 

What happens in between spaces? What do they feel like? Is it a place where you are comfortable?

 What is it like living in a place where we are not at our origin but not at our destination, either?

 

When we are post-covid, but not really.

When the enormity of grief has yet to be grasped.

When the problems we see in front of us are so big it makes it hard to move.

When the place you thought was your home turns out not to be?

Where are you right now in relation to these borderlands, and is it where you want to be?

 

It is in this place of between that Jesus meets

ten men with leprosy. 

Not ten lepers as most modern translations offer it.

The Greek more literally tells us, ten men who have a skin disease.[3]

 

They implore Jesus, master, to have mercy on them. 

They acknowledge Jesus is not just like them. 

Not their equal. 

 

And Jesus, likewise, sees them. 

He sees them. Knows them. 

The Greek goes beyond vision to include

“experience, perceive, discern.”[4]


Jesus knows them. 

And tells them to go to the priest to present themselves.


To the priest, a place and a person

 they would not have previously been able to go. 

They would have been considered other. Suspicious. Unclean. Unworthy.


A place where, when they go, they need the authorization of the priest to be there.

 

And, we hear next,

“And it happened in the leaving him they were cleansed.”[5]

 

They are cleansed. While they are on their way to the priest. 

The place where Jesus has told them to go.

 

Only, there is one man out of the ten, who,

when seeing he is cleansed, he doesn’t, can’t, do what Jesus says.


So overwhelmed, amazed, and in awe of being made clean, he cannot help but praise. Give thanks. Give Glory to God. 


This is no ordinary praise. The language compares to the reaction of the shepherds to hearing the news of Jesus’ birth and seeing the heavenly host burst into song.


This is the reaction of the disciples when they see Jesus taken up into heaven.[6]


This is praise on a whole other level.


It is here that Luke tells us the other piece of this story that is important. The one who returns is a Samaritan. 

The one who was considered other. 

Suspicious. 

By many malicious. 

Unlikely.

 

This is the one who returns.

 

And Jesus asks. 

Did not all ten have the same thing happen to them? 

Why weren’t the other nine overcome with gratitude,

the need to give glory to God?

 

And as it happens, so often, in the Bible,

God speaks through the one we do not expect. 

In the place, we didn’t think we would be.

The one we did not plan to like. 

The one we least thought had something to teach us.

It happens so often this is more a norm than an exception.

 

And the lesson is not even done, yet. 

Because what happens next is significant.

Jesus says, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

 

Which is a whole other thing than what has happened previously. 

Previously, the ten were healed of their leprosy.  And they are still healed. This man has been made well.

 

“Rescued from danger” 

“Restored to a former state of safety and well-being.”[7]

 

Because of his desire to Give God the glory. 

To give thanks. 

To live out the gratitude.

 

It changes everything.

 

And so it is with us, isn’t it?

 

Henri Nouwen reminds us that:[8]

Gratitude in its deepest sense means to live life as a gift to be received thankfully. And true gratitude embraces all of life: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not-so-holy. We do this because we become aware of God’s life, God’s presence in the middle of all that happens…. The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment can be claimed as the way of the cross that leads to new life.

 

 We give thanks to God, it is what God asks us to do,

but the reality is that we are the ones who are changed.

That’s how gratitude works. 

 

And I don’t know if the 1/10th is significant here, but it seems reasonable to connect this one man’s act of praise with tithing.

 

As I’ve told you before, I love tithing, giving 10% away.  

 

I hope that my giving accomplishes God’s will in the world, but I know that my giving it’s how it changes me - is an important part of my spiritual life. It’s why giving is not something God wants from us, it’s something God wants for us. Gratitude changes us. Makes us well.

 

Conspire Magazine, a periodical that explores some of the unique challenges of living out the gospel had an issue a few years ago focused on gratitude. In it, editor Dee Dee Risher wrote about the path she had taken with thanks, and gratitude, and how it changed her life.  She wrote:[9]

           Gratitude changes everything….A spirit of gratitude is different and deeper than being frequently thankful for specific things. A spirit of gratitude is actually a prayer for a change of vision….

 

Sometimes gratitude shows up in little things.

 

In a few weeks, kicking off on October 23 when you’ll get lots more information, we are going to re-start one First Presbyterian tradition, Coins for Hunger. Invite everyone to set aside a coin or two at each meal as a sign of gratitude, and bring those coins together on the First Sunday of each month as a part of the offering here at FPC so they can be sent to Religious Community Services, RCS, to combat hunger. We’re not asking a lot, just a little thing. A coin or two at each meal. A little act of gratitude that, practiced over time, can be transformative.

 

Sometimes gratitude becomes a lifeline in a big thing[10] Pastor Martin Rinkart was a minister in the Lutheran church in the 17th century. If you know his name you might know that he wrote the hymn we often sing in November, “Now Thank We All Our God, With Hearts and Hands and Voices.” What you might not know, what I did not know until fairly recently, was how deep his understanding of the importance of gratitude truly was. For he wrote those words not in a mountaintop moment but in the midst of a war. As Kent Millard tells the story, The city in which he lived “Eilenburg was a city of refuge for political and military fugitives, which meant it became severely overcrowded and experienced deadly pestilence, poverty, and famine. The armies overran it three times. Even though Pastor Rinkart had barely enough to provide for his own family, he opened his home to provide food and shelter to countless people in need. In 1637 the people of Eilenburg experienced a severe plague and as the only surviving pastor in the city Pastor Rinkart conducted as many as fifty funerals a day for those who died during the plague. Pastor Rinkart’s wife also died of the plague and he conducted her funeral.”

 

It was in the midst of this that he wrote these words. Words that spoke to the power of gratitude. Gratitude is not in ignorance of real life, but alongside it. Not in denial of grief, but accompanying it.  Deep gratitude. The kind of gratitude I’d like to have. Gratitude changes our vision. Changes us. Makes us well.

 

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,

with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us,

to keep us in his grace, and guide us when perplexed,

and free us from all ills of this world in the next.[11]

 

Sometimes gratitude comes easily. Like when your children are small and they are sleeping, peacefully, and you get that overwhelming rush of love for them.

 

Sometimes, like when that same child is having a meltdown in the cereal aisle at the grocery store and you can feel people staring, gratitude is a little harder to come by.

 

And, in their defense, I suspect children would say the same things about their parents. Sometimes we are easy to love and other times, not so much.

 

But whether the gratitude comes simply or is hard won, gratitude, thankfulness, make no mistake, changes everything. Changes how we live. How we love. How we see others. How we view the world.

 

What’s happening in your life that might be transformed by gratitude?

 

Where are you in your relationships, and how might that be renewed, reviewed, and seen anew through the eyes of gratitude?

 

What is God just waiting for you to return, praising him, in order to make you well?

 

Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."


[1] D. Mark Davis, this blog is a weekly translation of a text from the Revised Common Lectionary.

http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/10/cleanse-cure-and-make-whole.html

[2] John T. Carroll, “Between text and Sermon: Luke 17: 11-19” Interpretation 1 Oct 1999, 405.

[3] http://biblehub.com/interlinear/luke/17.htm

[4] http://biblehub.com/greek/3708.htm

[5] http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/10/cleanse-cure-and-make-whole.html

[6] https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/proper23c/#Luke=

[7] http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/luke17x11.htm

[8] Henri Nouwen, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing. (New York: Thomas Nelson, 2004). Page 11.

              books.google.com/books?isbn=0849945097  Retrieved June 1, 2013

[9]  Dee Dee Risher, “The Cloak of Gratitude.” CONSP!RE Magazine, Volume 5, Number 1, Winter 2013. Pages 9 – 11.

[10] Millard, Kent. The Gratitude Path: Leading Your Church to Generosity. Abingdon Press, 2015. Kindle edition.

[11] https://hymnary.org/text/now_thank_we_all_our_god