Readings: Galatians 5: 16 – 24; Luke 17: 11 – 19
I have a little cat. Every night we shut her downstairs so that she can go in and out of the house through the cat flap, but she can’t come and wake us up in the night. Every morning my husband goes downstairs to open the door, and she comes upstairs to say hullo to me. She’s always very friendly at this time of day. Eventually, I get the hint, and I go downstairs and give her some breakfast. After that she’s rather less interested in me and generally goes off out into the garden. She doesn’t come and say thank you for her breakfast – because I have now fulfilled my function as her slave who sees to all her needs. Her friendliness towards me – at least at this time of day – is based on her need; it isn’t the depth of affection or love that is possible between human beings or between human beings and God.
We’ve just heard about an occasion when someone did say thank you. Jesus was travelling in the countryside between Samaria and Galilee when he met a group of lepers. Because of the fear of infection, such people were made to live outside towns and cities, cut off from life and their families. But they often gathered near travelling routes so that they could beg for alms. This group called out to Jesus, not daring to come too close. He didn’t declare them healed; instead He told them to go and show themselves to the priests. This was the ritual requirement before healed lepers could return to society. They all hurried off, and it was as they obeyed Jesus’ instruction that they discovered they had been healed. One of them, when he realised what had happened, came back to thank Jesus. The other nine were rather like my little cat. Their need had been met and now they just wanted to get on with their lives.
It can be an interesting exercise to try to place oneself in a Bible story, and especially one that is familiar. I wonder where we might find ourselves in this one? We may feel like one of the lepers who was healed, rejoicing in all the sudden new possibilities of life. Or perhaps we’re one of Jesus’ disciples, or a more detached onlooker – witnessing it all and wondering what to make of it? Or perhaps we feel ourselves most like the one leper who returned – full of gratitude for all that Christ has done for us? Using our imagination in this way can teach us about our own relationship with God.
The leper who was healed – that’s to say the one who gave thanks for his healing – was a Samaritan, an outsider and from a race despised by Jews. While He commends his faith, Jesus is saddened that only the foreigner returned to praise God for the healing. His own people, like my little cat, had had their needs met and were not interested in pursuing the relationship further. As Christians we too need to retain our sense of thankfulness to God. Because we too were once outsiders, but have been brought into the kingdom through the grace of God. If we do not do this our faith may become routine. We may even become like the Pharisees and behave as though we’re entitled to our status as God’s children. As one commentator puts it:
“It is often the stranger in the church who sings heartily the hymns we have long left to the choir, who expresses gratitude for blessings we had not noticed, who listens attentively to the sermon we think we have already heard, who gets excited about our old Bible, and who becomes actively involved in acts of service to which we send small donations. Must it always be so?”
So what did the grateful Samaritan gain from returning to thank Jesus which the others did not? He had a private conversation with Jesus. He was brought into much closer relationship with Him, an adult relationship of reciprocity rather than a childish self-centred one which calls out to God only to satisfy a need and then forgets Him. For us too a simple attitude of thankfulness to God can enormously enrich our relationship with Him. It doesn’t mean that our problems are all over, of course – doubtless there would have been challenges ahead for all of the ten lepers. But it will transform our prayer and our thinking. We don’t sing any hymns at 8:00 o’clock, but I’d like to end by reading some verses from Joseph Addison’s great hymn of thanks and praise:
When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul survey;
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love and praise.
O how shall words with equal warmth
Thy gratitude declare
That glows within my ravished heart!
But thou canst read it there.
Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From whom these comfort flowed.
When in the slippery path of youth
With heedless steps I ran.
Thine arm unseen conveyed me safe
And led me up to man.
Through every period of my life
Thy goodness I’ll pursue,
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.
Amen