Dear Preachers:
We learned from our earliest days to say, “Thank you.” Our parents handing us a piece of candy or fruit would say, “And what do you say?” We would respond, “Thank You,” to the gift or favor offered us. When we didn’t we would be dutifully reminded, “What do you say?” Then we remembered, “Thank You.”
Today those words are echoed by the one cured leper who realized Jesus was the source of his cure “and thanked him.” As a matter of proper etiquette we learn to say “thank you” when a favor is done for us. But today’s gospel isn’t meant to be a lesson in etiquette.
Jesus didn’t just cure a man’s skin disease. Leprosy was considered a punishment by God for a person or family’s sin. So lepers were both religious and social outcasts. The visible marks of their disease was equivalent to a sign around their neck announcing, “I am a sinner.” If a member of the community came in contact with the leper they too would be outcasts. Therefore, we can see how leprosy would be seen as a sign of sin in the community, a contagion passed from one generation to the next.
Jesus didn’t just cure Jewish lepers. Among the cured was a Samaritan, the one who returned to give thanks. Samaritans were traditionally hated by the Jews. Think about the layers of rejection the Samaritan leper would have felt. He would not only have been rejected by his own community, but even by other Jewish lepers. What’s more, he not only had a dreaded disease, but he would have interpreted it as a punishment from God and felt completely abandoned in his misery. Misery doesn’t get much deeper than that!
We can understand why leprosy is a symbol in the Scriptures for sin. Like leprosy our sin cuts us off from others and even from ourselves. Our guilt can also make us feel separated from God. It’s no wonder that people who have violated religious norms or social customs will often describe the consequences in their lives, “I feel like a leper.” Prisoners, also ostracized from society, will say the same.
Jesus overcame many religious and social taboos throughout his ministry. He touched the untouchables and allowed the outcasts to draw close to him. He healed them and ate with sinners. Today, in his words about the Samaritan, he underlines what has been happening throughout his ministry: the poor, the sick and sinners have come to him and have recognized God’s hand of mercy extended to them. Since they did not have their own righteousness to claim before God, they were humble enough to recognize God’s gift to them in Jesus. In many ways those who experienced God’s favor did what our cured leper did today, they realized Jesus was the source of God’s healing and they glorified God because of him.
Jesus instructed the lepers to go show themselves to the priests. He was directing them back to the Temple. Which is a challenge to our modern church. Whom have we cast out or ignored in our religious environs? Who are those considered “unclean” among us? Since the ‘80s we have been quick to respond, “People with AIDS.” It seemed like the right response since they, like the lepers, bear visible marks of their illness and were often ostracized. But there are others: the divorced and remarried, women who have had abortions, gays, other races, refugees, prisoners, ex-felons, etc. Many have left our “temple” and looked elsewhere for a welcoming and supportive faith community.
On first glance the gospel seems like one of Jesus’ many healing stories. When the nine lepers come to Jesus asking for mercy we expect the usual, compassionate response from Jesus, “Be healed.” Instead, he sends them to the priests and it is when they are away from Jesus, who is the focus of the whole gospel, that they are healed. The Samaritan alone returns back to the center of the story, Jesus. Jesus then asks about the others who were cured, “Where are the other nine?”
They were doing as Jesus told them; going to show themselves to the priests. They followed the rules. But the least among them, because he was a Samaritan, would not have been welcomed in the Temple before the priests. He had no future there. Instead, he followed his heart, which was overflowing with gratitude.
You probably have already heard this: the 14th century Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart, said, “If the only prayer you ever say is, ‘Thank you,’ it would be enough.” Because, in that brief expression of gratitude, is the acknowledgment that however unworthy we might be, God has come out to us and gifted us with grace — full acceptance into the company of God and the saints. If, like that leper, we realize as we travel through life, that God has spontaneously reached out with healing and forgiveness and has raised us to the dignity of children in God’s household — and indeed that has already happened — what other prayer need we say but, “Thank you”?
Besides the lepers traveling to Jerusalem, Luke tells us that Jesus was also on the road there. A subtle reminder that Jesus has joined us and become part of a sinful and needy world. When he gets to the Holy City he will be arrested and crucified. The religious establishment will make sure he is punished for his consistent violation of their purity laws, like touching lepers and also for his preaching God’s universal love for all — even Samaritans. There, in Jerusalem, through his death and resurrection the rest of us humans, also travelers on a road like those lepers, will receive healing and restoration on our way.
At this Eucharist we Samaritans return to Jesus with gratitude for the forgiveness and welcome we have received freely from Christ in this community and among family, friends and strangers beyond this temple’s walls. We have heard the good news of Jesus at this Eucharist and soon we will get up and come forward to receive and continue celebrating thanksgiving in the eucharistic bread and wine.
No, it isn’t mere etiquette nicety that stirs us to say “Thank you” today. It is a reminder of what our God has done for us, and how through Christ, we have been welcomed here again. Which raises the question: who are the outsiders whom we must welcome into our lives and our community? What we have received here today should enable us to do just that. Let the whole church say, “Thank you.”