I imagine that most of us had that childhood experience where every request was followed by the question, “What do you say?” And then, once we received whatever it was we were seeking, our parents would follow-up with, “Now, what do you say?” Of course, this was our training in saying “Please” and “Thank you.” And if our parents were as successful as they probably wanted to be, the end result is that we now include “please” and “thank you” at all the appropriate times without even thinking about it. Yet, the problem with such rote practices is that the words can sort of lose their meaning because there is no true thought behind them. It’s almost as bad as if you just didn’t even say “thank you” at all.
When I was in college, I received one of the greatest life lessons ever, though in a most unfortunate way. My college marching band practiced quite early every Saturday morning during marching season. Well, on one of those Saturdays, the band director stopped on his way to campus and bought doughnuts and juice for the entire band. We all indulged mightily and enjoyed the special treat that day, only to find out two days later that not a single person in the band had bothered to thank the band director for his generous gesture. This man had left his home early and spent what must’ve been a considerable amount of his own money in order to give us a special treat on an early Saturday morning. And out of the roughly 85 members of the band who enjoyed those doughnuts that morning, not a single one of us had bothered to say “thank you” to our teacher. When the band director pointed this out to us a couple of days later, we quickly rushed to offer our thanks, but the damage was already done. It was too late.
But here’s the thing that we have to consider today. How would our “thank yous” be different if our lives literally depended on what someone else did for us? There was a story in the news a few years ago about two explorers who got lost in the South American jungle. For nine whole months they wandered about, not knowing where they were going or how to get out. Finally, after many scary adventures and often even giving up hope altogether, they were found and rescued. By that time, they may not have had enough energy to shout, but they would have felt it. Certainly, their relatives back home did! They must’ve showered the rescuers with thanks; we could even imagine them setting up some sort of fund as a tangible way of expressing their gratitude the people who had risked their own lives to save them.
It’s so easy for us to just throw out “thank yous” here and there and everywhere as we go about our day-to-day lives. It’s also quite easy for us to forget to say “thank you” from time to time when someone extends a nice gesture to us. But that changes quite a lot when our very life hangs in the balance and our well-being is in someone else’s hands. Or, at least, it should change. What we see in our scripture reading this morning, though, is that sometimes, we humans can’t muster a “thank you” even when someone has saved our lives. And how messed up is that?!?
Our reading from Luke this morning tells the story of ten lepers who were healed by Jesus. But the thing is, the story isn’t really about the healing, that’s more of a sidebar to the actual story, which is about the one leper who came back to Jesus to say “thanks.” And even as we consider the gratitude expressed by this leper, what Jesus really wants to teach us is a lesson of faith.
We tend to think of faith as some sort of quantitative thing; either you have it or you don’t, either you have enough of it to get what you desire, or you don’t. But once again, as with our scripture reading last week, we hear Jesus telling us not to be concerned with the quantity of faith, but instead to focus on the nature of faith. In other words, Jesus wants us to understand that to “have faith” is to live it, and to live it is to give thanks. It is living a life of gratitude that constitutes living a life of faith—this is the sort of grateful faith that has made this man from Samaria truly well. Indeed, Jesus wants us to see that “faith” and “gratitude” are really two words for the same thing: to practice gratitude is to practice faith. If faith is not something we have, but something we do, something we live, then in living we express our complete trust in God and offer all of our gratitude to God, the giver of all good things.
This can be difficult, though, can’t it? Because not everything in our lives is good. And so then doubt creeps into the equation, and we begin to wonder how we can have faith in a good and generous God when things are going so badly. And maybe that’s why those other nine lepers didn’t return to Jesus to give thanks; perhaps they were doubting the God who had allowed them to be made ill and cast out in the first place. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? A family member is taken away from us suddenly and tragically. Or we lose our job. Or a child is diagnosed with terminal cancer. And suddenly, it feels as if the foundation of our faith is ripped from beneath us.
But to that, Christ would say, be grateful anyway. That’s what this story of the healing of the ten lepers (or should we say the one leper?) is all about. Of course, we consider that leper’s healing, and we think, “Of course, he’s grateful, he was healed, his life got better. That makes it easy to give thanks.” But here’s the thing, that one leper wasn’t truly healed until he returned to give thanks to Christ. Only then did Jesus say, “Your faith has made you well.” And here’s the real lesson, faith can make us well too, even in the midst of pain and loss. Indeed, our faith may falter in such times, but to that Jesus says, in essence, be thankful anyway. Because there is yet much to thank God for, is there not?
We can be thankful for the family that still surrounds us. We can be thankful for the doctors and nurses who cared for our loved ones in their final moments, or who gave their all to help us through pain and on the way to healing after an accident or surgery or disease. We can be thankful for the church, and all who are a part of it, which supports us in the midst of tragedy. And even when it’s difficult to muster that sort of thankfulness, we can yet be thankful for the co-worker who bought our lunch last week, or the person who offered his place in line at the grocery store. We can be thankful for the roof over our heads, the clothes on our backs, and the food on our tables. Sometimes things may be so hopeless that we have to look in the most insignificant of places to find something for which to be thankful. But what Jesus wants us to know today is that, if we can do that, if we can express gratitude in even the smallest of ways, we will find ourselves on the road to true healing.
And isn’t that what this journey of Christian discipleship is all about; seeking faith in all things, at all times, and in all places? The demands of the Christian life are great. And sometimes, perhaps often times, we do not think we are well enough equipped. But Jesus reminds us that in living out our faith—by giving thanks in all things—we are given all the faith that we require. That means there is a lesson here for all of us; the healed and the sick, the delivered and the still bound, the successful and the out of work. If prayers of thanks are part of the soul’s healing and deliverance, then the physical circumstances of the pray-er (the one praying to God) become less important. It is thanking that saves the grateful leper, and such thankfulness is possible for all in every circumstance. One person can give thanks for his pleasant experience, while another thanks God for bolstering her during hardship.
If we can practice gratitude with intention, it will change our lives. That’s what we need to hear above all else. The ten lepers were healed by Jesus, but only the one leper who returned to give thanks was saved. We need to be deliberate about saying “thank you” everyday. We certainly can’t miss the opportunities that are right in front of us, like my college friends and I did, but we have to go even further than that. We have to seek out opportunities to say “thank you” to one another and especially to God. And we have to do that most especially when it feels as if there is nothing even worth giving thanks for.
I shared with you last week that I have struggled with doubt in recent weeks, something which strikes us all from time to time. Well, I decided this week to heed this lesson from Luke’s gospel. And I began to think of all that I have to be thankful for. I even wrote a few “thank you” notes to some people who have been Christ to me in difficult times. I can’t tell you that this practice instantly made those feelings of doubt vanish. But what I can say is that in the midst of doubt, I found that there is still so much for which to give thanks. God really is good; the practice of giving thanks helped remind me of that simple truth. And when we can see God’s goodness, even in dark times, then we can indeed have faith.
Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the story of a visit to a veteran’s hospital. He says, “The day I arrived to visit, I saw a touching scene. This man had a young son, and during his confinement in the hospital, he had made a little wooden truck for his boy. Since the boy was not allowed to go into the ward and visit his father, an orderly had brought the gift down to the child, who was waiting in front of the hospital with his mother. The father was looking out of a fifth-floor window, anxiously watching his son unwrap the gift.
The little boy opened the package, and his eyes got wide when he saw that wonderful little truck. He hugged it to his chest. Meanwhile, the father was walking back and forth waving his arms behind the windowpane, trying to get his son’s attention. The little boy put the truck down and reached up and hugged the orderly and thanked him for the truck. And all the while the frustrated father was going through these dramatic gestures, trying to say, ‘It’s me, son. I made the truck for you. I gave that to you. Look up here!’ I could almost read his lips.
Finally the mother and the orderly turned the boy’s attention up to that fifth-floor window. It was then the boy cried, ‘Daddy! Oh, thank you! I miss you, Daddy! Come home, Daddy. Thank you for my truck.’ And the father stood in the window with tears pouring down his cheeks.”
How much like that child are we? How often do we pour our gratitude out to our waiting Father, who has so blessed us? Probably not often enough. God gives us all of himself, even his very own Son, and often we never give to him even a word of thanks because we are too focused on ourselves and our problems. This story of the ten lepers reminds us that if our faith is genuine, we will never, ever cease thanking God for the many blessings of our lives!
