Thanksgiving In America After Corona

THANKSGIVING IN AMERICA AFTER CORONA

“Weren’t there nine others who were healed?”

- Jesus in Luke 17:11-18

Bob Marcaurelle

Leprosy was a horrible disease. People looked like the “walking dead”; they had to cover their mouths and cry out “unclean” when they saw people coming, or be hit by rocks. They huddled in their little groups because they were not welcomed anywhere, even at home. Their mask was their hand and they practiced “social distancing”.

Jesus’ question reveals His true humanity. Ten lepers shouted for mercy, from a distance. He told them to go to a priest so he could pronounce them clean. (This way their friends and family would know they were clean.) On the way they were healed. Nine of them headed home but one came back and thanked Jesus. He seems surprised and shocked that only one did this.

Prayers have been going up in America during this pandemic, as much as they went up in the days of World War II. Right now, we are on the verge of having, not one, but three vaccines. And they have been found quicker than any vaccine in the past.

There will be thanksgiving to God all over America – but what kind? I believe (I hope I am wrong) nine out of ten people will say something like “the man upstairs” really took care of us this time. Then they will put their spare tire (God) back in the trunk, hoping he is there when the next emergency arises. Like the nine they are grateful, but not in the right way. There is no commitment to obey and to make God and helping others more of a priority in their lives.

The reason for this is our POSSESSIONS. Moses told Israel in Deuteronomy 8:6-12, as they prepared to enter the land “flowing with milk and honey” that God gave them:

“Obey the commands of the Lord by walking in His ways. / The Lord is bringing you to a good land. / Be careful that you don’t forget the Lord / when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in.”

They forgot God and disobeyed Him and so have we. Jesus made the Aramaic term for money, “Mammon”, the name of a god, and warned us not to serve him. (Matthew 6:24) The “god” we serve is not money, it is our selves. We lay our treasures at our own feet.

Jesus tells us HOW to truly thank him in Matthew 25. He said on the Day of Judgment he will say to those on the way to heaven, “When I was hungry you fed me; when I was in prison you visited me; etc. They asked Him when they did this, and He said when they did it for lonely, hurting people, they did it to Him. God told Israel in Deuteronomy,

“Do not oppress the poor and needy servant” (24:14). Do not deprive foreigners of their rights. (24:17). When you gather your crops, leave some behind for orphans, widows and foreigners, so the Lord will bless you (24:19). “Don’t be hard-hearted and tight-fisted toward your poor brother / Give generously not grudgingly.” (15:7,10)

God tells us, to show our gratitude to Him, the strong need to reach out to the weak; the educated need to reach out to the uneducated; the haves need to reach out to the have not’s; the popular need to reach out to the shunned; etc. In our land flowing with “milk and honey” from the Lord, we don’t do this. We use the term “needy” as an insult. People in need are a nuisance to us.

This is revealed in the way we responded to this pandemic and the need for police reform. We send police to move the homeless. We are building higher walls (financially, socially and racially) between our nice way of life and hurting people. We don’t listen to peaceful protestors and try to understand where they are coming from; we just want them to go away so we can play with our toys and buy some more.

This worship of toys was exposed in our attitude towards Covid 19. I lived in the last years of World War II listening to “propaganda” - “Hitler is not killing Jews” and Americans chose to believe it. If it was true, we didn’t want to pay the price to do something about it. Insanely, in these past months, we did this with a disease. We believed propaganda,

“It is not as bad as it is made out to be. The CDC does not know what it is talking about. All these doctors we see on TV telling us it is a real danger are only a tiny minority of what doctors are saying. It is no worse than the flu, which has always been here. Hospitals label all kinds of deaths, ‘Covid related’, to get more money from the Government.”