The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 14, 2007 Proper 23 C
Luke 17:11-19

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

Does anyone else, when they hear this gospel, immediately think of their mother reminding them, perhaps even nagging them, to write their thank you notes?  Polite society places a high store on giving thanks.  From an early age we teach our children to say “thank you” and we expect that others we interact with will respond with a “thank you” even in casual transactions. Saying thank you, expressing our appreciation for even small services is an important part of our social capital.

But I wonder sometimes if our politeness, our constant stream of thank yous (as important as they are) doesn’t numb us, doesn’t inhibit our ability both to recognize the many occasions we have for genuine gratitude and to experience and express that gratitude—the kind that overflows with joy and praise, the kind conveyed by the Samaritan leper.
 
Jesus never asked for thanks, and his comment on the nine lepers who did not return was, I think, less a rebuke of them—who in fact did exactly as he instructed them to do—and more a recognition that something extraordinary had happened to the Samaritan—more extraordinary in fact than being healed.

The Samaritan leper, like the other 9, acted in faith when he called out to Jesus, begging for mercy.  All ten were healed because of their faith, but the Samaritan alone, the one who was doubly outcast, was not only healed but also transformed. The Samaritan leper was healed of his disease, but in that healing his eyes were opened so that he recognized the power of God’s love—in Jesus’ actions and was transformed by that love.

We too are the recipients of that transformative love—a love so powerful, so radical that it encompasses all of us—the powerful and the outcast alike.
But how often do we, like the Samaritan, open our eyes to recognize the power of that love, to see that love in God’s actions in the world?  How often do we let ourselves be transformed by it, empowered by it, t act on it? Because that’s the other piece of this story—it doesn’t end with the Samaritan prostrate at Jesus’ feet. Jesus says to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way” and likewise Jesus sends us on our way out into the world.

Give thanks and then go on our way…isn’t that the essence of what we’re here to do today?   The Eucharist we celebrate together each week is a powerful act of real gratitude—thanksgiving for God’s love for us and for the gift of salvation we receive through Jesus Christ, but it is more than that. The Eucharist provides us with the nourishment we need to go back out into the world, to be vessels of that abundant love we receive and to share that love with others—others who are like us and others who like the Samaritan are outcasts in society. In the Eucharist we are both pulled into the center of God’s saving work in the world, enfleshed and embodied in the person of Jesus, and also propelled back out into the world to be that body and to do that work, living out the gratitude that wells up within us, empowered by the transformative love we experience.

Give thanks and go on our way—we here at Saint Mary’s have so much to be thankful for—material things to be sure, but also our families, our friends, our parish community, all gifts from the God who loves us.  As recipients of this abundant love, we are called not only to express our gratitude but also to act on it, to take it out into the world as we go on our way. Today we celebrate and highlight that in two ways. The first and most obvious is through our stewardship. As you’ve heard and read, this year our stewardship campaign is focused on joyful giving in gratitude for all we have received.  If we can, as the Samaritan leper did, open our eyes to see that work of God in our lives, we cannot help but be moved to the kind of heartfelt gratitude he expressed, a gratitude that we express  and act on powerfully through our giving. 

Our second celebration of gratitude is a first-time event for Saint Mary’s. Today we celebrate a very important occasion in the life of our parish as in our Rite 13 liturgy we mark the coming into womanhood and manhood of three of our young people.  We recognize that this is an important milestone in their life journeys and we offer them our support as they continue on the path to adulthood. As a community of faith we are very grateful for the presence of these young people in our midst—as important members of our community and as signs of hope for our future. My hope is we can live out that gratitude by making  Saint Mary’s a haven for these young people over the coming years—a place where they will feel safe and feel loved and feel nurtured as they prepare to take their places in the world beyond us.

Give thanks and go on your way.  Give thanks for all that we have—our material resources, our community, our young people.  Give thanks and go into the world to spread that abundant radical love we receive from God, so that others may have occasion to give thanks as well.
 
Amen.