Healthy
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Luke 17:11-19

October 14, 2007


When nothing but the carcass of the turkey is left, Thanksgiving for this year is kaput. If you want more Thanksgiving, cross the border on November 22 and find a family to eat with. Of course, thanks giving does not end; the giving does not give out as if it were a finite quantity you and I could use up. Pray unceasingly, Paul advised, and prayer unceasingly involves giving thanks.

The problem with modern Thanksgivings is that most people are thankful, but they have little idea to whom they should be thankful. God may be briefly mentioned, but God is not a familiar personality to most. Are Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens thankful this year? Perhaps for their publishers, but how can you be thankful for a deluded God who operates religions that are the source of all human problems?

Thankfulness is really real when it is really hard to be thankful. Let’s just say that it is very difficult to be thankful when things are not good when you are without a God. Here is Jeremiah writing a letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylonia at the worst time in Israel’s history, and as Jeremiah usually does he includes a Word of the Lord that is not the nice kind of godly news they wanted to hear.

Certainly, the Israelite leaders dragged off in defeat to live as strangers in a strange land were lamenting heavily their fate. The tragedy and injustice of it all, they wailed, and just how does our God allow this to happen to us, his chosen people? This is impossible, as if Canadians and Americans were defeated by Iraq and our leaders taken as prisoners of war to live out the rest of their lives in Baghdad.

So Jeremiah is not comforting when he relays God’s Word that God has sent you into exile in Babylonia. Not that you were captured or taken into exile, but sent by the One who gives you life. The exiles had to be stunned, but the letter kept going. This is the way it’s going to be, get used to it and go about a normal life, raising families and working. You’re going to be there for the duration, so “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” The Word of the Lord does not say the word, but certainly implies that the Israelites can only survive by being thankful no matter what the circumstances.

The circumstances on the road to Jerusalem were a little dodgy. A proper rabbi did not find himself in Samaritan territory, sort of like Dog River residents getting caught within the precincts of Wullerton, actually a lot worse. He tried to slide unnoticed between the border areas of Galilee and Samaria, entering an unnamed town which had at least one Samaritan. Ten people did notice him. Lepers, the scourge of society, they stood at a safe distance and as one yelled at him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Almost Kyrie Eleison.

A different situation, a different tone of voice and Jesus could be accused of scorning these unfortunate souls. “Go and show yourselves to the priests” is almost a cruel joke, the last officials a leper would want to see to be humiliated even more as an obviously degenerate sinner. Nevertheless, they turned towards the priests on reflex from Jesus’ command and in the act of turning with intention they were healed.

There is no actual report of what nine of them then did; perhaps they did go to the priests for they would not legally be able to relate to others in town without being certified. One didn’t care about propriety; he was thankful, turned around again and praised God and thanked Jesus bowing at his feet - which we don’t do very much any more. Now he was a Samaritan, as if that made a difference.

Jesus initial response is not about thankfulness. It’s about thanklessness. Where are the nine? The lepers had pleaded with Jesus for mercy which often means you know you have done something wrong. AIDS victims, our contemporary lepers, are always supposed to have done something wrong. Jesus never debates such issues, but why would these people not bother or think about giving thanks when they had loudly been asking for mercy?

Did they think they were entitled to perfect health, that life owed them better, that they were better than everyone else who really was a sinner? They were certainly better than this Samaritan, leper or clean. He’s the one who really should be thankful because his miserable existence is a little less miserable. We have simply received what we deserve; no need to thank anyone for that.

Jesus did think the Samaritan was important, not as an exception but as the exceptional person who knew how God works, and isn’t that curious given the supposedly orthodox faith of the other nine? Like many of the healings associated with Jesus, he hadn’t touched or been close to any of the ten lepers. Now he tells the Samaritan, “Get up and go. Your trustful action has been the making of you.” That’s Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch spin on Jesus’ words and I like them. Giving thanks is the making of you.

One winter night in 1935 in the midst of the depression, Fiorello LaGuardia, the mayor of New York City, and a man much loved and the one for whom La Guardia Airport is named showed up in the courts of the city’s poorest districts. LaGuardia took over from the judge that evening.

And that night a woman was brought before him charged with stealing a loaf of bread. Her defense was simply that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, the daughter was sick and her children were starving.

“The shop is in a bad neighbourhood, your Honour, and she’s got to be punished to teach people a lesson,” said the prosecutor.

LaGuardia turned to the old lady, “I have to punish you,” he said, “the law makes no exception. Ten dollars or ten days in jail.” Remember this story comes from the height or the depth of the depression – the dirty thirties out here.

Having rendered the judgment, LaGuardia reached into his pocket and took out a ten dollar bill. “Here is the fine,” he told the court, “Paid in full which I am giving her.”

Further more I am fining every person in this courtroom a dollar or living in a city where a grandmother has to steal food to keep her grandchildren from starving. Mr. Baliff, collect the fines.”

The New York Times reported the next day that over $50 dollars was given to the bewildered grandmother. Making forced donations were the red faced shopkeeper, numerous petty criminals and police officers.

Those were the nine thankless cleansed lepers. Being thankless is not just poor etiquette. It is a facade for economic arrogance and oppression of others. It is a political act of discrimination and declaring that another person is not as human as you. But giving thanks for the mercy God has shown you, that’ll be the making of you.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan