This is a Holy Day in the Book of Common Prayer, set aside for giving thanks. Some of us may have an easier time finding cause for thanksgiving than others. Throughout the world, and certainly in our family of a faith, many are facing difficult trials. I suspect everyone here is aching for themselves or others in some way. How should we think about thanksgiving in the midst of human suffering?
At first blush, the message of this Gospel lesson seems pretty plain-the hero, the Samaritan leper, is commended for giving thanks to God. Thanksgiving is a good thing under all circumstances, and failing to do it is a bad thing. But if we give this miracle a closer look, it gives us some tangles to unravel. For example, what does Jesus mean by telling this one leper that his faith has made him well? All the lepers were made well, were they not?
This question stymied me for quite a bit, until I noticed that Luke is very careful to use different terms in describing the benefit all 10 lepers received and the benefit that only the Samaritan leper received. The difference is true to the original Greek as well. The 10 were made clean; they were cured of their leprosy; their physical health was restored. They received something wonderful, but something strictly temporal. Their bodies remained subject to more disease and aging, and those bodies have long sense returned to dust. The last, Luke says, received something of a wholly different kind. The Greek word translated here as "made whole" is the word used throughout the New Testament for salvation. It is the word used in John's Gospel when Jesus says that he is the door, and that all who enter through him will be saved. The Samaritan leper was restored to wholeness; he was drawn closer to being as God envisioned him at birth. His body might pass away, but this transformation would not pass away. What he gained was everlasting.
I am going to make a confession. The middle of a sermon may seem like an odd time for that, but I am trusting that what I describe may be shared experience. Fifty-four years after my baptism, I still have trouble taking in the wonder Jesus offered this man and offers to us as well. This life is a physical experience for us, and we are apt to be preoccupied with the physical and the temporal; it is hard to take in the everlasting.
Knowing of this sermon, for the past couple of week's I've been asking folks, mostly church folks, what they are thankful for. Hands down, the most frequent reply has been, "I am thankful for good health." That got me to wondering, so I sought out some people clearly in bad health. Their most frequent reply was "friends and family." Jesus knew how much we treasure all of these things. Time and time again, he healed, not because it was on his schedule that day, but because the longing of the people for healing tore at his heart. He restored Lazarus to his friends and family because the mourners tore at his heart.
All this was done to give us a "sign" of the Kingdom. Health, friends, family, whatever other blessings we might name-they are not the glory of God's kingdom, but only signs of it. They hint at it. The real glory is the infinity of the compassion from which those signs flow. The real deal is knowing and feeling with certainty that there is a place for each of our hearts within the heart of God. The real deal is knowing and experiencing that somehow our hearts and the hearts of all humanity are bound together in the heart of God. The real deal is growing in our capacity to feel, to almost taste, God's urgency that all might know the infinity of God's compassion.
So how do we open ourselves to that growth? The Samaritan leper knew. The others had faith of a kind. They knew to call out to Jesus as Master. When he gave them a direction, they followed. They believed in that sense. If there had been creeds, they would have recited them. But their faith lacked a growth hormone, if I may call it that, one the Samaritan had. He may not have thought about it consciously, but every cell in his body, every cell that threw him down before the feet of Jesus, knew what his soul needed. There is something about giving thanks that makes us well.
As I was chatting with folk this week about Thanksgiving, a woman of our parish told me about a new devotion she is pursuing. Every night, she sits down and lists five things she is thankful for. She tries to make them very current: thanksgivings about the day just lived. When I asked her what effect it was having, her reply was the simplest, purest testimony I have heard in some time. She said, "I find I am a lot less sad." When we open our eyes to see some of that infinite compassion surrounding us, those open eyes can't help but see more of God's compassion. This fellow parishioner was describing saved moments. Add up enough saved moments, and you have a saved day. Add up enough saved days, and you have a saved life.
The most important meal we eat today will not be the turkey and gravy. It will be the meal we eat right here at this table, after we say the Great Thanksgiving, and after we pray "Thy Kingdom Come." No words can provide a better frame for all our thanksgivings. For today's Gospel teaches that our thanksgivings themselves invite the coming of God's Kingdom ever more fully into our lives. With our thanksgivings, we are praying, "Thy Kingdom come now!"