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Luke 17:11-19

¹¹ On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance ¹³ and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” ¹⁴ When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”And as they went they were cleansed. ¹⁵ Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; ¹⁶ and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷ Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? ¹⁸ Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Last week, we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37). Jesus is the One who gets down in the dirt and has mercy upon you. Today, we again hear about a good Samaritan who was one of the ten lepers healed by Jesus. Today’s good Samaritan receives mercy from Jesus, the Good Samaritan, and gets down in the dirt to give Christ thanks.

These ten lepers were socially distancing themselves, as the Law of God demanded (Lev. 13:45-46). The lepers are suffering, but they are also dangerous to others, so they were to be separate from the rest of society. Yet, they form a little community. We know that at least some (if not nine) of these lepers were Jewish, but at least one of them was a Samaritan. Normally, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans (Jn. 4:9) because Samaritans were considered unclean. But since all ten of these lepers were already unclean, they are united together in their suffering, similar to what happened in the months after 9/11, when our country was suffering. We bonded together as a nation. May God grant that type of unity again!

Anyway, these suffering lepers have gathered together and this little congregation lifts up its voice, “Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us.” When they cry out for mercy, what were they asking for? Did they want some food or money? Did they know that Jesus had cleansed lepers before and were crying out for healing? We don’t know, and it’s possible that the lepers didn’t even know themselves. Notice, they don’t call Jesus ‘Lord’ as many other people do when they call out to Jesus in faith. Instead, they call our Lord, ‘master.’

What is important is that they were asking the right one – Jesus – for the right thing – mercy. God in His mercy answers imperfect and imprecise prayers in exactly the right way. In fact, “Lord, have mercy,” is a great prayer that distills everything you need down to a single petition. Mercy is always what you need.

Now, we need to consider the attitude toward lepers back then. In Jesus’ day, the rabbis typically taught that leprosy was a manifestation of an inner uncleanness. In other words, the common thought was that leprosy didn’t just happen to people. Instead, leprosy was seen as a Divine judgment against the sins of those who had it, and people had the general attitude that lepers were simply getting what they deserved from God.

Unfortunately, we Christians often have a similar attitude toward those who are suffering: the poor, the homeless, etc. May God forgive us for the times that we are like the priest and Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, looking past those who need mercy and passing by on the other side of the road. So, please know, that while the normal attitude toward lepers in Jesus’ day was to think of it as God’s just judgment on those who had it, I’m not defending that attitude. But I think that fact is important to possibly understanding the actions of the nine who don’t return to Jesus.

Jesus hears their plea for mercy and says, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Because we know the whole story, we know that when Jesus said that they would be healed, the priests would look them over, and they would be admitted back into regular society. In that moment, the lepers didn’t know that. They already knew about the priests, and they knew that because of their leprosy, there was no place for them in the Temple because they are unclean.

So, some have speculated (and I think it is a likely explanation) that the lepers might have understood Jesus’ words in a negative and offensive way. So often in the Gospels, we read that even the disciples do not understand Jesus, and that may have been what is going on here. Even though Jesus didn’t mean it this way, the lepers might have understood Christ to be saying something like, “Why should I have mercy on you when you are unclean? Get out of here. Show yourselves to the priests. If they declare you to be clean, then I will help you.”

Again, it’s speculation. But if this is accurate, it would mean that they interpreted Jesus as saying, “No.” So they are disappointed and their refusal to rejoice even when they are healed might be reasonable in their minds because Jesus hasn’t done anything for them. However, this Samaritan sees things differently, and because he has faith, he returns to Jesus, praises Him with a loud voice, and gives thanks. According to Jesus, this good Samaritan wasn’t just healed from his leprosy; instead, Jesus says to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has (lit.) saved you.”

Now, there are a lot of things we can glean from this text. For one, we see the saving power of Jesus’ Word – even from a distance. Or, as we have in the past, we could consider how Jesus is the true, great High Priest who makes atonement for us. We could also focus on how Jesus claims to be God (even though so many people claim that He never did). With this good Samaritan at His own feet, Jesus says, “Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” But today, we are going set all of that aside, and instead focus on the Christian act of giving thanks.

Jesus sees the evidence of this good Samaritan’s faith in the fact he came back to give thanks. Christians give thanks. Christians are thankful people. We heard the fruits of the Spirit in our Epistle text (Gal. 5:16-24), and one of the fruits of faith is thanksgiving. I want to put before you four thoughts about thanksgiving.

The first thought is that thanksgiving comes first. Over and over in Paul’s letters, he begins by giving thanks. All of Paul’s letters except Galatians and Titus begin with thanksgiving. And this is amazing when you realize to whom Paul was writing. Paul wrote two letters to the Thessalonians who thought they had missed Jesus’ return and the Resurrection. They were tempted to think that Paul was a fraud apostle. But Paul begins both of his letters to the Thessalonians with thanksgiving.

The church in Corinth was even worse. There was a man who had gotten married to his mother-in-law and was bragging about it. Families were breaking apart and people were abandoning their spouses because they thought the Resurrection was coming soon. Some members of the church didn’t even believe in the Resurrection. They were not letting poor people come to the Lord’s Supper, and some were getting drunk during Communion. They were fighting about who to follow – Paul, Peter, Apollos, or Christ (1 Cor. 1:11-13). The church in Corinth was, by all accounts, a colossal disaster. We would think Paul would begin his letters to them by saying, “I’m ripping my hair out every time I think of you.” But no! Paul begins his letter, “I give thanks to my God always for you” (1 Cor. 1:4).

There is something to be said about starting with thanksgiving. When you start each day with thanking God for protecting you through the night from all harm and danger, you’re starting your day off right. It’s easy to start your day with worrying, panicking, fretting, and thinking of all the things you have to do, but doing that only wears you down and is offering the false worship of worry instead of the true worship of thanks. Thanksgiving starts us off on the right foot.

This leads to the second thought about thanksgiving. Thanksgiving requires a turning back. The good Samaritan had to turn back and return to Jesus to give thanks. While this is what literally, physically happened, there is also something very profound to contemplate here.

If we’re always focused on what is coming next, if we are always oriented toward what lies ahead, we cannot give thanks. There’s nothing in the future to be thankful for. There are reasons to be hopeful, but nothing to give thanks for. Remember that Jesus says that tomorrow is always full of worry but let tomorrow worry for itself (Mt. 6:34). As long as we think about tomorrow, we can only have worry – or, at best, worry mixed with hope. But we cannot have thanksgiving.

If we are going to give thanks, we must look backwards to what has been or to the present and to what is. So often, Scripture pictures thankfulness as the opposite to worry. Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” When we remember how God has forgiven us, provided for us, and protected us, we give thanks for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.

The third thought about thanksgiving is that thankfulness and faith go together because thankfulness looks to God as the Giver of all good things. And here, it might be good to make a distinction between thanksgiving and gratefulness. Gratefulness looks at the goodness of the gift while thanksgiving tends to look at the goodness of the giver or source of the gift. If you brought me a milk chocolate mocha with no whip and an extra shot of espresso, I would be grateful for the coffee in my hand and thankful to you because you gave it to me.

Don’t get me wrong, gratitude is important. We should be grateful and recognize the goodness of the gifts that we have – family, health, food, clothing, house, home, etc. But Christians should go past gratefulness and be thankful. I don’t doubt that the nine lepers were grateful that they were cleansed, but they didn’t return and give thanks to Jesus, their Cleanser.

By faith, we look past the gift and even past the individual who has given the gift and recognize that everything we have comes from God. As James 1:17 says, “Every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”

The good Samaritan leper saw and was grateful for his healing, but he looked past that and gave praise to God at the feet of the Son of God. And we Christians, when we have a table full of food, we look past the person who earns the paycheck, past the grocers, truck drivers, and farmers (it is right to give them thanks too). But ultimately, we give thanks to God who has provided the good gift of food.

Which leads us to the fourth thought: Christians give thanks even in times of suffering. After, ‘mama’ and ‘papa,’ there are two words that parents work to teach their children – ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ It isn’t just Christians who teach this. Part of living in this world is to be polite and thankful for good things. But Christians can even give thanks in bad times because God remains good. Even when God hands us over to suffering, He does so out of His goodness. 

Natural, worldly thanks has to do with the goodness of the gift. But Christian thankfulness has to do with the goodness of the Giver – the goodness of God. As Christians we recognize that everything we have comes from God. In Philippians 4:11, Paul says, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” Or think of Job who had been protected and blessed by God. Even when God removes His protection, Job still rightly thanks God even in his suffering and says, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15).

So, whether we are full or hungry, whether we have friends or are lonely, whether we have peace or are in the midst of chaos, in life and even in death, we give thanks to God because He has already graciously given us Jesus. Remember Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” In other words, God has already given you Jesus, and there is no good thing He will ever hold back from you.

Everything in this life comes from God the Father. In health and in pandemic, in good times and in bad, in order and in chaos, in joy and in sorrow, still we give thanks and bless God’s name. 

This good Samaritan leper had reason to give thanks for being healed, but there was even more reason to give thanks that Jesus had looked upon him in kindness and forgiven his sin. The same is true for you. God has given you His only begotten Son so that you can receive His eternal love and kindness.

May the Holy Spirit grant that we always be filled with this thankfulness. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.