An Attitude of Gratitude? Lectionary Reflection for October 10, 2010
The Ten Lepers
Luke 17:11-19
A friend of mine who is a pastor in Dallas was once teaching Sunday School with a group of children. They were reading this story of the ten lepers. “What do you think about this story?” she asked after she had read it to them. One little girl answered, “Jesus must have been so happy that somebody thanked him!”
What a positive, glass-half- full reading of this text! I wish the little girl’s interpretation could withstand the harsh realities of the text. Because the story’s focus is not “Isn’t it great that one returned?” It is, rather, “Why did only one return?” Do I say that just because I am a cynical adult who has lost the child’s rose colored glasses for interpreting texts? No, I say that because of three factors in the text.
- Jesus seems brusque, rude really. Why? The point of the story is to sting the ungrateful, not to praise the grateful.
- Jesus doesn’t address the man directly. Instead he speaks over his head to the crowd listening in. Why? Because the point of the story is to rebuke the ungrateful rather than to praise the grateful.
- Jesus calls attention to the man’s ethnicity. He is a “foreigner,” a Samaritan. Why? Because the point of the story (which only occurs in Luke) is to chastise those among the Jews of his day who do not show Jesus’ gratitude and acceptance and to preview the mission to the Gentiles.
Let’s be honest for a moment: wouldn’t it be easier to preach on this text if we could rewrite the ending the way the little girl interpreted it?
How about this ending?
All ten of the lepers, when they saw they had been healed, turned back, praising God as with one voice. They all prostrated themselves at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.
Or how about this one?
Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice and fell at Jesus’ feet. And Jesus said, “It is so wonderful that you came back to show gratitude
for your healing. This says good things about you, and it’s a good habit to continue, gratitude to God for
all God’s gifts. Go in peace.”
In my rewrite, Jesus speaks directly to the man, focuses on praising his gratitude rather than lambasting the ingratitude of the other 9, and makes no mention of the man’s ethnic, religious heritage.
What the nine Lepers got right:
Lots of times, when we hear this story the nine lepers are portrayed as ungrateful boors. A word or two on their behalf is in order. They all approached him and called out to him “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” They all obeyed his command to go show themselves to the priest. As we hear their retreating footsteps, let’s give them more respect than we usually do. They’re heading in the direction he told them to head. They’re not heading for a bar, a house of ill repute or a casino. They headed for the priest, and this is, remember, before they have even seen any evidence of their cleansing. So let’s cut them some slack. They knew to whom to call out for healing. They believed him when he said it was a done deal, even before the evidence was before their eyes. And they did what he said. He didn’t say, “Go, show yourselves to the priest, but, on the way, as soon as you see your flesh has been cured, high tail it back to me with a thank you note.”
They were thinking ahead.
The purpose of visiting a priest after a cure (Luke 5:14; Leviticus 13:49; 14:2) was so the cured person could officially resume his place in society. The nine lepers, presumably Jewish, had their minds on the future, on resuming the life they had left behind with the onset of illness. Their minds were full of scenes of reunion with wives, children, with reentry into market and synagogue. There is no indication that their goals and future actions were anything but respectable and legal.
But they were lacking something. The one leper, the “foreigner,” who returned to thank God, was “made well,” (sozo- “to be healed of spiritual disease and death”) whereas the nine were merely “cleansed” or “healed” (tharizo- “to be made clean or healed of a disease”). Physical cure (tharizo), the verb used twice and translated in the NRSV “made clean” (14) and “healed” (15) is not the same as “made you well,” or “made you whole” (sozo), a condition often referred to as “salvation.” When Jesus says, “your faith has made you well,” sozo is the verb he uses.
In Luke’s context, he is making a polemical point: Only the foreigner is grateful for the grace received. The others think solely of the benefits received. The ungrateful nine exemplify the general attitude of the Jewish people toward Jesus’ mission. The Samaritan is prophetic of the future response of non Jews to the gospel. There is meant to be a connection in the reader’s mind between this account and the parable of the Good Samaritan, where, again, 2 Jews, their minds thinking ahead to their liturgical duties, neglect the wounded neighbor on the side of the road.
But we’re not members of Luke’s church. How does Jesus’ emphasis on gratitude impact our church, our life? Why is gratitude crucial to wholeness of mind, body and spirit, to what the New Testament calls “salvation?”It seems to be more than proving to Jesus that we have good manners, that our parents taught us to write thank you notes. In the passage, the leper returns and thanks Jesus, but note Jesus’ interpretation of these words of thanks in verse 18 “Was no one found to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?”
What’s the point of gratitude?
Why is gratitude to God crucial to wholeness of mind, body and spirit, to what the New Testament calls “salvation?” Apparently, to be made well, we must add thanksgiving to our faith. The person who makes such acknowledgement experiences a salvation that goes beyond the merely physical cure. It is a reorientation of the inner life.
I’ve been thinking about gratitude lately. I’ve been thinking about people who have given me gifts in the past to whom I have expressed thanks. I’ve been thinking about people who, recently, have thanked me.
And I’ve been thinking about people I need to thank.
When I was growing up, a picture of a distinguished, white bearded man hung on the dining room wall. I never thought much about who he was. He was someone’s great great grandfather in the 1880’s and he was a farmer and a preacher. I never asked more than that. My mother recently downsized and asked if any of us kids wanted some of the furniture and paintings from her large home. I told her to send along any family pictures she didn’t have room for in her new home. So a few weeks later a large box appeared on my front step. I opened it up and there was the man from the dining room wall. As I took his picture out of the box and hung it on my home office wall, I noticed an envelope was taped to the back that had my mother’s handwriting on it. It said, “Rev. William Holt Thompson, Farmer-Preacher.” Inside, was a typed eulogy. It ended in this way “Rev Holt faithfully served the Lord all the years of his life, bringing forth harvest from his fields and harvest from his preaching. He preached God’s Word with eloquence and compassion, his eyes filled with kindness. Households, when they saw him approaching, were uplifted in spirit. Once tall and sturdy, in his latter years his strength ebbed and his breath slowed. When the day came when he lay his body down for the last time to be received into the arms of his heavenly Father, these were the words of welcome he heard: “Thou hast preached the word and loved my people; well done thou good and faithful servant.”
For a reason I don’t fully understand, the story of the 10 lepers make me want to thank Rev William Holt Thompson, my mother’s father’s mother’s father.
And it makes me want to thank Dot. I have written to the pastor of our former church in Yardley, Pennsylvania to try to get the email of a woman I knew there 22 years ago. Her name is Dot and she was on the welcome committee. Whenever a family had a tragedy or a joy, Dot was there with food and a kind presence. She was the church for those families. I feel a need to thank her every October. My son Matthew was born October 7, 1988. I remember getting home from the hospital a few days later, after a rough birth, tired, a little down with postpartum depression, and feeling isolated in a new community. We had just moved to Yardley in easter Pennsylvania from York in central Pa. It was 2 in the afternoon and, as I recall, I was still in my bathrobe. The doorbell rang and there stood Dot. She had just put a pumpkin down on my doorstep. She held a yellow chrysanthemum in one hand and a bag with dinner in it in the other. The fall leaves of a lovely Pennsylvania autumn formed a backdrop for the welcome sight she made. And every October 7 when I buy a pumpkin and put it on my front doorstep and buy Matt a birthday card, I think of Dot. I thank her in my mind, but this year this story of the 10 lepers makes me want to thank her with a letter or phone call.
How is our impulse to thank others related to our impulse to thank God? What does gratitude contribute to our being made well in body, mind and soul? Why is it so important that Jesus would chastise those who didn’t value it?
Does gratitude keep us connected with the giver of the gift? Does recognizing the source of a gift keep us using it in keeping with the giver’s character and values? Does gratitude keep us grounded in the value of the gift as we take it into new pursuits and places?
All good gifts come from God. That includes my ancestor’s legacy to me of conscientious preaching and compassion as well as a Christian friend’s kindness on a fall day 22 years ago. Maybe the attitude of gratitude keeps us focused on the source of life, love and each new day. Maybe when we acknowledge the source of love, we more likely to share it with others. Maybe that is why gratitude is important enough for Jesus to lament its lack.
In retrospect, maybe my rewrite of this story is not that far off the mark of what Jesus seeks from us:
All ten of the lepers, when they saw they had been healed, turned back, praising God as with one voice. They all prostrated themselves at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.
Alyce McKenzie is Professor of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. Visit her Expert Page at Patheos.
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