Of thanksgiving, faith and mercy

Should we not just learn to get along with other people’s ingratitude? If God has to deal with it from people shouldn’t we learn to live with it as well?

The Gospel for this week (Luke 17.11-19) has an interesting, biting edge to it, especially when one considers that this is our time to give God thanks for another year of harvest, hunting and provision. We catch up with Jesus, his disciples and the rest of the folks who are following Jesus as they make their way to Jerusalem and to what is to be sure, a confrontation with authority of gargantuan proportions. And we are not totally sure of where they are except to say they are in the North and therefore are in foreign territory.  That’s important to the piece of Scripture that we are studying but I will come back to that. It is enough for the moment to know that they are in an uncomfortable place and in an increasingly uncomfortable moment.

Jesus and the crowd enter a village and as they do, they are approached by 10 men who were lepers. They did what was required of them by society. They stayed a respectful, careful distance away and gave warning that they want to speak to Jesus. In fact they cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They make a plea for mercy so that they can be restored to wider society and their former lives with the families and so on.

It is important to point out that not all of the lepers are Judeans (or Southerners). A least one of them is a local Samaritan a “Northerner”. The North and the South don’t get along on much. Often they would disagree and argue over things not unlike the arguments currently going on in the Anglican Church of Canada on matters of human sexuality. People often segregate each other by geography and theology in the Church. It is the same now as it was then. And we are more comfortable in arguments and thinking that is the way to unity than working to discover and do what God has called us to do and actually do it.

So let’s start with giving thanks... are you thankful for what God has given you in the past year? Are we as a congregation thank for how the Lord has supported us over the last year? How often do we receive something from another person and thank them for the gift but then forget to thank God for making it possible? We are often swift to recognize and call out the inhospitality and the ungraciousness of others but at the same time fail to see it in ourselves?

Giving thanks and remembering God in doing so is at the core of the Eucharist. We take the time on Sunday mornings to give thanks to God for all that God has done and is doing in our lives both as individuals and as a faith community. Even the very word eucharist means, “thanksgiving”. In taking time to give thanks, makes us both stronger and a better community. We do not let those things that we have, buildings, theologies and spiritual gifts to be our possessions though we received them from the hands of Christ himself.  By taking the time to give thanks on a regular basis, we kept our possessions and our theologies from being idols and ourselves from being self idolatrous. We are blessed not because of being in possession of the gifts we have received but rather that we know and are known by the Giver of every good and perfect gift.

Faith as an ongoing act of thanksgiving and praise, is not a choice and commitment to a particular set of beliefs and doctrines but rather a striving to remain within the relationship and calling to abide in God and in Christ on a daily basis. Giving thanks allows for us to recognize the presence of the living God in this place and to understand that wherever we are, every patch of land that we inhabit, is a sacred place. And because God is in this sacred place, he is in this city. Therefore we need to seek the welfare of this place because we are sent to it.

One last thought. Jesus asked why only the local Northerner returned and not the other nine. All ten men, this little community of lepers were healed, right? So where is the thanks and praise that is due? Is it not possible that the one man who returned found something in his healing that the others took for granted? Mercy gets us out trouble. Grace makes us whole, an entire person. Faith makes us ready for what’s next, for the life that is yet to come in God’s kingdom. Faith makes us ready for salvation. How many people, having been shown mercy and given grace by God for healing for get to be thankful, even on a weekly basis?

Jason+