Thank You

Luke 17: 11-19, page 741
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.
As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him – and he was a Samaritan.
Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
Sermon
I’ve been thinking about Bobby Cox a lot lately. I’m not just glad that the Braves made it to the play-offs in his last season as Head Coach, I’m thankful.
I don’t admire sports heroes as much as some, but I do Bobby because I remember what Braves baseball was like before he showed up.
Walking away from games with my head held low – embarrassed to wear a Braves hat outside the metro-Atlanta area – not just because it was baby blue either – because they were awful!
In reflecting on his career, some have said, “He should have coached the Braves to more World Series victories,” and it’s possible to say that – but only if you have no conception of where we were before Bobby Cox showed up.
Sure – Dale Murphy was great – but the Braves were bad. As folks think about Bobby Cox they need to remember that; you’ve got to remember where you were compared to where you are – if you don’t you might forget to say thank you to someone who deserves it.
Our lesson for today is hard to understand – you immediately wonder why only one came back to say “thank you.”
Maybe he was the only one raised right – but plenty of people are raised right and still, plenty of people don’t say thank you when they should.
I think about my tax dollars. A gift, if you will, to our banks. A safety net, a bail-out, a big, big gift from you and I to virtually every bank in this country to save them from their own bad management.
But I haven’t received a thank you note. Have you?
You could make the case it was a forced gift – but then my joke doesn’t work.
It surprises me how quickly people forget. Or maybe it’s not forgetfulness at all. Maybe it’s something else.
Maybe the nine who didn’t go back to thank Jesus were just too excited; maybe they were so excited they couldn’t wait to go to the priest, be approved as clean according to his judgment by the law, and then, finally allowed to return to his family after being forced to live on the outskirts for who knows how long, quarantined for the good of his own family and friends, couldn’t wait a single second to get home.
Or maybe there’s more to it than that.
It’s hard to admit that we need help. And it’s even harder to say thank you when we’ve received something we couldn’t provide for ourselves, something we are embarrassed that we couldn’t provide for ourselves.
Sometimes out of desperation we call out for help, and as soon as we receive the help we so desperately needed we forget how bad off we were before the help came.
There was a great storm one night, and John Newton was on a slave ship, not below decks as a slave, but a willing participant and beneficiary of the slave trade. The night was so dark and the storm so severe that though he had made it through storms before he was afraid, and though he had grown up with no particular religious convictions, he called out to God for help.
There’s nothing so unique about that.
I think we’ve all been there before, maybe not in the midst of a storm on the sea, but certainly a storm of the soul. I’ve certainly been afraid before, and in my fear have more than once called out to God for help much the way the lepers in our lesson do.
But upon deliverance, once the storm has subsided, something happens in remembering. The fear, once so severe doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Without the wind and the rain to remind us – life goes back to normal – the illusion that we are in control and can save ourselves re-establishes itself so quickly.
Maybe that’s just how our memories work – our successes get bigger and bigger like old fishing stories, but the terror of the dark nights when we need saving fades.
It’s important then to know that for John Newton, the dark night never escaped his memory, and that storm on the sea became the inspiration for one of our faith’s most beloved hymns, Amazing Grace.
Our temptation so often is to just get on with our lives, forget how bad it was, go on home and back to life as normal, leave the leprosy behind, not even taking the time to say “thank you” because in saying “thank you” I have to be reminded of how bad things were.
In this story from Luke’s Gospel Jesus represents salvation – salvation from a state that those 9 never wanted to be reminded of again.
They didn’t want to think about their leprosy.
They didn’t want to think about their days of living on the outskirts of town shunned by friends and family.
They didn’t want to go back into that shack where they were reduced to a community made up of those whom society could do without.
They didn’t want to acknowledge what they needed Christ to save them from, so they went on with their lives.
But for the one – for the one who remembered – Christ was more - Christ was savior.
When we come to terms with who we were – when we don’t forget what we needed – Christ becomes more – for those in radical need of saving find in Christ a radical savior.
To be truly thankful that you’ve been found – you’ve got to come to terms with the fact that you were lost.
You want to know the sweet sound of God’s Amazing Grace – you can’t forget that you were once a wretch who needed saving.
You want your fears relieved – you’ve got to know your fear.
You want to see – then admit that you were blind.
You want to be saved – then come to terms with the fact that you need saving and you can’t do it yourself.
There’s strength in that surrender.
And there’s no shame in it – because who you are – who you were – what came before – is the foundation for your salvation.
To have a savior – you’ve got to know you need one – thanks be to God, Christ is ours.
Amen.