Thank you

Luke 17: 11-19, NT page 80 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” Sermon Last Tuesday I had two meetings in Nashville, a lunch meeting at 11:30 and a 3:00 meeting that afternoon. In between the two meetings I had some time on my hands and I found myself just across the street from the Parthenon, one of the tourist type attractions in Nashville I’ve been wanting to see for myself ever since we moved here. This was my chance to go inside, and so I was relieved to find that the Parthenon is a state site and not a national site, therefore it was not shut-down and I was lucky enough to pay my $6.00 and went inside. I don’t know what I expected. I guess I expected this reproduction to be like every other reproduction I’ve ever been to. In Georgia there is a little mountain town called Helen which aspires to be a reproduction of a town in the Swiss Alps. I have a feeling that Helen Georgia has fallen short of her aspirations, though I can’t say for sure because I’ve never been to the Swiss Alps, but I have a feeling that towns in the Swiss Alps don’t paint little Swiss boys and girls on their trash cans, nor do restaurants in the Swiss Alps specialize in funnel cakes and stores boast of their selection of rebel flags. So maybe that’s what I was expecting – a poor reproduction of the original – but what I found instead at the Parthenon in Nashville was incredible. Humungous columns, gigantic bronze doors, and the most beautiful statue of the goddess Athena, clothed in gold, standing hundreds of feet tall with her right hand extended holding Nike, the goddess of victory. Even her shield was enormous, and there in the middle was the head of Medusa – a thank you present given to her by Perseus after she helped him in his quest to free Andromeda, the woman he loved, from a sea monster. The head of a woman with snakes for hair is dramatic as far as thank-you gifts go, but something was appropriate considering all Athena had done to help him, just as these lepers doing something or saying something was appropriate after Jesus had healed them in our second scripture lesson. However, despite the appropriateness, only one of them does. As our lesson goes, Jesus was not in any region at all, he was in-between Samaria and Galilee, exactly the kind of place lepers would have been. They didn’t live anywhere so to speak, they lived in-between – in-between one side of the bridge and the other, in-between this town and the next – lepers were unclean and were therefore exiled out into the in-between places. The term itself, leprosy, refers to many different skin conditions, as the one that we know now to be so dangerous, also known as Hansen’s disease, was so feared that anything resembling leprosy was treated as leprosy. Don’t go showing the rash that you got from poison ivy to anyone or risk being identified as a leper. If you think acne is feared by 13 year olds today, you can’t imagine how hard those teenagers worked to get rid of their zits knowing that too many could result in their exile to the leper colony. These people were completely defined by the imperfections of their skin, more so even than we are with some today paying hundreds of dollars for wrinkle reducing lotions and thousands for plastic surgery. The degree to which they were defined by the imperfections of their skin is illustrated by their lack of names - the names of these lepers aren’t mentioned, nor were they identified by any particular qualities of character – like prison inmates whose identities are reduced to the number on their chest these men and women were simply lepers. Their lives had been completely derailed. Their families had been forced to turn their back. They had to leave school, leave work, leave home, and why – had they done anything to deserve it? No. And when that’s the case, sometimes being healed and being made well are two completely different things. All ten lepers are healed, 9 return home immediately, not even taking the time to say thank you as though they are just too excited to get back home where they’ll embrace little girls who have missed their daddy, overjoyed to return to the husbands who love them, proud to get back to making a living as an upstanding member of the community, or just to go and sleep in their own bed – all 9 are in such a hurry to get back to life as it used to be that they don’t quite make it. That’s not an uncommon thing. Men and women return from war, some without a scratch and others with wounds healed over, but few are those who come back well. Too many are not able to sleep through the night, too many cannot tame their hands trained in the ways of violence, and too many, while healed in body are not well in soul. Ten are healed, but only one is made well, and I can imagine how the other nine ended up because having been spared from tragedy doesn’t ensure happiness. Regardless of the miraculous healing by Jesus, years have been lost and those years were taken unfairly and will never be given back. Such unfairness isn’t easy to recover from, if anything such unfairness plants a seed of resentment that grows and grows so that while the man has left the leper colony the leper colony has not left the man. The wrongfully imprisoned may be given freedom, but years spent locked behind bars are gone forever; people survive cancer, but can they handle the fact that they were among the unlucky to be diagnosed and forced to go through the pains of treatment; and even the one who learns to walk again may still have anger when he remembers how easy walking used to be. The ever-present question: “why me,” the endless speculation of how it could have all been avoided, the millions of regrets, the innumerable “I should haves,” and the hatred of the one who got you there ensure that healing is not enough – to truly recover, to truly go on with your life, you can’t just be healed, you have to be made well. 10 are healed and only one leper is made well. Considering this difference I can’t help but think of my friend Bryan King. Bryan has worshiped here with us on several occasions, and we prayed for him for some time beginning almost exactly 10 months ago after he was hit by a car on Mooresville Pike while riding his bicycle. From the asphalt road he was life-flighted to Vanderbilt, went through several surgeries, and for the next several months he was not able to work, he was not even able to walk. Certainly he had plenty of time to think – to think about the young man who hit him who was driving while texting on his phone and therefore drove straight into him. The unfairness of the situation was plane, the injustice of it all was as unforgettable as his pain. However, miraculously his body was healing, and after months of recovery, while waiting for one of his last surgeries that would mark the end of his treatment, he was talking to the man in the bed next to his. “What are you here for?” Bryan asked. “They tell me that after today I’ll be cancer free,” the man replied. Bryan noticed how joyful the man sounded, but the man continued, “They’ll be taking both my legs. I won’t be able to walk again, but after today they tell me I’ll be cancer free.” Bryan wanted to put the man in touch with a friend who makes protheitc limbs but the man told Bryan that his condition was such that he’d never be able to uses a prosthesis. The fact of the matter was that he’d never walk again. Bryan considered his own legs, his legs that now worked just fine, his long road to healing that would soon enough be over, but it was only in considering the joy in that man’s voice, his spirit of thanksgiving to soon be cancer free despite the fact that he would never walk again. It was only then that Bryan began not just to be healed, in observing that man’s thankfulness Bryan began to be made well. Looking at his own legs, in the midst of all his frustration, Bryan found something to be thankful for too. That’s the difference between the nine who were healed and the one, the one who was not just healed but by his faith was made well. Despite all his reason to complain he could not help from giving thanks. Despite all his years spent in the leper colony, those years would not define him as deeply as this miracle would. So he “prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.” He didn’t have to – he was no more healed by giving thanks – but our scripture lesson tells us that Jesus looked at him and said, “Your faith has made you well”. The importance of being made well is made clear when you think of Welfare and Food-stamps, viewed as mechanisms that enable poverty and fuel entitlement rather than as a means to free men and women from poverty. They may be fed, but are they well? Being made well matters just as our country is known to be one of the wealthiest and simultaneously one the most unhappy countries in the world. We may have everything we need, but are we well? Ten lepers walked away from Jesus healed, but only one was made well, because there is something about saying thank-you, because there is something about just being thankful, that matters tremendously, and it is a lesson to you and to me, because Jesus doesn’t just save, he doesn’t just heal, he hasn’t just given you all the blessings that you enjoy, he also here shows you how to be made well. He welcomed that leper’s thanks, not because he needed to be thanked, not because being thankful was a requirement to be healed, he welcomed that leper’s thanks because in giving thanks that healed leper was made well. He welcomes you here to worship him, not because he needs it, but because in worshiping the God of our salvation our spirits are lifted, our minds are unclouded, and our souls are made well. And that pledge card in your bulletin – it is not just about giving this church enough to keep the doors open, it is not just about doing what is right or what is expected, it is about the joy found in thankful people no matter how little they have and the misery so palpable in all those who are only mindful of gaining more no matter how much they have already. Your pledge card – it is an invitation to be made well – but it is an invitation that no one can require you to accept. Being thankful is just as much a discipline as anything else. You imagine that it will come as soon as you receive what you want, but it will not. Being thankful only comes when you realize that what you have is a gift, and being made well – that is a gift that only those who give thanks ever receive. Give thanks to the one who deserves your praise and adoration. Give thanks to the rock of your salvation. Amen.