Luke 17:11-19

William F. Schnell

November 22, 2009

 

There are many theologies that seek to describe our relationship with God.  In the progressive Protestant seminary I attended there were classes in Systematic Theology, Process Theology, Liberation Theology and so forth.  In more Evangelical seminaries one might study Creationist Theology, whereas in Roman Catholic seminaries one would study Ascetical Theology.  Then there are the theologies that focus upon specific issues such as Feminist Theology or Queer Theology (that is actually what it is called).

 

Finally, there are the popular theologies like those derived from Peanuts or Oprah.  Two popular theologies I have lately encountered that may help us understand our relationship with the Almighty are called Dog Theology and Cat Theology.  Dog Theology goes like this: ÒYou feed me.  You pet me.  You shelter me.  You love me.  You must be God!Ó  Cat Theology goes like this: ÒYou feed me.  You pet me.  You shelter me.  You love me.  I must be God.Ó

 

When things are not going our way, we have a tendency to recognize our dependence upon the Almighty and to seek out his saving power.  When his saving power turns things our way some of us embody a Dog Theology and render thanksgiving to God, while others embody a Cat Theology which forgets about God and ascribes our good fortune to ourselves—our hard work, our smarts or our worthiness.  Which theology we choose to embody determines whether or not GodÕs saving power can continue to operate in our lives.

 

When God had delivered his people from their bondage in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land, his chosen leader, Moses, encouraged a Dog Theology saying: When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.  ÉOtherwise, when you eat and are satisfiedÉ, and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  He led you through the vast and dreadful desertÉ.  He brought you water out of hard rock.  He gave you manna to eat in the desertÉ.  You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me."  But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealthÉ. If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed (Deuteronomy 8:10-19).

 

Remembering the Lord our God for his saving power, praising him for what he has done for us, giving thanks for what he has given us all evidence a vital faith that enables GodÕs saving grace to operate in our lives.  The title of our message is, The Saving Power of a Thanksgiving Faith.  As our nation prepares to observe the Thanksgiving Holiday, GodÕs Holy Word reminds us of the connection between thanksgiving and the AlmightyÕs saving power.

 

St. Paul said, ...it is by grace you have been saved, through faith (Ephesians 2:8).  Salvation from all that would diminish or destroy the good life we have been created to have is by GodÕs grace—GodÕs gift to us (grace means ÒgiftÓ).  But we must receive that gift or it cannot benefit us.  If you wrap up a nice hat for me, but I refuse to open the package, that hat will never warm my head.  Not even the Almighty is mighty enough to save us if we will not let him.  We accept the gift of GodÕs grace through faith.  Again, as Paul put it, Éit is by grace you have been saved, through faith.

 

Which begs the question, what is faith?  Is it dogma, doctrine or decrees in the form of religious rules and regulations?  We sometimes speak of faith in those terms.  We speak of the Catholic faith or the Protestant Faith or of the Jewish or Muslim faith.  In our text for today we are going to learn that a saving faith—a faith that receives GodÕs gift of salvation--transcends all such religious or denominational boundaries.  Such a faith can be found in all faith traditions, and its common feature is that it is a thanksgiving faith.

 

These are the spiritual truths we learn from our text for today, which describes an encounter Jesus has with some people of various faith traditions.  Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee (Verse 11).  In JesusÕ day the Galileans and the Samaritans got along about as well as the Palestinians and Israelis do today.  Today there are walls and other barriers to keep the two hostile populations separated from one another. 

 

And so it was in JesusÕ day.  A road had been built a long way around Samaria just so the Jews could travel from southern Judean cities like Jerusalem to northern Galilean cities like Nazareth without having to travel through Samaria in-between.  Jews did not do business with Samaritans, they did not speak with them and they did not even look at them (again, much as you will find in the Holy Land today).  Our text finds Jesus traveling along the border between Galilee and Samaria while on his way to Jerusalem. 

 

As he was going into a village, ten men who have leprosy met him.  They stood at a distance and called out win a loud voice, ÒJesus, Master, have pity on us!Ó (Verses 12-13).  Ah, JesusÕ reputation had preceded him.  Sometime before, according to Luke, Jesus had healed a leper, which was quite miraculous since leprosy was considered incurable.  Moreover, it was considered devastating the way it ate away the flesh leaving the body painfully disfigured. 

 

Finally, leprosy was considered highly contagious resulting in the afflicted being forever quarantined into leper colonies and marginalized from the rest of society.  Indeed, lepers were considered ritually unclean and required to keep a distance of approximately 50 yards from healthy folks.  To add insult to injury, they were required to cry out Òunclean, uncleanÓ to warn others of their proximity.  And so it is that these 10 lepers keep their distance from Jesus while crying out to him for mercy, hoping against hope that he can heal them too. 

 

When he saw them, he said, ÒGo, show yourselves to the priestsÓ (Verse 14).  That was actually a very hopeful thing for Jesus to say.  Because lepers were considered ritually unclean, priests were required for them to receive a declaration of health and to be declared ritually clean again.  If Jesus was sending the 10 lepers to the priests then it must be because he intended to heal them, which is exactly what happened.  And as they went, they were cleansed (Verse 14).

 

Jesus had done it again.  He had miraculously healed 10 lepers of a seemingly incurable disease so that they could be reintegrated into society after going the priests for a clean bill of health.  And off they went to the priests, except for one.  One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.  He threw himself at JesusÕ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan (Verse 15), the implication being that the other nine were Jews.  Remember that things like chronic illness and old age are the great equalizers bringing together those otherwise separated by social class, race, religion and so forth.  In other words, a leper colony was one place where Jews and Samaritans did coexist.  That the Jewish lepers did not return to give thanks did not set well with Jesus.

 

Jesus asked, ÒWere not all ten cleansed?  Where are the other nine?  Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?Ó (Verses 17-18).  Jesus had already told a parable about ÒThe Good Samaritan,Ó which had cast one of the Samaritan religious tradition in the role of the good guy while three other Jews of his own religious tradition had been cast as the bad guys, showing that Jesus could care less about the myriad religions to which people belonged. 

 

What Jesus cared about was faith, understood as a relationship with God characterized by trust and obedience, and evidenced by thanksgiving to the Almighty.  Many times Jesus did not find this kind of faith in people of his own religious tradition, while he did find it in people of other religious traditions—even those religions otherwise despised by his own bigoted people.  But wherever he found it he pointed it out and commended it to others as essential for their salvation.

 

Then he said to him, ÒRise and go; your faith has made you wellÓ (Verse 19).  Wait a minute, were not all 10 cleansed?  Yes, they were all healed of their leprosy.  Yes, just as it sometimes rains upon the just and unjust alike, the sun occasionally shines upon the just and the unjust.  EverybodyÕs lives are a mixed bag of blessings and curses.  In this case all 10 are delivered from a scourge--lucky them.  But only one of them received a special commendation from Jesus.

 

For some reason the translators of this text have rendered a Greek phrase to say, your faith has made you well, even though the exact same wording is translated elsewhere in the Gospel of Luke-indeed, several places—as Òyou faith has saved you.Ó   That is the preferable translation of the Greek in question.  In other words, a thanksgiving faith is a saving faith.  The Samaritan is not only saved from leprosy, but from anything that would diminish or destroy the good life God had created for him to have.  Not so for the other 9 Jews who gave absolutely no credit to God for the blessing they had just received.  Like the Israelites Moses warned, after having been delivered from their bondage and led to the Promised Land, they forgot about the Lord their God.

 

May we not be among those ungrateful souls who, having been established in the land of freedom and plenty, should forget about the Lord our God.  Our nationÕs leaders have sought to provide a protection against this by establishing a national day of thanksgiving.  There are, for example, two thanksgiving proclamations attributed to Abraham Lincoln, and one attributed to George Washington.  Beyond those of our Presidents, there is an original proclamation attributed to William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Colony, dated 1623—three years after the arrival of that pilgrim band to which he belonged.

 

He wrote, ÒInasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.Ó

 

On the front of our bulletins a Thanksgiving Prayer has been reproduced for our use as we gather with our families and friends for Thanksgiving this Thursday.  According to the witness of our text, Jesus feels that it is important to give thanks to God for his saving power.  I do not think that he had in mind a single instance of thanksgiving one day each year, but I do think that a day of thanksgiving can serve as an annual reminder of the importance of daily giving thanks to the Lord our God as opposed to forgetting about the Lord our God.

 

We continue to live in an uncertain world with many crises threatening to undue us.  May we discover in our day The Saving Power of a Thanksgiving Faith as we show our gratitude to God for what he has already given us.