A Homily for the
Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
Were there not ten cleansed? .
. .
Thy faith hath made thee whole.
--Saint Luke 17:17, 19
In today's Gospel
lesson, Jesus cures the disease of ten leprous men. So far as we
are told, he spoke no words of healing over them, and he did not lay
his hands upon them. Instead, they called to him from a
distance: "Have mercy upon us." And he told them to go show
themselves to the priests, that is, to the officials in charge of
determining who did and who did not suffer from leprosy. And it
was while they were on their way for their check-ups that they were
cleansed of the disease.
Nine
of the men continued on their way, obeying the instruction that Jesus
had given them. But one, and he a despised Samaritan, returned to
thank Jesus and to praise God for this miracle. "Were not ten
cleansed?" Jesus asks, "Where are the other nine?"
And,
as we listen to the story, it is natural for us to wonder, what were
those other nine guys thinking, anyway? And, of course, they
probably just were not thinking. They were in a hurry: they
had places to go, people to meet, things to do. They had priests
to see and years of marginalized existence to make up for. Their
minds were probably so full of plans that there was no room in them for
thanks giving.
Actually,
for one in ten to return and give thanks was probably a higher response
percentage than would otherwise be expected. This story, after
all, does not represent a statistical cross-section of the
population. But it is probably safe to say that at least nine out
of ten times we human beings fail to give thanks to God for all that he
does for us.
But
the giving of thanks is part of our duty to God. And it is part
of what it means to live in this world as a Christian. Indeed, in
the lesson read at Morinng Prayer today, from Saint Paul's Epistle to
the Philippians, we are told that we should "in all things by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving,
make our requests known unto God. In one of his letters to Saint
Timothy, Saint Paul advises that we should "give thanks for all men."
One
focus or pattern for our giving of thanks is in the Prayer of General
Thanksgiving, which is part of the long form of both Morning and
Evening Prayer. This is a prayer originally composed and used by
Queen Elizabeth I, and revised for the Prayr Book by bishop Reynolds of
Norwich in 1662. It was made a regular part of the daily office
int he first American Prayer Book in 1789. The General
Thanksgiving is found on page 19 of the current Prayer Book.
"Almighty God, father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do
give thee most humble and hearty thanks. . . ." We give God
humble thanks, because he is the Lord and we are his servants. We
are, indeed, unworthy
servants; that is, we have done nothing to deserve God's grace and
favor toward us. We give God hearty thanks, because, when we
contemplate God's goodness and providence, we are moved to strong,
heartfelt, and entusiastic gratitude.
". . . for
all thy goodness and lovingkindness to us and to all men." We
thank God not only for his mercy and love to each of us as individuals,
but also for his mercy and love for the whole human race. We must
guard against the kind of smug thanksgiving that is really
self-congratulation, such as that of the Pharisee in the Temple who
prayed, "O God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are."
Rather, we thank God on behalf of those other men--on behalf of the
nine out of ten who do not return to give thanks.
"We
bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of
this life. . . ." The hundredth Psalm reminds us: "Be ye
sure that the Lord he is God. it is he that hath made us and not we
ourselves; se are his people and the sheep of his pasture." All
too often, we human beings act as if we are in charge of our own
destiny, as if we had created and were creating our own selves. We take
too much for granted the very fact of our preservation, the balance
that keeps the earth from crashing into the sun and the air we breathe
from escaping into space. And we also take for granted all of the
little things that make it possible for us to go on from day to
day. But the Psalmist goes on: "O go your way into his
gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful
unto him, and speak good of his Name." This is the response that
we owe to the God who created us, whose people we are, and who tends us
as a shepherd tends his sheep, feeding us in green pastures and leading
us forth beside the waters of comfort.
". . . but
above all for the redemption of the world by our Lord, Jesus Christ,
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory." At the heart
of the Christian religion is the belief that God, in Christ, is
reconciling the world to himself. In the beginning, God made man
in his own image; but mankind, in its pride and in its will to power,
marred that image. Humanity fell from its place in God's created
order, and we had no power of ourselves to help ourselves. But
God, in the fullness of time, sent his only-begotten Son, to take our
nature upon him, and to pay, once for all, upon the cross, the penalty
for mankind's sins. And then, on the third day, God raised him
from the dead to a new life with God. And all we, who in baptism
were buried with Jesus Christ in his tomb, have been raised with him to
that new life. And because of this it is our bounden duty, at all
times and in all places, to give thanks unto him. Thanks be to
God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
"And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that
we show forth thy praise not only with our lips but in our lives, by
giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in
holiness and righteousness all our days." True thanksgiving is
not a mere formula of words. If we are truly thankful, we will
live our lives accordingly. We will show God how grateful we are
by trying a little bit harder to live in accordance with his
commandments and teachings.
"Throught Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost
be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen." God is
Trinity, and when we return thanks to God, we do so with praise of the
Trinity. Only by returning thanks to God can we show that we
really believe that he is the author and source of all the good things
in our lives, and that we trust him to give us all that we need in this
life and to call us to be with him forever in the life of the world to
come. That is, thanksgiving is an expression of our faith.
Jesus says to the Samaritan leper (or ex-leper): there were ten
men who were cleansed from leprosy, but "thy faith hath made thee whole." The othr nine were
cleansed of leprosy, they were now healthy in the physical sense; but
the one who returned to give thanks had shown that he believed that God
was the source of his healing and that he was right to have put his
trust in Jesus. This man was now healthy in the spiritual
sense. His faith had saved him; his faith had made him whole.
And it is the same with us. There are members of this parish who
have confronted terrible diseases of the body; and modern medicine has
effected some wonderful cures. But the physician of our souls is
our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can make us truly whole, by the
will of the Father, thorugh the work of the Holy Spirit.
Now,
therefore, to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, be
ascribed as is most justly due, all might, majesty, power, dominion,
and glory, henceforth, world without end. Amen.
Church of Saint Mary Magdalene
Orange, California
1 September 2002
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