Pentecost 18

Luke 17: 11-19 

- The Rev’d Dr Cathy Laufer

In the name of God, Life-giver, Pain-bearer, Love-maker, Amen.

I have three god-daughters, all adults now. Lucy, the eldest, is English, and grew up in Wales. Then there's Cecilia, in Melbourne. Finally Jessica, who moved from Geelong to China with her teacher parents. The distance between us limited my involvement in their lives, but, when they were children, I always sent them carefully chosen birthday and Christmas gifts. Lucy would respond with a card which I learnt to open over newspaper as it was always filled with stars, or hearts, or glitter. Cecilia preferred the phone: 'Hi Auntie Cathy. Thanks for the ... whatever. Here's Mum.' Short and sweet – that's Cecilia.

And then there’s Jessica. I had an ongoing problem with Jess. She did not say thank you – no email, no letter, no phone call, no text. Her dad rang to let me know that the gift had arrived, and I enjoyed our catch-up chats, but I would still have liked Jess to say her own thank you. I mentioned this once, to her dad, and the next gift received a brief thank you email, but never again.

Now, I didn’t give presents in order to get a ‘thank you’, but, as a godmother, I felt it was something important for these girls to learn. Saying thank you shows appreciation for what someone has done, it shows that you don't take their action for granted. It's one of the first phrases we teach our children – and not just us, in the English speaking world. Expressing gratitude is important in all cultures across the globe, and always has been. Wise tourists learn to say thank you in the local language of any country they visit. It smooths the way.

So what's with these nine lepers in today's gospel? Are they all rude, or poorly brought up? Or is something else going on?

To understand this reading, we need to know something of the public health laws found in Leviticus 13. We would call them 'quarantine laws' today. They describe how someone with a contagious disease needs to remain apart from the community until they are well. Think of Covid lock-downs, or isolation wards. Doctors determine when a person is able to return to society safely. In ancient Israel, the isolation ward was the countryside; instead of doctors, priests assessed a person's return to health.

A sign of some infections is that the skin erupts in a rash or sores. In ancient times, all such skin complaints were dubbed 'leprosy', an umbrella term covering everything from chickenpox to eczema, and the disease we still call leprosy today. Because lepers could not approach uninfected people, they sometimes formed small groups of similarly afflicted folk for company. In today's Gospel, such a group of lepers approach Jesus. They obey the law, so they ask Jesus to heal them from a distance. Jesus also obeys the Levitical law: he tells the lepers to go to the priest to have their healing confirmed. Nine of them do precisely that. They obey Torah, the law given by God.

Jesus tells the lepers, 'Go and show yourselves to the priests' ... and off they go. Yet, it seems that Jesus expected them to come back. 'Were not ten made clean?', he asks. 'Where are the other nine? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God?' Why, having told the lepers to go to the priest, does Jesus expect them to disobey? One does, and in his actions we can see what Jesus is getting at.

That leper can tell he has been healed: he has only to look at his own body to see that the eruptions, sores or whatever have gone. He knows the quarantine regulations: he has been obeying them for some time. Presumably, he could have gone to a priest first and then found Jesus to say thank you. But he doesn't. He goes straight back to Jesus.

This man understood what the law was really about: when contagious, protect the health of others; when healed, go to a priest. A priest, not a doctor. Going to a doctor means asking to be healed, but going to a priest implies giving thanks to God from whom all healing comes.

That is precisely what the man did. 'One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God.' The significant part of the law is not going to the priest, but thanking God. This man praised God for healing him. He also prostrated himself at Jesus' feet. Prostration is an act of worship. This man's action suggests that, at some level, he recognised who Jesus was. In some way he knew that his cure was effected by One greater than any priest. He was the appropriate person to thank and to worship.

Jesus seems to have expected that these lepers would realise who he was, that their healing would give them spiritual insight. And, for one, it did. He came back and said 'thank you'.

The story of the ten lepers reminds us that our first duty to God is not giving money or time, but giving thanks. That duty belongs to us all, equally, whether we're young or old, rich or poor, employed, seeking work or retired. We are all equally recipients of God's gifts, so we all should say 'thank you'.

There are a number of ways we can thank God. The most obvious is simply saying 'thank you' in our prayers. Cultivate an attitude of thankfulness in prayer, say grace before meals, look at the world with thankful eyes.

Worship is another way of giving thanks. One name for this service is 'Eucharist' which means 'thank you'. The central act of this service is giving thanks for Christ's coming, his sacrifice and his resurrection. Worshipping God, as that leper did, is a form of giving thanks.

So, too, is giving to others. When we donate food to Mark’s Pantry, give of what we have to the needy, give gifts to one another, we are acting out our thankfulness to God who is the origin of all we have.

Finally, we can make a thank offering, a gift over and above our regular giving. Most of the sacrifices described in the Hebrew Scriptures were thank offerings. In fact, one such offering is to be made by a person cured of leprosy. Earlier in Luke's gospel, in chapter 5, Jesus heals another leper and tells him, 'Go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded'.

Have a look around the church, at the plaques on the pews, at notes in the front of hymn books, at dedications on the stained glass windows. Many of these are thank offerings, mostly for people’s lives or for ministry received.

Eucharist is more than a church service. It’s a way of life, living with an attitude of thankfulness to God and of generosity to others. It doesn’t matter whether we have a little or a lot in the world’s terms. What is important is our attitude to what we have, our recognition that all we have comes from God and is to be shared with others.

In the words of an old prayer over the offering, ‘We give you but your own, o God, and with it our hearts.’

Amen