Luke 17:11-19

What’s the best feeling you’ve ever experienced?

Could you endorse those Christians who say that feeling grateful for the gift of life is the best?

It’s wonderful to be thanked for what you’ve done for someone else, even though we don’t do it for acknowledgement.

It’s uplifting to be appreciated and not taken for granted.

It’s sad that many people who help us in our daily lives like doctors and teachers often go unthanked because people feel they’re “just doing their job”. It’s expected of them.

When we really understand the cost of God’s grace to us and appreciate the huge impact it has on our lives, our response can only be gratitude, gratitude that we show every day of our lives. The greatest danger we face as Christians is to take God’s grace for granted. The spiritual life of many Christians is impoverished because they give too little place to verbally giving thanks. It’s been said that our eagerness to give thanks is a barometer of our spiritual health. Doubt often begins the first time we think that expressing thanks to God or a family member or friend is superfluous. Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues; it is the parent of every other virtue.

We all have many more things to be thankful for to God than to complain of. Why, then, isn’t gratitude so much more common than complaint? A computer thesaurus lists only seven alternatives for the verb “to thank”, but 19 possibilities for “to complain”! Humans have many ways of showing grumpiness, but aren’t so skilled at expressing appreciation. Today’s Gospel suggests that giving thanks isn’t as common as it ought to be, and we are the poorer for it. This morning’s account of the grateful Samaritan highlights the fact that often the most unlikely people are the most grateful. Often those who have much less reason to be thankful are the ones who show gratitude; they’re thankful just to be alive, to have a caring family and friends, and food on the table, things that we so often take for granted.

We can’t imagine how wonderful it must have been to be cured of the dreaded disease of leprosy. Why, then, did only one of the ten lepers return to thank Jesus for the gift of healing? A Samaritan would have been the last person expected to go out of his way to thank his Jewish healer. But then, there was no one who cared more for people who others avoided, like the Samaritans, than Jesus.

The ten lepers in this morning’s Gospel had no doubt heard how Jesus had compassion on other outcasts and healed them. Stories about how our Lord Jesus cared for those no one else cared for spread like wildfire. So when these lepers see Jesus in the distance, they saw in Him their only hope for a better future. They cry out from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus, in humility, directs the lepers to the health inspectors of the time, the priests. Jesus puts their faith to the test by asking them to act as if they’ve been already cured. Obedience to Jesus precedes their healing

Now that they are healed, nine of them are all too absorbed in their joy at being healthy again to bother going out of their way to thank their Healer. They’d experienced God’s mercy, but failed to see how amazing and astonishing it is. We need to continually seek God’s mercy as long as we live. There’s no better prayer we can pray every day than “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” God’s mercy is something we can never take for granted, but can only be received with lifelong gratitude. For “the mercies of the Lord are new every day (Lamentations 3:22).” “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).”

We can easily think of reasons why these nine lepers fail to thank Jesus for the mercy He has shown to them. By failing to thank our Lord for His grace and mercy, they miss out on an even greater blessing than the Samaritan alone receives, that is, the assurance that his faith has led to his salvation. The ungrateful nine felt they had more urgent things to do, like businesses to return to, and family and friends to see again. They treasured the gift more than the Giver. Failure to show gratitude means “biting the hand that feeds you.” An outsider, a Samaritan, puts God’s people to shame.

This Samaritan leper is also a “good” Samaritan in the deepest sense of the word. He knows that “It is good to give thanks to the Lord (Psalm 92:1).” He shows his gratitude publicly, not in a temple or synagogue, but to God in the person of His Son Jesus. The Samaritan worships and praises God at the feet of our Lord. He sees Jesus as much more than a miracle-worker. He sees Jesus as God in human form, who is worthy of praise of thanksgiving. He is grateful to the Giver, not just for the gift itself. His gratitude brings the wonderful blessing Jesus initiated to a glorious completion.

Unless we show gratitude as soon as possible, we’re unlikely to show it at all. By immediately returning to show our Lord his gratefulness, the Samaritan receives so much more than he originally asked for. He is made whole, that is, he is saved through his faith. Jesus says to him, “Rise and go, your faith has saved you.”

Gratitude is a celebration of the bond that unites giver and receiver. We taste the goodness of God’s gifts to us twice over when we delight in thanking Him for all that He has given us. Thanking God for all good things, great and small, takes the focus from ourselves and puts it onto God. Anything that takes the focus from ourselves is healthy.

Gratitude deepens our sense of dependence on God for life, protection and love. Gratitude dissipates discontent and increases our contentment with all we have already received from God.

As we grow in gratitude, we will discover God’s blessings in the most unexpected places. We may find that some of the things we thought were liabilities and limitations are really blessings in disguise. Grateful people are perhaps more open to recognising and receiving new and deeper blessings.

In one of the classic graces we pray before meals we say “For what we’re about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.” You see, in the New Testament, God is also thanked for future blessings as well as past and present blessings. Week by week, God blesses us in ways we often don’t see at the time.

In retrospect, we might see how tough times we’ve experienced have become blessings in disguise, as they’ve drawn us closer to God. Gratitude is enhanced rather than diminished by lavishing it on everyday blessings.

We can thank God for everything that’s been going right in our lives.

We can express our gratitude for all the parts of our bodies that are healthy and functioning well.

Thank God that your car brought you safely here to worship this morning and has taken you safely to and from home each day this week.

Thank God for everyone worshipping with you here today.

Thank God for every fellow Christian who has enriched your life in one way or another.

Thank God for everyone who has shown you love in one way or another, and for those who have been grateful to you for the love you’ve shown them.

Jesus interprets acts of thanksgiving as expressions of love for Him. Love and thanks are two sides of the one coin.

There was once a grandmother who said “Thank You, God; thank You, God” at least a hundred times a day. God helps us all to grow in gratitude the longer we’re on this earth. The true test of joy is gratitude. It’s not how much you have that brings you happiness, but how much you’re grateful for what you do have. Gratitude is the shortest, surest way to joy. May God’s grace never stop inspiring gratitude in you.

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above:

then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all His love.

 

Amen.