The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Proper 23C
When the one leper, the Samaritan, saw that he was healed, he turned back to give thanks to Jesus. An important detail in the story: he saw that he was healed. All ten of the people afflicted with leprosy had been healed, and they were sent off to show themselves to the priests who were in charge of declaring whether they were free of the disease. The other nine, it seems, were focused on the next step of the mission, but this Samaritan took a moment to look at himself; when he looked, he saw that he was healed. He turned – perhaps he wasn’t sure which priests he was supposed to turn to, the priests in Jerusalem or the priests on Mt Gerazim where the Samaritans worshipped. (I’m glad that dermatology is no longer a subject expected of priests.) But he knew that Jesus had done this healing, and so he turned back to show his gratitude.
When did you notice you were healed? What was the moment that you took notice of what God had been doing in your life? Was it a flash, a moment of change in your life when you decided to follow Jesus – or was it a slow burn where you were able to look back and see how Jesus had been walking alongside you and your heart burned with gratitude? When did you, like the leper, notice what Jesus had been doing in your life and you turned with gratitude?
That gratitude flows into our spiritual life and animates it. We are grateful and thankful. We thank God for creating us, for restoring us, for healing us, for guiding us, for renewing and transforming us. And as we ponder those things that God had done for us, our heart flows with love enough to share.
What are you thankful for?
I’m thankful for God’s ongoing faithfulness in my life, even when I’ve struggled in return. Some of you know I grew up in a religious tradition that talks about Jesus but has some very interesting ideas about God, heaven, and the institutional church. My family wasn’t the most active, but I’m thankful that my parents instilled in me a love for reading the Bible and a belief that what Jesus said in the Gospels was at the heart of following him. So as I got older and asked more questions, that faith in Jesus was the foundation that let me stand firm in something bigger than myself. I didn’t know how to articulate my frustrations with how that church interpreted the Bible, and I didn’t know how to speak the right words to say how the church’s refusal to ordain women was wrong, but I knew that the Jesus I met when I read the Bible thought bigger and more clearly than what that church was teaching. I knew that the Bible was not just a collection of little proofs for obscure and strange doctrine. I knew that God was not first and foremost concerned about gender in whether someone was called to ministry within the church. I’m grateful that God set me on such a foundation in Jesus.
And I’m thankful, too, for God’s lovingkindness toward me in the years after I left that church. I’d been wrestling and frustrated for so long, that when I finally got the nerve to leave I didn’t have the strength to find a new church, and so as a teenager I wandered around spiritually. I didn’t want to go through the heartbreak of finding a new community – because I also knew that spiritual community is hard. I knew expecting perfection is only disappointment, and I’m hardly perfect myself. But God was with me in those wandering days, too. I learned a lot. I asked better questions. I wandered in a wilderness; in the wilderness I might feel alone, yet in the wandering I had a silent companion in Jesus. I’m thankful that Jesus knew the healing I needed.
And then when I “came back” to Jesus, in a sense I’d never left, and Jesus certainly had never left me. Jesus is faithful – remember, he healed all ten of the lepers because it is Jesus’ desire to heal us; the nine that kept on going were still healed. But there was a rejoicing in my heart to come back to Jesus more fully, and Jesus rejoiced to have me back. As he said to the Samaritan leper who turned back to give thanks, so he says to me: “your faith makes you well.”
Faith – it’s not what we know or think, but it’s our turning to Jesus in word and deed, faith in sharing in love what God does for all of us, how Jesus heals not just the one who turns to him but the nine who kept on walking. And it makes us well – we continue to fall down and make mistakes and hurt ourselves and one another, we still sometimes find our love for God frozen in a cold shadow – but we can keep turning to Jesus in word and deed and prayer, and share our thankfulness and find ourselves rekindled and healed. Faith makes us well, not because we get fixed once for all, and not because nice pious thoughts make us special – faith makes us well because it keeps us turning to Jesus who loves us beyond measure, who has already been at work healing us, whether or not we’ve seen it. That is simply who Jesus is, and Jesus is delighted to heal us and have compassion on us. And Jesus rejoices when he sees us turn in gratitude, even if we think ourselves as outsiders, or if others say we don’t belong. When did you notice Jesus had been healing you – in body, in mind, in spirit, in heart? Jesus shows you love, and he delights in you. What would you say to Jesus to thank him – in thought, in word, in deed? And imagine the love in his eyes seeing you turn toward him like the Samaritan leper, knowing that you noticed the healing and were burning with love in return. Amen.