Grateful hearts - Harvest Sermon

Luke 17: 11 - 19

“I spent the best moments of my life in the arms of a woman who is not my wife.”

After members of the congregation had gasped with horror, the preacher had gone on to explain that he was talking of the care and love that he received in his childhood from his mother.

Anyhow, the listening Bishop had been impressed and thought that he would use this introduction when next he preached. But sadly he had not taken into account his increasing tendency to forgetfulness and so addressing a packed church in his diocese he proclaimed;

“I have spent the best moment of my life in the arms of a woman who is not my life. Oh dear, I can’t remember who she was!”.

It is quite a reminder than it is important to remember the punch line if a meaningless ramble is to be resisted. Our Gospel reading today can be seen as a healing story but its powerful punchline is when Jesus says;

“Was no-one else found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

But to appreciate that comment, we need to see how the story evolves to take us to that point.

Now the background is that Jesus is travelling to Jerusalem. He has reached the border between Samaria and Galilee. There he meets a community of need, a gathering of outsiders. These people have skin diseases. Our use of the term leprosy here may be a little misleading as leprosy seems to have sometimes been used as a catch all description for a range of skin diseases and not just Hansen’s disease which we know as leprosy today. This is not to belittle the sufferings of these people for in those days, sufferers of skin diseases were stigmatised as being unclean and this meant that they would be isolated from the rest of their community, forced to fend for themselves.

Most people would have preferred the likes of these people, who would be seen as the authors of their own misfortunes by the cruel theologies that held sway then and indeed too often today, to suffer in silence. But the ten afflicted men, see in Jesus a possible means of cure. So they shout to him;

“Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

And now the response of Jesus becomes surprising. He doesn’t touch these men or even say a blessing to them. He simply tells them;

“Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

But wait a moment! This was the procedure to be followed after a healing. Only the priest could certify that the person was clean and fit to once more take their place in polite society. Still, the lepers set off and according to Luke, as they made their way in obedience to Jesus, they were cleansed. Oh, I guess there’s a sermon in this. Doing as told by Jesus, brings a cleansing.

But what really matters for this morning is what follows. Nine of the men, it would seem, continued on their path. Nothing wrong with that. They were simply doing what Jesus had told them to do. It is a fair conclusion that they couldn’t wait to rejoin their families and communities.

But for one, it was different. He doesn’t do what Jesus has told him to do. Instead he comes back to Jesus, throws himself at the feet of Jesus, and loudly praises God and expresses his thanks. And for this he wins the approval of Jesus. Listen to the words of Jesus;

“Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?”

This man has done the right thing. He has both felt and demonstrated gratitude. Isn’t he a lesson to us who too often take the good things of life for granted. Surely, this man is a role model in his response to the receipt of blessings.

But there is another twist. The community of ten men with skin diseases was probably a rather precarious community. For a time, differences would have been suspended as a result of a shared need. But, the differences would have been there nonetheless. Still we only know an additional detail about the one man who came back to thank Jesus. And that detail was that he was a Samaritan.

Now, that may not be shocking for us. Few people get angry over the small Samaritan community that continues to live in Israel. But it would have disturbed the followers of Jesus and some of those who were the first readers of Luke. For there had been a long enmity between Jew and Samaritan going back half a millennium before the birth of Jesus. Its roots were in the Assyrian mingling with the once good Jews of Samaria. But now, it lived in a bitter divide on both racial and religious lines. All the prejudices we see today being heeped upon for example Muslims, travellers and asylum seekers were horrifyingly alive in the hatred directed at the Samaritans. Nothing was expected of such people and yet in this encounter, the outsider showed a much greater appreciation of the kindness of God than those who saw themselves as God’s people. Yes, the Samaritan is a reminder to us that those whom we are tempted to see as outside of God’s people, those who follow other spiritualities such as New age, may be more sensitively appreciative of God’s goodness than we who are inclined to feel that we are on the inside.

But there is one final twist to take notice of. And it is found in the final words of Jesus to this grateful Samaritan;

“Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Strange words! After all, he had already been cured of his condition. But, Jesus would seem to be suggesting that gratitude is a condition for finding true wholeness. If we are not grateful for our blessings, then something is missing from our lives. And we can express our gratitude in our response to God who in love is continually blessing us in ways which we should not turn our eyes away from. We have a God to thank. G. K. Chesterton once commented;

“The worse moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.”

We do have God to thank. To thank for so many blessings both physical and spiritual. And today as we gaze at the display within this church, we thank God for the Harvest, a Harvest which is the gift of God in partnership with those whose labours enables the bounty before us to be glorious reality.


This sermon is being preached for Harvest Festival at Gammaton Methodist Church on Sunday September 9th 2007