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Gratitude and Grace

Preached at St. Barnabas Church, Bellville, TX

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, 2008

by The Rev. Stephen E. Stults

Luke 17:11-12 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off.

From our Gospel selection from the day, we see firsthand the healing power of Christ’s love. We also witness his incredible compassion and mercy on those who were literally sick, not only physically, but also sick with sin and despair. As you hear this portion of Scripture, I would humbly submit for your consideration two words that should ring through your mind. Those two words are “gratitude” and “grace.”

In the story, ten lepers stood afar off and cried unto Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Christ tells them to go show themselves to the priests, while exercising his kingly authority over nature, expressed in a miraculous healing from leprosy. Note that he doesn’t anoint them or touch them in any way. Instead, he tells them to obey the precepts of the Law of Moses and go to the priests for ritual pronouncement of cleansing. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses gave explicit instructions on leprosy and other infectious diseases. The plain fact is that a Jew had to be pronounced “clean” by a priest before he or she could be re-admitted to communal life. Thus, while Jesus had already willed or decreed their cleansing; now it was up to them to claim the covenantal benefits by following Moses’ law. After the priests had seen them and were satisfied, they could allow them to return to Jewish life. What is interesting about this aspect of the story is that we see another example of Christ’s fulfilling, not abolishing the Old Covenant.

As they went, the wonderful cleansing miracle took place for the group of ten lepers. One of them, noticing that he was cured, glorified God with a “loud voice” and turned back to give thanks. In characteristic Middle Eastern fashion, he prostrates himself at Christ’s feet and humbly offers him thanks. Jesus asks, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.”

This brief episode not only shows the glorious mercy and lovingkindness of God, but as importantly, our attitude towards it. A fundamentalist preacher I once heard years ago said, “Most people have an asking basket this big (here he spread his arms wide), but they have a thanksgiving basket this big (here he cupped his hands.)

How apt that saying is! We Christians petition our Heavenly Father for a multitude of things every day. You could say that our “asking basket” is very large. That is OK, because I believe our Lord wouldn’t have it any other way. We should be dependent on God for everything. After all, the Proverbs tell us:” (Pro 3:5-6) “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

That being said, just as we ask largely because He is able to give largely, we should also thank largely because He is able to receive it, and more importantly, is so deserving of it. There is no way we can ever give enough thanks for all the benefits God has given us. The very fact that we are here is praise-worthy, that is, we should offer thanks for our very existence. We also must give constant thanks for God’s ever-sustaining Providence holding the world together. Just as God’s Spirit “moved upon the face of the waters” in Gen. 1:2 to create the world, His Spirit moves over the face of the earth to sustain His Creation. Without God’s continuing benevolence, the whole Creation would degenerate into chaos. Recall St. Paul’s treatment of this in Col 1:17, which is one of Paul’s definitive statements on Christ’s sovereignty, where he says, “And He (Christ) is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Thus, we know that the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, not only created all things in the beginning, but continues to sustain them to this day.

It is an obvious statement that our list of thanksgivings could on and on into infinity. The Christian should be deeply thankful, moment by moment, literally for every thing. Simple but profound miracles like sunrises and sunsets, the beauty of nature as expressed in flora and fauna, the glorious majesty of mountain ranges and mighty seascapes are but a testimony to God’s Glory.

Then, when one turns to God’s greatest creation, Man, the list of thanksgiving continues. When one studies epistemology (the study of knowledge and learning), or philosophy, or metaphysics, the glories of the human mind become apparent. The miracle of language, both written and spoken, by itself, is miraculous. Going to a basic level, even our thought processes are amazing. The very fact that we can have this discussion here today is a testimony to God’s goodness and glory, for without Him, it would be impossible.

This is not to belabor the topic, but merely to point out that the Christian should live in a daily, minute by minute dialogue of thanksgiving to God. St. Paul echoes this in (Eph 5:18-19) “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;”

It’s been said that the great Saints always have had some sort of mental “God-activity” going on in their brains. This may be what St. Paul means when he counsels us in 1Th. 5:17 to” Pray without ceasing.” In other words, never let your consciousness stray too far from God, especially in the area of thanksgiving.

Turning back to the story, ten lepers were cleansed. Only one returned to give thanks. Why? Even Christ seemed to express amazement at this, although we know that Jesus, being God, knew the hearts of men. Jesus, was, no doubt, vocalizing this for the benefit of those standing by. At any rate, he says, “Were not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” One out of ten returned to give thanks, and, wonder of wonders, the one that did come back was a Samaritan!

You’ll recall that last week, we spent some time discussing the Jews’ attitude towards the Samaritans. Suffice it to say that they were regarded as mongrels and outcasts. Yet, in this passage, who returns to give thanks? A Samaritan, or “This stranger”, as Christ himself terms it.

This fact and its mathematical considerations have some interesting implications for the response of man to God’s call. In this case, while all ten of the men received healing, only one came back to give thanks, or a 10% ratio. If that holds true in general, it is a ringing condemnation of man’s ingratitude to a gracious God. It is also a known fact that our God works through remnants. He does this again and again in Holy Scripture to illustrate that it is God’s Glory that achieves the victory, not the might or will of man.

This question of remnants also makes some possible connections to the idea of predestination and election, or those who are called to salvation vs. those who actually respond. The simple fact is this, all ten men received God’s gracious healing; they were, in a sense, “called.” Yet, only one returned. Why? Did he perceive in himself faith or did he hear a “calling”? We don’t know. The whole question of calling, election and salvation are all caught up into the wonderful mystery of God.

One of the problems of 18^th century Enlightenment thinking, as well as modern liberal de-constructionist theology of the 1960’s and 1970’s, is that it tried to “de-mystify” God. The Enlightenment did this because it placed human reason as the highest of all virtues, while modern theology sought to de-construct Christianity for a host of reasons, few of them having to do with faith. These attempts ultimately failed because at some point we realize that if we have no mystery, we have no God.

When we take God out of the equation of existence, our formula for life is unsolvable. Thus, modern (and I include in this category Enlightenment thinking as well), ultimately arrives at a mental “non sequitur.” That is, we always get to a point where we just don’t understand.

This means the end result of much modern thought is to generate more questions than answers. Without God, man’s quest for knowledge is ultimately fruitless.

In a reaction to this trend in theology, a group arose known as the neo-Orthodox theologians. One of them, a German named Karl Barth, when he was writing about predestination and election once said, “We stand at the gates of mystery.”

There is so much we don’t know about God. Luther termed this as the Deus Absconditus, or the God that we know only as He reveals Himself to us. Luckily, we Christians have the anointed Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, and the Sacraments to lead us to Him. Taking today’s Gospel for example, what we do know are Christ’s wonderful and inspiring words, (Luke 17:19) “And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.” Christ perceived enough faith in the man to allow for his healing. Yet, his physical healing had already happened. Could there be something else to which Jesus is referring? Jesus, in an act of great generosity and mercy, had already healed the men physically. Yet, nine of them did not turn back to give thanks. The nine that did not return were focused on receiving their physical or material, reassurances. That is, they wanted the sanction of the Old Covenant to cover them again. After all, Christ told them to do this.

However, they would never have the gift of grace that the one who turned back did. Rather than trust in the old promises of the Law, the Samaritan saw the promise of grace and embraced it, literally prostrating himself before it. This may be why Jesus tells him to arise and go, for his faith has made him whole. By receiving a blessing and returning thanks for it, the Samaritan experienced the whole cycle of grace, from petition to reception to thanksgiving. He was made not only whole physically, but spiritually as well. He was literally a new, “whole” man.

Thus, a central aspect of this story is once again, the “tension” between the Old Covenant of Law vs. the New Covenant of Grace. Once again, we see the nine men, who were presumably Jews, trusting in the Law, rather than opening up to the possibility of Grace. We see that those who were given the Law, the Prophets, the Worship and the “sense” of God were unable to acknowledge his Presence, even when it was literally right in front of them. They were unable to complete the cycle of grace and truly receive the benefits God had in store for them.

Instead, through their obstinacy, they would reap covenantal cursings rather than blessings. This is why Christ weeps over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41: “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,” The reason for Christ’s tears are that, in Luke 19:44, Christ predicts the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 a.d. ”And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” The Jews, the People of God, chosen and precious before Him, could not see their Messiah, but rejected Him when He visited them. As a result of this and of their own striving after political solutions to spiritual problems, they would eventually bring down the wrath of Imperial Rome upon their heads.

Yet, we know, in God’s mercy and grace to us Gentiles, the Jews’ rejection of Christ was divinely ordained for our salvation. Their fall was our gain, as Paul tells us in the ninth chapter of Romans. This is mystery at its highest level as God uses His covenantal People to procure our salvation.

The lesson of this cycle of grace, petition, reception, and thanksgiving applies to our lives as well. We are to petition, we are to receive and we are to give hearty and well-founded thanks for all of our blessings. In so doing, we too will become spiritually healed. The more this cycle of dependency continues and as we recognize it in our lives, the more we will become the children of God.

This is one of the most challenging aspects of Christianity. When we talk about “losing ourselves” for Christ, this aspect of dependency surfaces again and again.

You see, for a capable, successful adult to say he or she needs anything beyond his or her own supposed self-sufficiency is a lot to accept. After all, we are told that we must be independent, aggressive, and self-reliant. Yet, we are not autonomous.

In one of the greatest paradoxes of life, the more we acknowledge our dependency on God, the stronger we become. God does not despise success, rather the opposite.

When we surrender our supposed autonomy and offer to Him our natural talents, skills and abilities in a sacrificial manner, He magnifies these qualities and returns them to us as gifts, burnished and brightened for use to His Glory. Dependency on God does not breed weakness, but strength.

Rather than being crushed by the world or dismayed by it, we go from “strength to strength.” Remember, we are more than victors in Christ; we are inheritors of the Kingdom.

Thus, let us be like the Samaritan, who seeing that was he was healed, returned to give thanks, “and with a loud voice glorified God.”

[1] Henry, Matthew, Commentary on Luke, Blue Letter Bible, www.blueletterbible.org

[2] Henry, op. cit

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