It's so easy to judge, isn't it? We look at those nine lepers -- the ones who didn't come back to give thanks - and we say, "Well, they should have!" And yet, we don't know the first thing about them. They might have been praising and thanking God all the way to the priests. They might have been trying to do exactly what Jesus told them to do - to go and show themselves to the priests (Lk. 17:14). They might have been totally baffled. Maybe they thought they were asking Jesus for money, and here, all of a sudden, they're healed!

Do we even realize how much of a shock that would be? Here they have been unable to approach other people because of their skin disease. They have been required to warn others by shouting, "Unclean! Unclean!" They have been surviving by asking for alms - begging for handouts so that they can eat. I can't help but think of the Monty Python scene where a man is dancing around and asking, "Alms for an ex-leper. Alms for an ex-leper." Jesus had healed him, but the only thing that he knew how to do was to beg for alms. It is quite possible that the other nine were in a state of shock!

The tenth leper, however, seems to have been given a gift. He has been given the gift of faith, and he is able to see that he has been healed by Jesus. He knows that it is God's power that has healed him, but somehow it came to him through Jesus. And so, he doesn't just give his thanks and praise to God, but he returns in order that he might thank Jesus as well. This man is ready to move on and to have a new life as a healed person. This man is ready for a new way of seeing.

It would be very easy with today's gospel to turn it into "why we should be thankful." I don't know about you, but somebody telling me that I should be thankful has never resulted in any particular feelings of thankfulness. Instead, I simply get resentful for having been told what I "should" be feeling. And so, you won't be hearing today why you should be thankful like the Samaritan leper was. Instead, we can learn an awful lot about what faith is, and what it means to have faith. After all, we hear at the end of today's gospel that the Samaritan's faith has made him well (Lk. 17:19).

So, perhaps the first thing that we could say about faith is that faith is the response of thanksgiving to God and to Jesus. Think about that for a moment. Faith is responding with praise and thanksgiving. Really, is there any other way to respond when we truly grasp what God has done for us through Jesus Christ?

Take the Samaritan man, for example. As he is heading off with the others to go and be examined by the priests, he suddenly realizes that he has been healed. There are no signs of his skin disease. He experiences this as a miracle - something that could only be accomplished by the power of God. He also recognizes that Jesus is the one who has made this healing happen. Somehow, the power of God was at work through Jesus in order to bring this about. What a wonder, that a man who looks just like everybody else should have the power of God working through him in this way! And so he just has to go back to Jesus with praise and thanksgiving in his heart.

For Martin Luther, too, the first response to God's goodness and generosity is to give thanks and praise. Listen to his explanation of the first article of the creed.

Did you catch that? The first response is to thank and praise God, and then to serve and obey. The thanks and praise simply come out of believing that God has created us and provided for us. Yet, isn't there even more cause for thanks and praise when we realize what Jesus has done for us?

He has wiped out any record of our sin. He humbled himself in order to live among us and show us what God is like. He took upon himself the punishment that should have been reserved for our sins. He gave his life, that we might be freed from the power of sin and death. He made himself the bridge between us and God. He made himself an offering for sin so that we might be made righteous in God's sight. Through Jesus, God says to us that we are worth the death of his Son.

Once we recognize this and have faith, praise and thanksgiving are simply automatic. There is no "should" about it. With faith comes a spirit of thankfulness. Just as with the ten who were lepers, Jesus died for all and has cleansed all. It's just that not everyone responds with faith and thus with praise and thanksgiving. In the same way, not everyone responds with faith and thus with service and obedience to God.

Faith involves seeing things that sometimes others cannot see. The Samaritan saw that he had been healed and saw that it was Jesus who had done it. The other nine perhaps saw that they had been healed, but might not have perceived that Jesus had anything to do with it. In fact, it is quite possible that each one of them experienced the same thing, and yet attached a totally different meaning to it. Yet, for the Samaritan, his faith enabled him to see God's power at work through Jesus.

There is a saying from the Talmud that goes like this: "We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are." This seems to be so true, especially when it comes to an attitude of thankfulness. For example, when our attention is focused on Jesus and on the love that he has demonstrated for us and on the salvation that is ours through him, it is natural to respond in thankfulness and praise. On the other hand, when we are focused on everything that is wrong in our lives, and on our problems, and on the things that we don't have, we're probably not going to be particularly thankful. There can be two people in identical situations with the same income, family configuration and living conditions. One will be depressed and miserable. The other will be grateful for everything that they have. The only difference is how they are seeing their situations.

The challenge for us today is to see through the eyes of faith: To see God as the source of all that we have; To see forgiveness and salvation as the gift that it is; To see God at work in our lives and in our world, in spite of how things might seem. The same challenge is posed to us as a congregation. Do we focus on what we don't have or on what we do have? Do we act out of fear or out of faith? Do we focus on what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, or on what we perceive as problems? Do we focus on our blessings or on what we want that we don't have?

I mention the congregation because we truly are blessed. We have no debt, a beautiful place to gather for worship, and an abundance of land. We have people who have been blessed with many different gifts for ministry. Some of those people use their gifts within the congregation, and some share their gifts in the wider community. Above all, we have the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is good news for all people. We are not forsaken or abandoned. We are loved and forgiven. We are healed and restored. We are saved and redeemed. We are precious children of God who are called to respond to God's grace. As that gift of faith takes hold in our hearts, we thank and praise God, and serve and obey him. This is most certainly true. Amen.

Proper 23(C) / Thanksgiving Luke 17:11-19 October 10, 2004 St. Luke's Zion Lutheran Church Pastor Lynne Hutchison

? 2004 Lynn Hutchison All Rights Reserved