“Thanks”  Luke 17: 11-19
St Giles’ Oct 10th 2010 

Toda. (Hebrew)
Khop Khun Krab (kowp-koom krahp) (Thai)
Shukran (shoe-krahn) (Arabic)
Asante (Ah-sahn-teh) (Swahili)
Diolch (Welsh)
Gracias. (Spanish)
Merci.  (French)
Danke. (German.)

You will have guessed by now that I am saying thank you. In 8 different languages. If you want to know which ones, see me afterwards. It is, I suspect, a universal word. It would be a very odd culture indeed which didn’t include courtesy and gratitude.
And we were thinking last Sunday evening about the instincts which lie behind our Harvest Festivals. Jolly occasions – and St Giles’ will be full twice this week when we have Gilesgate Primary and St Hild’s here on Thursday for their Harvest Festivals. But more than jolly because they feel real; they express our profound sense of gratitude for the beauty and abundance of the world in which we live. Even if, scientifically, we know how plants grow and why the weather is as it is - ! - we still feel this deep sense of gratitude; wanting to say thank you to someone or something.

“Thanks” – it is just a natural part of human life. Or is it ?

This morning’s Gospel story again holds a mirror up to human nature, up to us, and asks us – are you really thankful ?

Let’s just look at the story for a moment. It is set on the borders of Galilee, Jesus’ home patch, and Samaria. Samaria was not just foreign territory, but could be hostile territory. Samaritans and Jews hated each other – for religious, political and ethnic reasons. In our age we know only too well what that looks like. And a number of the Gospel stories reveal the very unpredictable reactions of Samaritans when they met Jesus.

Interestingly, because they all suffer from the curse of leprosy, which in the ancient world was a word that included many skin diseases, these Jews and Samaritans have banded together. And they are waiting outside the village – because of course they were banned from going into the village – to catch Jesus. Perhaps they have heard some of the miracle stories. Perhaps they have heard that Jesus even touches lepers. Even so they don’t come close. They shout out from a distance: “Jesus – have mercy on us”. These are desperate people. Not only have they been banished from society, family and friends, they are facing a grim future, as the disease eats them alive. Of course they shout out to Jesus, begging for his help. Who wouldn’t ?

And it is what we do too. I have talked with Forces Chaplains and servicemen about life in Afghanistan. They all say, “when the bullets are flying, there are no atheists”.

I guess that there is not a single person here this morning who has not begged God to help when life is really tough. That’s ok. That’s what we do. That is how it is with us and God.

Jesus responds in a slightly strange way. He doesn’t touch the lepers, or tell them that they are healed. He just tells them to perform their religious duties.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, if a person thought that their skin disease had been healed, they were required to go to a priest, who would examine them and pronounce them ‘clean’, or not.

So Jesus just sends these people away to go and see a priest. I wonder what they thought of that? Perhaps they expected something a bit more dramatic ? But anyway, they are desperate enough to go  - and as they go they are healed.

Wonderful. And they all came back to say “thank you”…

In fact, one came back to say thank you. The despised Samaritan. So often in the Gospels it is the unexpected person who responds well…

In its day, this was an uncomfortable story. Both for Jews and for Jewish Christians. But I think it has a much sharper and wider application…

First: despite everything I said at the beginning of this sermon about saying “thank you” being a natural part of human life, in fact we have to teach gratitude. I can remember bring told by my parents to “say thank you”. Even worse, to have to write those dreaded boring “thank you” letters after birthdays and Christmas. And we had to teach our two the same. And I hear the Mums and Dads and grandparents in our Little Lights group, working hard to teach gratitude: “Say thank you”!

As well as gratitude being natural to being human, so is taking other people for granted.

And if that is true of our relationship with other people, it is even more true of our relationship to God.

I may be particularly bad, but I could not count the number of times I have asked God for help, when life has been hard. And experienced God’s help. Even been drawn closer to God through that experience. Only to find myself becoming not just forgetful, but even cold and ungrateful afterwards.

The Church used to spend a very great deal of time telling people that they were sinners. I, for one, am very glad, that we have changed that emphasis. But it is still true. We are often ungrateful sinners.

Human beings are very good at taking and not saying thank you, not even being or feeling grateful. We can be very hard-hearted. As a vicar I experience this routinely. Either I see people, whom God has helped, disappear without a word. Or others, whom I have seen helped by the Church, will just drift away.

I don’t know if a ratio of 1:10 is right in terms of the grateful compared to the ungrateful. But I fear it is not wide of the mark. Our hearts are so often closed in on themselves, self-pre-occupied. Selfish.

Thomas Cranmer, who in large measure founded the reformed Church of England, knew that he hardest task for God was to help human hearts to be grateful. That is why his service books, and our modern successors to them, so often ask God to help us to have grateful hearts. Perhaps only God can soften a hard human heart ?

The most moving part of this story -  I think – is that they were all healed. Jesus didn’t change his mind and say: “Only the grateful one is going to stay healed.” No they were all healed. God is like that. He gives abundantly, generously, hoping for our loving grateful response. So often it doesn’t come. But God just keeps on giving.  Because that is what God is like…

So this Gospel story should make us want to go and sit in a quiet corner and reflect on our sense of gratitude. How much has God done for us ? And how much do we give in return – our best or our small change ?

Only 1 leper came to thank Jesus. How many of us here really come back to thank Jesus ?

Amen.

Rev'd Dr. Alan Bartlett