Luke 17:11-19
November 23, 2003
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
You can already smell the roasted turkeys. In a few minutes, we will be sitting down for our annual Thanksgiving luncheon. This will be my second turkey meal and by next Thursday, I will at least have another.
Roasting a turkey is a no-brainer these days. It comes all wrapped in clear plastic with clear instructions to set your oven at 350 degrees and so many minutes per pound. But if you happen to leave the packet of gizzards and neck in the turkey while stuffing it or miscalculate the amount of time, you may have a burned turkey.
If you burn your Thanksgiving turkey, here are a dozen reasons to be thankful:
- Salmonella won’t be a concern.
- No one will overeat.
- Everyone will think its Cajun blackened.
- Uninvited guest will thin twice next year.
- Your cheese-broccoli-lima bean casserole will gain newly found appreciation.
- Pets won’t pester you for scraps.
- The smoke alarm was due for a test.
- Carving the bird will provide a good cardiovascular workout.
- After dinner, the guys can take the bird to the yard and play football.
- The less turkey Uncle George eats, the less likely he will be to walk around with his belt loosened.
- You’ll get dessert quicker.
- You won’t have to face three weeks of turkey sandwiches.
Even when we may have the misfortune of a ruined Thanksgiving dinner, we can still count our blessings.
Leper No. 10
In today’s Scripture lesson from Luke, Jesus is on a road trip, moving between Samaria and Galilee on his way to Jerusalem. As he enters a village, 10 lepers approach him and call out from a distance, raising their voices in unison, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” According to strict laws, lepers were ostracized from their families, their homes, their livelihoods, and their community. They were deprived from any social contacts and banished to the outer boundaries of the village.
They are desperate for healing but as unclean people they don’t dare rush up to Jesus. They knew to count the distance that they would be allowed to come close. They lived outside the community.
Jesus sees them and feels a desire to be merciful toward them. He tells them to “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” This was odd because one was supposed to be cleansed before going to see the priests. You would go to the priest so that he would certify you were truly clean and able to return to the community.
Something is going on here, something wonderful and mysterious, something tingling with the healing power of God. As the lepers make their way toward the priests, they are miraculously healed and one of them, Leper No. 10 turns on his heels and races back to Jesus, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrates himself at Jesus’ feet and thanks him profusely.
Only one gives thanks. One out of ten. Jesus asks, “Were not ten made clean? Where are the other nine?” Only one takes the time to count his blessings. Only one bothers to come back to Jesus and says thanks.
A ten percent return. That’s not very good. But are we doing any better today?
Keep in mind that the other nine lepers did exactly what Jesus told them to do. They were obedient. They followed instructions. They were doing the will of God. We can’t fault them for that. But are we more like the nine than Leper No. 10 who took his time and counted his blessings by coming back to thank Jesus?
A Blessed Life
The nine lepers met the standards, did what was acceptable, and were still healed. But when Leper No. 10 gave thanks, we see that a gracious attitude and a spirit of thanksgiving move us beyond the ordinary and into the extraordinary, blessed life.
There’s new research that shows people who count their blessings may find themselves sleeping better, exercising more, and caring more about others. People who count their blessings one by one, consciously, every day show significant improvements in mental health and even in some aspects of physical health. And these results appear to be true whether you are a healthy college student or an older person with an incurable disease.
College students were asked to fill out a weekly report of five things for which they are grateful. They listed such things as “the generosity of friends” and “loving family members.” Another group, made up of adults with incurable diseases, were asked to write down a list of things that made them grateful.
Comparable groups were asked to count their hassles, instead of their blessings. They listed aggravations such as “hard to find parking” and “running out of money.” Instead of focusing on how rich they were, members of these groups focused on their poverty.
The results were predictable. In the end, the grateful groups felt better about their lives and more optimistic about their future. The thankful college students exercised more, and the chronically ill adults who focused on blessings reported sleeping longer and waking up refreshed. The members of the grateful groups were also nicer to neighbors and more willing to help people with problems, leading the researcher to conclude that gratitude can serve as a “moral motivator.”
Being thankful is good for your physical, mental, and moral health. It doesn’t seem to matter what you are grateful for, along as you count your blessings. You can be appreciative of generous friends, loving family members, and even a burnt turkey!
More Hassles than Blessings
I know some of you here are saying to yourselves: “This may be true to someone else but not me. The problems that I have in life are so real and overwhelming that I don’t know any blessings let alone, counting them! Life is a hassle!”
When we think this way, we are more like the other nine lepers who probably thought that it’s about time that they were healed. They felt somehow that they deserved to be healed in the first place. “Now I finally get a blessing that I deserved.” Perhaps that’s the reason that these lepers who were thinking about themselves more than to take a few minutes to return to Jesus and express their gratitude.
The biggest surprise revealed to Jesus followers in this story is that Leper No. 10 is a Samaritan. These are the low-life losers, second-class citizens, members of the wrong race, wrong region, and wrong religion. The Samaritan is not a respectable member of the community. And because of his disadvantaged and despicable condition, Leper No. 10, a Samaritan took time to count this one blessing. And that, according to Jesus, makes the difference. It showed Jesus that while the others had experienced the healing of their bodies, this fellow had found healing in his soul.
“Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” asked Jesus. Then he says to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
If you think we have hassles, imagine what the Samaritan with leprosy felt. As students, we think we have the hassles of getting up early in the morning to go to school and when we get there, they make us take all these tests. As parents with teenagers, we anticipate the hassles of negotiating everything with these emerging adults in our homes. And if we find ourselves struggling with the hassles of poor health, we wonder when it will be our time to receive a blessing of healing.
When Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well,” Jesus was not referring to the time when Leper No. 10 had faith to ask to be healed but rather for the faith that he had to return to give thanks. It’s grateful faith that saves,