October 14, 2007
(Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 23)
Carpe Gratiam*
by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer
2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c • Psalm 111
• 2 Timothy 2:8-15 • Luke 17:11-19
(From
The Lectionary Page)
On the second Monday of every month, the Cathedral staff helps serve lunch in the Community Kitchen. If you’ve ever served down there in the lower level of Founders’ Hall – and some Cathedral parishioners have been doing this literally for decades – you know that a huge number of folk move through the line in a short period of time. Last month, the Community Kitchen averaged over 500 people per day. Some days it’s so busy, that all I can do is keep my head down and focus on spooning out the selection onto the trays that speed their way down the line. But every Monday I’m down there, toward the end of the shift, the same guy makes a point of finishing his meal and coming over to the serving line and saying to each of us, “Thank you. That was real good. You all have a nice day, now.”
In our Gospel for today, Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem. On one side of him is Galilee, the place where he was brought up. On the other side of him is Samaria, the place of the enemy. As far as first century Jews were concerned, Samaritans were half-breed sell-outs whose ancestors made possible the Assyrian invasion six centuries earlier, the ones who refused to follow the whole of the Torah., the ones who refused to believe that Jerusalem was the City of God. In this liminal space between two cultures, Jesus encountered ten lepers who ask him to have mercy on them. Jesus told them to do what the Torah commanded of persons who believed they had been cleansed from leprosy: to go and show themselves to the priests and be officially pronounced clean. Clearly, these guys had more than a mustard seed’s worth of faith because they set off before they even have evidence that they have, in fact, been healed.
One came back and thanked him. The one who was a Samaritan.
So what are we to make of this story? Like so many in Luke, what is left out of the story is as compelling as what is put in. For example, what are we to think of the nine who didn’t turn back? Were they ungrateful? We can’t really make that claim, any more than I can assume ingratitude on the part of the Kitchen guests who don’t thank each of the crew members every day. We can’t know what lies in the hearts of other people. God alone knows that. The reality is that in our Gospel reading for today, the nine lepers were being mostly obedient. They were on their way to the Temple, obedient to the Torah, obedient to, let’s face it, Jesus. They had a job to do. The thank offering would probably come later, after the priest had examined them and ritually pronounced them whole. After all, the same passage in Leviticus that directed former lepers to the priest for official pronouncement also directed those so healed to make a thank offering. So we can’t really assume ingratitude on their part. What we can assume is that the nine had different priorities.
And what about that one Samaritan who did turn back, and offer praise to God and thanks to Jesus. What made him different? Again, about the only thing we can assume is that somehow this outsider of outsiders was hard-wired differently. Somewhere in the midst of the healing that happened as he made his way down the road with the other nine, he got it. He got it, down-deep, that despite years of religiously sanctioned suffering and rejection, he was a beloved, redeemed, child of God. And the only thing he could do right then and right there was to respond in thanksgiving.
Over and over again in Luke, we see that God acts. And when God acts, the fitting response is thankfulness in the present moment. And the way we are to incarnate that thankfulness is in discipleship. The fitting response to the amazing gift of salvation that we have all received, is to make thankfulness our number one priority and to live in a spirit of thankfulness in the present moment every day.
And let me tell you, living in a spirit of thankfulness each day is a challenge. It isn’t that we’re ungrateful. It’s that we’re preoccupied. Often with good reason. Many of us are loaded down with cares: poor health, or the poor health of our loved ones; concern for the well-being of our children; our worries about job security, indeed, national security; paying the bills. Many of us struggle with all manner of challenges, some which are seen by others and some which are not. Many of us are in grief and are suffering its aftermath. Given those circumstances, to place gratitude first in our lives seems absurd. As absurd, perhaps, as a regular at the Community Kitchen thanking the volunteer crew day in and day out for the food. I mean, come on! It’s not like gratitude alters the essential reality, right? The Community Kitchen guest is still eating at the Kitchen. The Samaritan remained a despised foreigner following his healing.
And yet, precisely on the strength of that absurdity, Jesus teaches his followers to choose gratitude. The thankful Samaritan is the paradigm for righteousness, not the nine who were obedient to the letter of the Law. Thankfulness is the lens through which we are to view our lives because our blessings are without number. And unlike the Obedient Nine, we are to make thankfulness a priority in our lives in the present moment. Because, you see, the present moment is what we have. The present moment is when God encounters us, and touches us with healing and grace. The present moment is the time for gratitude. Not later. Not after we’ve journeyed to our various Jerusalems and transacted our various meetings, but now. There can be no better use of our now than by incarnating a life of thanks.
* The English word “gratitude” comes from the Latin “gratio,” as does “grace.” This title, then, can mean either “Seize the Gratitude” or “Seize the Grace.”
