Henrietta United Church of Christ
Rev. David Inglis Luke 17:11-19
Thanksgiving Sunday November 18, 2007
“Living in Gratitude”–a Leper’s Story
I’ll never forget those awful days when leprosy covered my skin and made thick red lumps on my face. But it wasn’t the disease itself that almost destroyed me. It was the way people treated me. We lepers had to leave our families and neighborhoods and live with other lepers in little makeshift shelters we cobbled together. To make sure people didn’t get too close to us, we had to cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” everywhere we went. I was a Samaritan living near many Jews, so I thought I was used to being looked down on by people. But now even my own people looked disgusted and afraid when they saw me. When they heard me shouting about my uncleanness, they quickly grabbed their children and hurried across the road. Of course, nobody would hire a leper, so I could no longer support my family. They all had to go live with different relatives, who I knew must resent taking in more mouths to feed. I felt so ashamed.
People said that leprosy was a punishment from God. I knew I had my faults. But why would God want me to lose everything, and make my good wife and precious children suffer so much on account me? I didn’t want to believe that God would be so cruel. But what else was I supposed to believe? I confessed every sin I could think of ever committing, and I never stopped praying that God would heal me and help me fulfill my responsibilities as a husband and father.
When the word spread that Jesus was coming into our village, people starting running out to meet him. I had heard that he was filled with God’s power and could heal anyone of anything. But would he heal somebody that God Himself was punishing? As he came down the road, the other lepers and I had to keep our distance to avoid making anyone unclean. But we stretched out our hands towards him and began crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! Please have mercy!” He was the only hope we had.
When he heard us, he stepped right towards us and looked at each one of us. I can’t tell you what it’s like for someone to look right into your eyes with compassion, when all you’re used to is icy glares or people just looking away in disgust. When we each had taken in what he gave us through his eyes, he said, “Go and show yourself to the priests.” The priests! They were the ones who could declare us clean. But were we clean?
As we obediently turned down the road that led to the synagogue, we began wondering what we would do first if we actually were being healed. Who would we tell first? Where would we like to go and what would we want to do if we didn’t have to cry “Unclean!” everywhere we went? Where would we look for work? How soon could we bring our families back to us?
Something told me not to get my hopes up. But something else told me to focus on the warm full feeling that had stirred inside me when Jesus had looked into my eyes. It told me that God loved me. I said a simple prayer; “Your will be done.” And as I did, that warm feeling began radiating out from my heart into my whole body. Then I felt a tingling sensation going through me. Something powerful was happening! I looked at my hands, and the red blotches were fading away! I quickly pulled up my sleeves. My arms were growing smooth and the redness was disappearing. I felt my face. The lumps were almost gone! We began looking at each other. We looked human again, whole, healed, and clean!
We began racing to the synagogue. We couldn’t wait to show ourselves to the priests, be declared clean, and begin picking up the pieces of our lives again. But as I ran, I felt something welling up deep inside me that began coming out as tears. I slowed to a walk and let myself open to it, while the others ran off down the road. I felt the years of desolation and pain, the rejection and shame, churning up inside me–not only from being a leper, but also being a Samaritan. But all of that was being flushed out of me by this new feeling of being loved, worthy, and whole that was filling my whole being. I knew for the first time in my life that God really was with me and that God was within me. There wasn’t anything anybody could say or do to me now that could take that away. A burden I had been carrying for a lifetime had been lifted from my shoulders. I was loved, I was whole, I was free!
The priests could wait. I found myself turning around and running back towards Jesus, to thank him for all of this. I took the sweet air deeply into my lungs as I ran. I smelled the hay and grass around me. I saw the sky looking bluer and deeper than I had ever seen it. Colors never looked so vivid! I drank it all in, as God’s blessings filled me and surrounded me. “Thank you, God!” I shouted back. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” came out as words and laughter with every stride of my legs.
When I caught up with Jesus, I fell down at his feet laughing and crying my gratitude. God had used Jesus to give me my life back. But it was way more than that. He had given me a new life. I saw things in a way I never had before. Everything was a gift. God had always been there, but I hadn’t trusted it. God had always loved, me, but I hadn’t believed it. God had always wanted to fill me with the blessings of life, but I had only focused on what I didn’t have and missed what I did. Now that I saw all this, I would never feel needy, alone or rejected again.
Jesus could see that I had received God’s gift of healing love down to the depths of my soul. “But where are the other nine?” he wondered. Were they so intent on going back to their old lives they were missing the new one that was being offered them?
“Get up and go on your way,” he told me. “Your faith has made you whole.”
Yes, I guess it was my faith that had opened me to all these gifts. My faith that God really did want me to have His gifts of total love, His abiding presence, the fulness of life and freedom from shame. All I had to do was to open to these gifts with humble gratitude.
Say, do you know that God is offering these gifts to you too? Right here and right now, and every moment of your life, God is loving you beyond all telling of it, with an eternal, forgiving love. No matter what anybody says to you or does to you, no matter what you think of yourself or demand of yourself, no matter how you fall short or make mistakes, that love never changes. God sent me Jesus to show me that, and he sent Jesus to show you that too.
And God wants you to taste and see that the Lord is good, and that the life He has given you overflows with His blessings. That’s why He has given us the sense of taste–to taste a...a juicy purple grape as its sweetness bursts into our mouths. What a miracle, that God wants us to taste that and every mouthful, before it goes into our bodies and becomes skin and muscle and bones and energy to help us work and make things and go places and enjoy the warm touch of another’s hand. Aren’t you grateful for that?
And God has given you the sense of hearing, to fill your ears with the chorus of birds jubilantly rejoicing in a new day, or to hear music that sets your feet to dancing, or hear children laughing or someone tell you they love you. Aren’t you grateful for that?
And God has given you the sense of sight, to see the sun streaming all golden through the clouds before it sets, or to glimpse the vastness of the universe on a star-spattered night, or to look at a child as its wide eyes take you in. Aren’t you grateful for that?
That day that Jesus entered my life, I not only got healed, I got reborn. My whole life became a series of gifts from God to unwrap. And it became a living prayer of thanks to God.
Where do you find yourself in my story? Are you with the nine other lepers who had places to go and things to do and their lives to get on with–and down the road you go? Or are you turning toward Jesus with your senses open, your heart open, your life open to God’s blessings at every step, crying “Thank you, thank you!” as you go?
God will love you either way. But I’ll bet you can figure out which way will make your life overflow with blessings every moment of every day. Do you have the faith and gratitude to claim that gift?