St. Andrew’s Pictou, October 10, 2004 THANKSGIVING SUNDAY

 

Where are the Other Nine?

 

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Psalm 66: 1-11

2 Timothy 2:8-15

Luke 17:11-19

 

On Friday, we were having a wedding rehearsal here for Dean Scanlan and Lori McCarthy. At one point I was going over one of the readings with a boy who was honoured by being chosen to read one of the scriptures. The reading ends with: “The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.”

 

I explained to him that we people use words to talk. We can say the words, like “angel.” But the Word of the Lord is different because when God says the word, “Angel” an angel is created. So, when you hear “The Word of the Lord,” “the Word” gives life, healing, and spirit to the listener. A spiritual message is conveyed that is something more then the words that are “the vehicle” of the message.

 

The reason that the Bible is still in use and is still currently viable, is because “the Word of the Lord” is that which gives life, healing, understanding, and wisdom to us as people.

 

All of today’s readings deal with people in adversity.

 

As long as we are living, breathing, human beings on the face of this earth, we will face adversity.

 

So, all of today’s readings are applicable to all people at one time or another.

 

All of us need help to deal with adversity in our lives. Not many of us need help to deal with times of comfort and relaxation, but many of us need help to deal with times of conflict and adversity.

 

Being that the first reading is a letter form Jeremiah to the Jewish people after they have had their country ransacked and have been taken to exile in Babylon, may not seem pertinent to you living in present day Canada, but “the Word of the Lord” is that this message does affect your life.

 

After telling the people of God that this destruction of their country would all happen and receiving nothing but ridicule for trying to forewarn them, you might think that Jeremiah would now use this opportunity to say, “I told you so!”

 

But he didn’t do that. We need to be reminded that saying “I told you so!” to people after something bad has happened to them is not helpful.

 

Here they are, disenfranchised, kidnapped and living and exiles in a foreign land; they must have been devastated to have lost it all!

 

But what did he tell them?

-“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.

-Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there and do not decrease.”

 

We have a popular modern day slogan for what the prophet said. What is it?

 

GET A LIFE!

 

Don’t give up! Don’t whine and complain! Don’t despair! Keep going and living and loving and keep your life in tact.

 

The prophet goes even further than that.

 

“…seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf…” And if even that wasn’t enough, he said more: “…for in its’ welfare you will find your welfare.”

 

The prophet is telling the people that while they may think that life is over, they must simply start over again.

 

This message has direct application for you and I here in our modern world: as Christians we are not to have contempt for other people, places, or groups, even if they have wronged us or don’t make it up to our standards. We are obliged to honour them and live faithfully ourselves, irrespective of their position.

 

“In their welfare, we will find our welfare.”

 

Our welfare is dependant on the good living of the First Nations of this country. Their high suicide rates are our high suicide rates. Their pain is our pain, as their well-being is our well-being.

 

Our welfare is dependent on the good living of the people of the United States, of Afghanistan, or Iraq, of all of the people of our planet. Their well-being is our well-being.

 

“The Word” for us today is how all of us here in God’s world are interconnected. Does that seem far fetched to you in present day Pictou?

 

The groom in yesterday’s wedding, Dean Scanlan just came back from a Canadian Army tour of duty in Israel. The existence of that country and the problems that are there in that country originated in Jeremiah’s time and are described in the text that was just read. All of us human beings are positioned very close to each other.

 

The reading in Luke focuses on another group of exiles: ten lepers who encountered and were healed by Jesus.

 

The lepers were exiles in a different kind of way then the people of Jeremiah’s time. Instead of being banished to a foreign country, they didn’t have to leave their surroundings, but they couldn’t touch those they loved. A disease that can be healed with $325.00 of drugs today, meant a life-time of estrangement and a slow deterioration of the body over many years. It was contagious and so you couldn’t touch anyone else or you would infect them. You couldn’t worship or work.

 

Your life was simple and predetermined: you begged until you died.

 

When they saw Jesus, “they kept their distance.” They begged for mercy. He told them to go and show themselves to the priest. The reason was that the priest would determine that they had been healed.

 

Just one of the ten came back to Jesus, “praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself before Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.”

 

That leper had a double dose of being an exile: he had leprosy and he was a Samaritan. In our culture that would be like he was a gay black man with AIDS, or a native woman who was a prostitute; double exile.

 

Yet the Samaritan leper was the one who was grateful and came back in gratitude.

 

In seeing him, Jesus asked, “Where are the other nine?”

 

The text makes it very clear what it was that concerned and probably even angered Jesus:

“Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?

Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

 

I think that like Jesus, many of us would think that 10% is a low “return rate” for the healing of ten lepers, and the one who did give thanks was supposed to be the one least likely.

 

I am sure that the Council of Churches appreciated the dinner put on here last Tuesday, but you should have seen the gratitude that the men and women in the detox centre expressed for the desert leftovers. They didn’t have the full meal, but they couldn’t stop saying how nice it was to have what we would have called “the left-overs.”

 

There is no doubt that Jesus expected an attitude of gratitude for the healing of the ten lepers. We would expect appreciation and thankfulness for such immense gifts of healing that the ten lepers received.

 

Quite a few people were involved in decorating the church for this thanksgiving service. Various people gathered vegetables from their gardens, or from the store. The corn stalks came by a separate truck. But all of those people and we know that we absolutely must give thanks and praise to God for all of our many blessings. We must express our thanks!

 

Aren’t “please” and “thank you” the first things that we teach our children?

 

If Jeremiah advised the people to get on with life which would have meant thanking and praising God. If the ingratitude of the other nine lepers were of a concern to Jesus and we try to teach our children right from the beginning to give thanks, then it seems to me that there is a great truth to be discovered here.

 

Does it not seem to you that expressing thanks and appreciation is the only evidence that there is for relationship, whether it is with God or with each other?

 

When I received a beautiful thank you note for an event awhile back, what I now realize is that what mattered was that I then knew that what I was trying to achieve happened between me and the other person. That connection was what I needed to know.

 

What was going on with Jesus when he was concerned about the other nine lepers not coming back to give thanks?

 

It appears to me that they were healed but they didn’t “connect,” and the connection was what concerned Jesus.

 

I think that I told you about the funeral that I did where nobody came; it appears that the man never connected. Some of the neighbours told me about visitors coming to his home yelling at each other, but nobody came to his funeral.

 

Gratitude and thanksgiving seem to be the door to people’s heart; the channel of care, the means of relationship building, according to Jesus the normal response to the act of receiving; the path that leads to God.

 

Let us praise God from whom all blessings flow!

 

AMEN                               Rev. Alan Stewart