THANKSGIVING EVE
Luke 17:11-19
Nowadays, if you have leprosy, or as its more formally known “Hansen’s disease,” you just go to a clinic in Carville, Louisiana, where they provide a regimen of treatments and your sores start to disappear. when you have leprosy in Israel two thousand years ago, it’s a big deal. you were ostracized. you were completely cut off from the community because everyone assumed that your illness was caused by angering God. you were unholy. The possibility of human contact was completely eliminated. You were lost and you couldn’t recover. and you certainly couldn’t approach other human beings, much less holy ones like this Jesus of Nazareth. so you might imagine how amazing it must have been for this one to return, after finding he was healed, to return to Jesus and give thanks to God. imagine the shock of such a transformation—to discover after you had resigned yourself to a life mired by sin forever, that you would have a second chance. that you would be able to approach God again.
in the story, Christ seems to focus on the fact that this man returned. and so I wonder if the healing might have only been a means to an end. a good means to be sure—praise god for the men’s healing!—but a means nevertheless. It seems to me that God’s aim in this story might have been, all along, to try to get these ten closer to that godly presence. to give them the chance to look god in the eye. to be close enough to have a real relationship marked, even on the approach, before the healed one even meets Jesus, by giving thanks.
the fact that tomorrow is thanksgiving makes me pay special attention to the aspect of thankfulness in the story. the idea of “giving thanks” in this story connects with a whole spectrum of things in scripture. the word itself shares its roots in the bible with the idea of things done well, or people or things that are “good,” and the ideas of grace and favor. it’s the same word that we use sometimes to talk about communion—the Eucharist. If you look in your bulletin, we say something called “the great thanksgiving” and in that exchange, the first words that peter will lead us in saying in a few minutes are these: “the lord be with you,” “lift up your hearts, “let us give thank to the lord our god.” this “thanksgiving” is grounded in this idea that the God is with us, that the lord is with us. That there is a relationship that we lift our hearts up into. “let us give thanks to the lord our god.” this idea of “thanks” that we celebrate here is not only one where we show gratitude for gifts and blessings received, but it’s also in celebration of a relationship.
Thankfulness as the way we approach God in this place. It’s not to make a demand, it’s not to have an expectation. We don’t come before God to get something. If that’s why we look to God, we’re missing the point. God is God not because God gives us what we want; instead God is God because God is the source of what we need, whether we know it or not. Thankfulness is a way that we relate to God, and to others. When we gather here, we are reminded that thankfulness is a way that you live your life. It privileges not the action but the person, the other human being standing right in front of you.
Acts of thanksgiving don’t have to be huge. They don’t have to be glorious or well-remembered. Acts of thanksgiving don’t even need to be things that you would mention to another person. An act of thanksgiving could be going to the grocery store, and squeezing your way through the aisle. And instead of trying to ignore the other human beings that are there with you, simply hoping to squeeze by, thanksgiving looks the person in the eye and moves forward. It’s not even an action that’s quotable. But it makes all the difference. An act of thanksgiving is noticing that another human being is wrapping your groceries up and putting them in the cart. It doesn’t matter whether it’s their job, it doesn’t matter whether they’re being paid, it doesn’t matter whether they actually want to do it. What does is that it’s a human connection, through and through, one that is defined by grace and favor and an opportunity to become a part of another person’s life.
An act of thanksgiving is going to a restaurant, perhaps, and appreciating the story of the person who is your server. Appreciating them on a level above the fact that they are taking your order and delivering your food. An act of thanksgiving wonders about their entire life—perhaps silently, perhaps aloud—that they might be a child of loving parents who hope that they’re managing in the restaurant business, that they might be the brother or sister of a brood of kids, all doing different things in the world and all remembering the times they could just play with GI Joes and Barbies. That they left school so that they could get a job; or that they left school and couldn’t get the job they wanted. That perhaps, earlier in the day, something life-changing happened to them and the fact that they are taking your order is only a slice of the life that they lead. [Insert brief mention of arguments, people we detest.]
An act of thanksgiving appreciates the fullness of a human being that is not yourself, but has a life just like you do. An act of thanksgiving looks into the eyes of a human being on the street, that perhaps has lost their job, that perhaps hasn’t been able to prepare a meal for themselves for some time. That was also a child of parents, a sibling of others, a cousin, a grandson. Someone that grew up thinking they would be a starship captain or an archaeologist. Living with this spirit of thanksgiving cuts across the imperfect veneer and seeks to look deep down into a person and love them for who they are, love them because God created them, love them because God loves us and, really, because that love binds us together more fully and more truly than any other bit of definition could.
When we stand before this table, we participate in thanksgiving. We participate in a relationship of favor, in a relationship of grace, in a relationship that is good. We participate in a relationship that is grounded not in fleeting moments, but in the idea that there is an other in our midst that we open ourselves up to and live alongside. Not only can we open ourselves up as the whole person that we are in the world, good with bad, joy with sadness, success with failure, but we can recognize our relationship with a God that has had that intimate relationship with every human creature. With a God that knows the entire story of our lives in an instant. Who delights in our joy and weeps in our sorrow, but loves us intensely, favors us, graces us with companionship. It’s in the bread and the wine, it’s in the sign of the cross—it’s not the action that is the clincher, it’s the relationship that’s strengthened with God as part of the action.
the lord be with you. lift up your hearts. let us give thanks to the lord our god. That’s what thanksgiving is. In the midst of the meals, of the people around us, either family or just met, that we have the invitation to plug into the deepest parts of each other. To explore what it means to exude thankfulness—to see the love of God in the lives of another. To celebrate this relationship.
When we find a moment in our lives when we realize that we are blessed, when we are healed of our version of Hansen’s disease, whatever it is that separates us from relationship. where do we go? do we gallivant around town, proud of ourselves that we were strong enough to beat an illness, or a depression, or that we got a job, food on the table, a shelter? because we’re so awesome? or do we run back to Jesus and realize that the whole point of the healing was to bring us closer to him? do we run back to god, like an excited kid, to share in the delight of a life with renewed possibility? So excited that you’re tripping over your own feet and can’t wipe a silly grin off your face. because I think that’s the point. Jesus just wants you to run headlong back to him, with a silly grin you can’t wipe off, to share in the joy of being healed. and when we go to the table, we’re partners with god in good grace, in good favor. we give back a little of what we get.
friends, we can do this all the time. with the most objectively meager food. But a feast isn’t defined by what’s eaten by the significance of who’s eating it. turkey is nice; family is nice. but it’s not turkey and family for its own sake. it’s the gathering around something we share, united by the love of one that loves us all. it’s so much bigger than what’s intended. all the time. we just celebrate it now. each meal, each moment, be a thanksgiving. Thanks be to God.
AMEN
The Rev. Daniel Kuckuck + November 23, 2011
St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa
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