Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
“There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger”
He is named, by Jesus, as “this stranger,” the one who is the other, the foreigner, literally, the alien. An outsider, too, we might say, to capture all of the inflections of meaning in this text and story. Luke sheds further light on “this stranger” in the simple phrase “and he was a Samaritan.” He was in the company of nine others sharing with them a further identity of exclusion; they were ten men that were lepers – the rejects and outcasts of ancient society. And on top of that, a Samaritan, the outcasts of the Jewish culture.
What stands out in the story is that “this stranger” is the one who gives thanks and “this stranger” is the one who is not only healed, like the other nine, but more importantly is made whole. Salvation, it seems, is more than just the healing of our physical infirmities.
This is a powerful story about the power and truth and the beauty of a profoundly spiritual activity, the act of giving thanks. A thanksgiving story, it appears in our liturgy in the late summer and early fall as well as being appointed for the Gospel for Thanksgiving Day, meaning our national day of Thanksgiving which in Canada is coincident with the older traditions of Harvest Thanksgiving and often eclipsed by them. It illustrates profoundly, I think, the spiritual nature of all our thanksgivings.
The giving of thanks is a free act, perhaps, the freest act that we can do. And yet, that act of thanksgiving, so central to religious and spiritual life, is not simply about ourselves. It is more about the movements of God’s grace in us; God in us, if you will. This is part of the deep Christian insight that relates to who Jesus is for us. I think this Gospel story provides the Christian understanding that transforms the idea of thanksgiving. It is, ultimately, about our participation in the act of human redemption accomplished by Jesus. His life, and therefore his life in us, is about thanksgiving. His life is his thanksgiving to the Father; the thanksgiving of the whole of redeemed creation has its highest expression in the thanksgiving of the Son to the Father. Like the stranger, in returning and giving thanks we are being made whole.
