Day: September 10, 2023

“One of them turned back, … giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.”

Thanksgiving belongs to our sanctification; in short, to “the increase of faith, hope and charity” or love in us, as the Collect prays. As such it is about our living and walking in the Spirit which, as Paul emphasizes in Galatians, is about “bearing one another’s burdens” as well as “bearing our own burdens.” Thanksgiving frees us to God and to one another in God.

The Gospel story for today illustrates the radical nature of thanksgiving as an integral and critical part of our life in the Spirit. There were ten lepers all of whom sought healing from Jesus. All ten were healed, restored to the human community from which they had been exiled and shut out, spurned because of their contagion. Only one returned to give thanks.

Our redemption is accomplished once and for all in Christ’s sacrifice and passion; hence all ten were healed. It is whole and complete in Christ. But our sanctification, itself an integral part of human redemption, is a continuing work in progress. It is about growing into who we are in Christ while in via ad patriam, in pilgrimage to God. Our sanctification is not complete and inherent in us. But to be whole is about that constant work of thanksgiving which turns entirely upon our participation in Christ’s sacrifice through “this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving”; in short, our constant attention to Christ wanting him to “make us love that which thou dost command” in order “that we may obtain that which thou dost promise.” What he promises is illustrated in the remarkable exchange between Jesus and the one who turned back.

“And he was a Samaritan,” Luke tells us, at the same time as being named by Jesus as “this stranger.” Once again we have a Gospel story which illustrates the qualities of our life in Christ by way of the example of a Samaritan. Last week we had the parable of the Good Samaritan, the great illustration of the Christian ethic of compassion. In the Evening Offices for this week, we had as well the story of Jesus at the well of Samaria; his encounter with the Samaritan woman in John’s Gospel.

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