Gratitude, Healing, and Faith: Lessons from the 10 Lepers

In this sermon, Daniel McInnes reflects on the story of the 10 lepers healed by Jesus and the profound lesson of gratitude demonstrated by the Samaritan. What does it mean to see rightly, to give thanks to God in all things, and to recognize His work in both the miraculous and the everyday? Discover how a heart of thanksgiving leads to spiritual healing and how we are called to be conduits of God’s grace in the world. A message of faith, gratitude, and hope for everyday life.

Transcript

In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

So, the Gospel reading today is about the ten lepers, and many people would probably be familiar with this story. But just in case, I'm going to go back and read it again because it was half an hour or more ago, just to remind you.

At that time, as Jesus entered a village, He was met by ten lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." When Jesus saw them, He said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and fell on his face at Jesus's feet, giving Him thanks. Now, he was a Samaritan. Then said Jesus, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And Jesus said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well."

So, we see here an example of someone who sees rightly about the things of this world and how to use them, and the way that God has provided for us in this world, and a bunch of people who don't see rightly.

Now, leprosy in those days was, of course, very serious. The background to this and what's happening here is when Jesus says, "Go and show yourselves to the priests," this is the requirement of the law. So, in the Torah, if you had a skin disease that the priest determined was perhaps contagious, you were declared to be unclean. You could not be part of the community; you had to separate yourself from the community. At any point, if you believed that it was healed, you then had to go and show yourself to the priest, and the priest would determine whether or not you really were healed. At that point, he would say, "You're now clean," and you could rejoin the community.

So, that's what's happening in this story. Jesus is just telling them to do what the law says to do: go and see the priest, and, you know, he'll check. Now, Jesus has healed other lepers. In the Gospels, we read that He has healed other lepers, but He doesn't always send them to see a priest. He doesn't say that. He often heals them right there at that moment in time. But in this particular case, He says, "Go and see the priest. Go and show yourself to the priest."

I wonder why that was. And it's kind of interesting, but we hear perhaps one hint in this because there's a Samaritan amongst them. And it's very strange because why would Jesus tell a Samaritan to go and see the priests? I wonder what the Samaritan was thinking because Jews and Samaritans didn't get along very well. And if the Samaritan goes and shows himself to the priest, I wonder what the priest is actually going to say to him.

But we get this sort of dynamic here. We have this one foreigner who doesn't really fit in anyway. All right, he's a leper along with the other lepers, but he doesn't really fit in anyway. And what we see is that they, in faith, say, "Okay," and they go. They start going to see the priest, and on the way, they're healed. We're not told that they're healed when they see the priest. On the way, they're healed.

Now, the nine don't come back. The nine—we assume that they are Jews—they don't come back. They go and show themselves to the priest; they don't come back. The one Samaritan, when he realizes that he's healed, says, "Why should I go and see a priest? Because I'm a Samaritan." And he praises God, runs back to Jesus, and thanks Him. And he's continually praising God for this great healing that's taken place in his life.

Now, what's interesting about this is that they were all healed. All of them were healed. So, the physical healing here, of course, it's a miracle, it's wonderful, and we know that God does heal. We know that God's providence is working in the world for the good of everybody who is alive—everyone. We have one of our morning prayers that says, "O Lord, You make the sun to rise upon the just and the unjust, upon the evil and the good." All right, God doesn't distinguish between sinners and foreigners or anybody else when it comes to providing all the good things that we have in this world. God is not separating out people like that. Everybody receives God's good things.

But some people see rightly and understand that all of those good things actually do come from God, and that we ought to give thanks for those things. And some people, unfortunately, do not. So, the nine who were healed physically went to the priest, were declared clean, and presumably they entered back into the community and went back into a normal Jewish life—the type of life that they were used to and that they wanted. But what they didn't get is what the Samaritan did get, which is Jesus saying to him, "Your faith has made you well." So, not only did he receive physical healing, but his soul was healed as well. He received spiritual healing as well.

And for us, that's the important thing. Physical healing is great. Physical health—wonderful. All the things of this world that God has provided for us—great. Food, drink, especially in Australia—we have clean air, we've got a nice clean environment, all the wonderful things that God has provided for us in this world—all of them are great. But ultimately, the most important thing is the healing of our souls. And for the healing of our souls, that requires us to come and give thanks to God, to give thanks to God for all the things that He's done for us.

Now, what we're doing here today is just doing exactly that. We just partook of the Eucharist. The Eucharist—this whole service around the Eucharist—is the service of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to God. We partake of God's body and blood as a way of giving thanks to Him for the life that He has given us, right? We come, we bring ourselves before Him, and this is where today's epistle reading comes in. We don't just come before Him anyhow; we come before Him having done some preparation.

If you listen to the Gospel—not to the Gospel reading, to the epistle reading—St. Paul is saying, "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry," and all of these things. And he goes on; he makes—there's quite a list of things there. When we come and we give thanks to God, we are putting aside certain things permanently, ideally, right? We are making a sacrifice of the things that we liked in this world, which were not the good things that God has made, but the world system—the system of the world—which has perverted certain things. We are putting those things aside, and we're saying, "No, in thankfulness to God, I'm going to live in the way that He wants me to live, in the way that will actually bring life and bring peace and light into my life, and then from me into the world."

And as we do that, we become more and more full of light, full of life, and more able to give that to other people in the world who need it. They're getting it from us. God works providentially in the world. Have you noticed that in the Gospels and all through the readings of the Scriptures, we see all kinds of miracles? But maybe you wonder, "Why don't we see so many miracles today?" You know, we see lots of healings in the Gospels, for example. Why don't we see so many healings today?

Well, if you listen to people who have gone to India or other people who've gone to places that are very, very poor, you hear lots and lots of stories and miracles. My uncle—my uncle, who's in Queensland—he's a Protestant minister, but he was doing missionary work in Borneo, in Sabah. People were raised from the dead there. People raised from the dead, healed, miraculous healings—all kinds of things. We don't see it so much here, but we have a fantastic medical system here. We should not forget that God works through people. God works through people. He works providentially in the world.

So there are many, many good things that God has provided for us, including wonderful medical training for people, including all of those great things that provide us also with health. He can also do miraculous healings. He certainly does, and many people will have had them and know stories of them. But God works providentially in the world. And so, for us, we are also part of that providence in the world. We are part of God's providence. We are the conduits of His grace, of His energy, of His love, His mercy—all of those things. We are the conduits of that into this world.

So I just encourage you today to always remember that when we look at the world, we are looking every day, always, at God's providence. We're looking at all the wonderful things that He's provided, and we should always have that attitude of thanksgiving. We come to church on Sunday; we give thanks. But we should always be giving thanks because God is always providing for us. We don't see it because we're blinded by the corrupted kind of life that we've been brought into. We fail to see all of the great things. Like in Australia, we do have a fantastic medical system. We have electricity that turns on—you turn the switch, it comes on. We have all of these things. Is that only human? Is that only just material? God has given human beings the ability to do these things and to be able to provide good for other people in the world. That's every day. That's our life. It's surrounded by all these wonderful things. We should give thanks to God for that.

When we only see God in terms of some kind of special, spiritual kind of thing, we're neglecting almost everything that God is doing in the world—almost everything. God is there every day, everywhere present, filling all things at all times, working in our lives, in us, around us, through other people, through other people who aren't Christians, through everything. God is there working.

So let us always have that attitude of thanksgiving to God, because it's through that attitude of thanksgiving to God that we are healed, and then we bring healing to those around us. Amen.