Giving Thanks

Through most of high school I wanted to be a doctor. I’m not quite sure why; no one in my family was in medicine. I was fascinated by the human body, though, and being a doctor seemed the right outlet for that. It was only during senior year that my interests gravitated more toward the wider natural world and plants in particular.

Medicine and human disease fit in well with a teenage boy’s interest in all things bizarre. I was especially fascinated by leprosy, perhaps because there’s a whole chapter on it in Leviticus. My dad had a persistent case of psoriasis, no doubt aggravated by tensions at church (I understand that better now!), providing grist for my adolescent imagination. At that time leprosy was a disease that spread mysteriously and was difficult to cure. It still is; the leprosy bacteria, like those causing tuberculosis, have a waxy coating that protects them from the immune system.

Lepers were social pariahs in Israel. Their skin condition made them ritually unclean, and by the purity codes of the Torah, everything they touched was made unclean. So they had to live outside town and “wear torn clothes and let the hair of [the] head be disheveled” and cry out “Unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13:45). That way everyone would know to avoid them.

The ten lepers whom Jesus encountered were doing their part. They made sure that they didn’t get too close. They raised their voices and shouted at him. But instead of crying “Unclean!” they pleaded for mercy. Jesus, never one to turn down a cry for help, told them to show themselves to the priests, the first step in getting back a passport to human society. In faith the lepers ran off and found that they were suddenly whole again.

Only one turned back to thank Jesus, falling at his feet. And he was a Samaritan, the Greek emphasizes. An outsider. A foreigner. Jesus said to him, “Were not ten cleansed? And the nine are where? Were they not found returning to give thanks to God except this foreigner?” To that foreigner who came back, Jesus said, “Arise and go; your faith has saved/rescued/delivered you/made you well.”

I always wondered what happened to the other nine. Did they come back sheepishly, apologizing and hanging their heads? Did they blow the whole gratitude thing off? Did their leprosy return because of that? I sometimes get so focused on what isn’t in the story that I miss what’s really there.

And what is really there are several remarkable words: eleison, euchariston, and sesoken: have mercy, give thanks, have been saved. Two of those words have made it into our liturgy. The lepers ask Jesus for mercy and he gives it to them – but mercy’s effects are not apparent until they step out in faith, believing that they will receive it. The proper response to receiving mercy is thanksgiving, which we give weekly in the Eucharist. And through the grace of receiving mercy and the act of thanking God in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are saved. Well, not exactly. Jesus tells the Samaritan that his faith has saved him. It is faith that saves us, not what we do – although clearly God expects a faithful response to God’s love.

One of those faithful responses is discerning a vocation, a calling from God. By the time I graduated from college I knew that I was called to teach botany. Some years later I discerned another call, one to preach the Word. Is there another vocation yet in the future? I doubt it. But I will continue to ask for God’s mercy, to give thanks for what God has done, and to step out in faith. It has led me well thus far, and I expect that it will continue to do so.


Pentecost 20: Luke 17:11-19.