Dear Brothers and Sisters: Happy Thanksgiving. Today is a day for remembering the love and gratitude we have for our families, for our friends, and yes, for God as the author of all these gifts. I hope everyone here has a full tummy and a grateful heart. The fact that you are here means that you understand the gratitude we owe to God, and to our community, our families, and neighbours.
Today’s Gospel reading could be called The Story of the Disobedient Leper. Imagine the conversation of the ten lepers when they realize they are cured of their disease. One of them says, “I’m going back to thank that guy!” while the others say, “But wait a sec, he gave us clear instructions. He said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ If we go back, he’ll say, “You bad lepers! I gave you one thing to do, and you didn’t do it. So here’s your leprosy back!’ We better go to the priests, right?” But the one guy still says, “I don’t care, I’m going back.” And the others say, “Well, suit yourself, but we’re obeying orders, he told us to go to the priests, and that’s what we’re doing.” We might ask ourselves what we would do in a similar situation as the ten lepers. Would we be one of the nine who felt safer following Jesus’s orders or would we be the one, who, against all the peer pressure and reasonable argument, turned back anyway?
So why does Jesus praise this guy who didn’t do what Jesus specifically commanded him to do?
To be honest, I don’t really know. But here is one thought.
There is a kind of hierarchy of commandments. Jesus himself has said that the two commandments, to love God and to love our neighbour, are greater than all the other commandments. If other commandments don’t lead to one of these two fundamental commandments, then they are secondary. God seems to love two prayers above all others, which we see every day in the psalms we sing and are all over both Testaments, Old and New. God loves to be asked for help, for us to call on him in the hour of our distress, as it says somewhere, to cry out from the depths, at our lowest point, to admit that we need God’s help. And God loves it when we say, “Thanks.” As the letter to the Colossians puts it, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness are all absolutely necessary, but first and foremost, love is the bond of perfection. Love for God and love for our neighbour. And our love is expressed, in the end, by giving thanks to God the father through Jesus. As Isaiah says, “The favors of the Lord I will recall . . . he has favored us according to his mercy and great kindness.” Isaiah gives thanks to God for the many blessings that he, and we, receive from God. So for the leper to express gratitude for his healing instead of obeying the commandment that Jesus has given him is to obey a higher commandment – expressing his love for God. And this is what Jesus recognizes in him, and why he praises him so highly. The other nine lepers obtained healing, and were dutiful, no particular blame on them, but only the one who turned back has, as Jesus says, been saved by his faith.
Today is a day of celebration, with a table groaning under the weight of all the turkey and dressing, and cups overflowing. A day of excess, in the company of loved ones, to reflect the abundance with which God has blessed us. However, for some of us, this day may also be tinged with regret or grief. Perhaps a chair is sitting empty at the table this year for the first time. Perhaps some of us are alone on this day, or estranged from our families. Perhaps some of us are facing our mortality or are in some physical, mental, or spiritual distress. Thanksgiving may not be a time of unmixed gratitude, but instead be a time when we need to cry out for help, when we recognize our dependence on God and pray to him by demanding, like the ten lepers, God’s love and assistance. God loves this prayer for help, this cry, even of despair, just as God loves it when we say “Thanks.” Our gratitude should not be merely a gesture of obligatory piety, but an honest response, for comfort in a time of pain, for compassion, for eyes that have seen us, for ears that have heard us, for the healing hands of Jesus, in whatever person in whatever guise they come to us.