Emmanuel Church, Bungay, Suffolk

The Minister's Sermons

"One Returned to Give God Thanks" by Revd Bruce Waldron - 10th October 2004
Luke 12: 37 reads: Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes: truly, I tell you , he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. Blessed are those servants.
	Luke 17: 11 On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
	Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, "The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you."
Did you notice that the when the Samaritan leper comes back with a heart full of thanksgiving to God, Jesus calls that faith. The other people who went off to see the priests and get themselves officially declared pure, Jesus isn't so sure about.
It is the response of thanksgiving, the heart of thankfulness, that Jesus praises as faith; this is what Jesus declares has made the man well. His healing is a lot more than just his body being rid of leprosy. His wellness is about his returning and his thanksgiving, about his attitude of heart.
All around Jesus, people are looking for signs of the kingdom of God. When the Emperor puts the eagle's standard up over the ruined temple, "It's a sign of the coming Kingdom of God."
When the Emperor dies "It's a sign of the coming Kingdom of God." When the wars and rumours of wars come "It's a sign of the coming of the Kingdom of God." When there are earthquakes, or volcanoes in America, or Ipswich defeats Norwich, "It's a sign of the coming of the Kingdom of God."
People are so often looking for signs of the Kingdom of God, but they are so often looking in the wrong place. The signs of the Kingdom of God are easy to see, and easy to miss.
Don't look out there, Jesus says. Don't look over there, Jesus says. Don't look in the heavens, or the wars, or the earthquakes, or the great affairs of state. There's going to be a pretty grim future ahead, but that's not where the kingdom of God is. It's not there in the things that can be seen. It's here, in this man who comes back with a heart full of thankfulness. It's here, in the person who forgives, and forgives again, even up to seven times in the same day. Its here, in the person who is faithful, as Jesus says in Chapter 16, in the little things.
We miss so much when we read the Bible in little sections of verses and Chapter bits. As it says in the preface to the New English Bible, where the verse divisions are really ill defined,
"The conventional verse divisions in the New Testament date only from 1551 and have no basis in the manuscripts. Any system of division into numbered verses is foreign to the spirit of this translation which is intended to convey the meaning in continuous natural English…"
Right through these later chapters, if you read them as a continuous narrative, a story, you can see that Jesus is showing his disciples where the Kingdom of God is, and it is seen, or not seen, in the way people are with God and with each other. The Kingdom of God not in the rich man's wealth, found in Chapter 16, who fails to see the needs of the poor man at the door. It is with the poor man. It is not to be found in the great events of history so much as in the Samaritan leper who comes back with a heart of thanks to God.
Of course, we miss that if we just read a few verses and put the Bible down as if they stand there all by themselves.
Luke puts this story in his wider narrative because it comes in the middle of a whole series of anecdotes relating to faith, and what it is, and what it means. Faith is about a heart of thankfulness. Faith is about hearing the cry of the poor man outside the gates. Faith is not so much about getting the religious rites all correct as it is about tuning the heart in to the God who gives us life to be rejoiced in, treasured, and lived with a heart of gratitude and hopefulness and joy. The Kingdom of God is where Faith is. But what is faith?
It's interesting that the Samaritan Leper (well, he's not a leper anymore of course) doesn't come back primarily to thank Jesus, but he comes back to Jesus to thank God. He perceives that there is a relationship between Jesus and God, but the relationship is there to bring him, not just to the man who holds God's presence, but personally to God. Jesus has come to help us come close to God, into God's presence with joy and hope.
It's really interesting that all ten people had an encounter that put them suddenly and unexpectedly right into the presence of God's power. Nine of them did what religion required, and we hear no more of them, except Jesus asking "Where are they?" The other one, responded spontaneously with thanksgiving and gratitude and joy. This is the one whom Jesus blessed.
People encounter the Kingdom of God a lot more often than they realize. Something happens that is challenging and potentially destructive and a person says a quick prayer.
"Lord, help me!" "God, where are you?"
And sometimes in that prayer we are expecting, or at least hoping, that God will do something. God often does something using the tools that are already created, our brains, our hands, our personality, and we find a way of surviving, and often more than that, triumphing, turning the disasters into life, using our God given creativity to achieve something great, to pull creativity out of disaster, learning a skill, a resource that will be vital in the future.
But then, just occasionally, something happens that is extraordinary, not part of the natural course of events, and we know that God has somehow interrupted the natural course of events in a wonderful way. We're gob-smacked. What do we do?
We are sort of left with the assumption that the other nine people did what they law demanded. They went to the priests and had themselves declared clean. They'd done all they had to do. They'd fulfilled the requirement of the law. But this chap, this Samaritan, he goes a long way beyond that. He's transformed, not just in his physical healing but in his heart. He wants to express his thanks and love to God with his whole being. This is what Jesus refers to when he says "Your faith has made you well."
Some people are like the Samaritan who came back. Some are like the other nine lepers who didn't. Things get fixed. They say "Oh Good!" Then off they go on their life. But there is only a tiny bit of the blessing in that. That's like the slave in the last parable who does all that is asked of him. There's nothing remarkable about that. The person in this story goes beyond that, both in his actions and his heart. This is faith. And this is what brings blessing.
Do you remember Jesus once saying, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." (Gospel of Matthew. Ch.5 Verse 20)
What he was referring to is that they were obsessively pedantic about fulfilling the demands of the law. And the people who heard Jesus say it thought "What else could a person do? These guys are just so careful and perfect."
But in this story we see what Jesus is talking about. Here's the man who shows what that means. And Luke records this story, for us, because he knows that in this response, of joy, of gratitude, of rejoicing, in this is the Kingdom of God as it is meant to be, and in this is the blessing. In this, is the model of Christian faith. In this, this heart full of grateful rejoicing, and returning with joy to give thanks.