Thanksgiving is an interesting national celebration of gratitude for what we have. We tend to think of Thanksgiving as a unique invention of the U.S., but many other countries have an annual day of Thanksgiving. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, and the Philippines are a few of the others. Although our own Thanksgiving can be traced to the 1600’s, it was President George Washington who proclaimed, in his words, “November 26, 1789 as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.” [1] President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, but did not specify an official day. That did not happen until President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed the fourth Thursday in November as the official national holiday of Thanksgiving.
In my younger days, sometimes I would complain to my mother that I didn’t have something I wanted. Although she would acknowledge my complaint, she would often tell me to count my blessings. Be grateful for what you do have—she would say—and don’t focus on what you don’t have. I was totally unimpressed with her response back then. Today, however, there is solid psychological evidence that indeed it is better to focus more on what we have and less on what we don’t. An attitude of gratitude, so to speak, is good for us. It can improve our mental health and our outlook (“Can expressing gratitude improve your mental health…”, Mayo Clinic, 12-6-22).
This sage advice has long been found in scripture. We read in Psalms, for example, that “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad” (118:24). That might not go over so well on gloomy days. More helpful perhaps is the Psalm that urges us to “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy endures forever (118:29). In the New Testament, Paul advises the Thessalonians to give thanks in all circumstances (1Thes 5:18). For Paul, gratitude is a natural outgrowth of faith.
Faith and gratitude are the centerpiece of the story about the ten lepers who ask Jesus for mercy. Notice they do not ask to be healed. They ask for his mercy. In those days, the leper was considered unclean under Mosaic Law because the disease itself was viewed as punishment for sin. Thus, the leper was no longer holy before God. For this reason, the leper was cut off from the living faith community, and stood to forfeit for all time his or her relationship with God and with all other community members.
The only available remedy for leprosy in the ancient world was to be healed through a direct intervention by God (Ex. 15:26), or through an appeal to God’s mercy and compassion by a prophet (Ex. 15:25; II Kings 2:21; II Kings 20:7–8). This is why the lepers do not ask Jesus for healing because mercy is the more likely remedy.
What Jesus hears in their request is faith. He acknowledges their faith by telling them to present themselves to the priests. They in turn act with trust to carry out his instruction. On the way, all ten realize they have been healed of their ailment through faith. Only one, however, the Samaritan—the foreigner—perceives that God is the source of his healing, and only he returns to give thanks. The Samaritan leper perceived the presence of God in the person of Jesus. The Samaritan sees what the Pharisees failed to see, and he gives thanks.
The awareness of God compels the Samaritan to express gratitude at the feet of Jesus, who accepts the Samaritan’s gratitude as an appropriate response of faith. Jesus affirms the validity of the Samaritan’s faith by calling attention to the end result, his salvation—“Stand up and go; your faith has saved you” (Lk 17:19). The Samaritan’s realization that he has been “healed” by God becomes a realization that he has been “saved” by God. His faith in Jesus Christ has thus made him whole in both a physical and a spiritual sense, and he is grateful.
In this encounter between Jesus and the lepers, notice that Jesus did not require them to express any repentance or renunciation of sin before healing. This is true despite the fact that leprosy was understood in those days as punishment for sin. Nor does Jesus ask the lepers to change their ethnic or religious identity before he heals them. All he expects and looks for is faith. Their very request for mercy demonstrates their faith, and Jesus reaches out to them where they are and heals them. In effect, God uses this opportunity to demonstrate his unconditional love for all people regardless of their social, religious, or ethnic status. God does not care about such things. God cares about faith and unconditional love.
The unconditional love of God for all people is why Jesus yearns for us to seek him with all boldness, without fear, and without condition. “Come to me all you who labor and are burned, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). Jesus does not restrict who may seek him. Clearly, the lepers sought Jesus WHEN they were in need of healing, BEFORE they were made clean. Jesus did not say: Go get holy, and then knock on the door. Rather, Jesus is saying: Knock on the door and I will open it; seek and you will find.
This encounter between the lepers and Jesus shows that hope, trust and compassion are the more compelling aspects of faith than are law and ritual. We can approach Jesus no matter what our circumstances. Jesus meets us where we are. He looks for faith and is eager to respond to the faith that each of us can muster, however little or much that might be.
We can be sure that Jesus will respond to our needs with compassion. For, compassion is the natural and universal response of unconditional love, and gratitude is the natural and universal response of the one who receives such love. As the Psalmist puts it, “Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has done marvelous deeds” (Ps 98:1-4).
What do we want from Jesus? What do we ask for? What do we seek? Why do we knock? Today—Thanksgiving Day—is one day set aside for a more public show of gratitude for blessings received. Those blessings reveal the goodness of God and are reason enough to place our hope and trust in the Lord on our journey through life. The sign posts for a safe journey are simple—trust in God leads to wholeness of spirit. Here I am Lord. Tell me what to do Lord, and I will do it. Like the lepers, we express our faith in Jesus, and Jesus responds. In turn, we trust Jesus; we follow his instruction, and we are made whole (Is 55:3). Thus, we have every reason to give thanks to God.
[1] Hodgson, Godfrey, A Great and Godly Adventure; The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving. New York: Public Affairs (2006), p. 212.
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