+ Thanksgiving Day – November 22nd, 2018 +
Deuteronomy 8:1-10; Philippians 4:6-20; Luke 17:11-19
Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Those 10 lepers had nothing. Sure, they had the clothes on their back, though filthy rags might be more accurate. Bandages covered their disease ridden skin. They had each other a band of miserable, outcast brothers, except for that Samaritan. An outcast among outcasts. But all of them, pariahs. Cast out of their homes, out of the synagogue, and out of the village. Most of the time you’d hear them before you’d see them. “Unclean! Unclean!” they shouted, warning others to stay away. They were defiled. Diseased. They had nothing.
How’s that for a cheerful Thanksgiving Day sermon! No table covered with enough food for our leftovers to have leftovers. No joyful celebrations with family and friends. No football, afternoon naps, or black Friday deals to be had. Only leprosy. Disease. Uncleanliness. Not exactly the picture you’d want on your hallmark Thanksgiving card. A bunch of lepers crying out…Lord, have mercy on us.
And yet, this is the perfect picture for Thanksgiving. The 10 lepers had nothing, and they knew it.
After Martin Luther died in 1546, his friends found a scrap of paper in the pocket of his robes. On it he had written, “We are all beggars. This is true.”
Those 10 lepers outside the village where Jesus heard and saw them were beggars. The people of Israel wandering in the wilderness for 40 years were beggars. The Lord gave them food they neither knew nor deserved. And though they constantly grumbled that they had nothing, the Lord saw to it that they lacked nothing. On thanksgiving, just like every other day of the year, we are all beggars. This is true.
Like those lepers we have nothing. Nothing to show for. Nothing to brag about. Nothing to offer God. We have not kept our Lord’s commands and his words. We have not remembered his kindness towards us. We have not loved the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, nor have we loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have nothing but empty hands, unclean sinful hearts, and our nothingness.
So, we join the lepers in their cry to Jesus, Lord, have mercy on us.
And what’s most remarkable, what is absolutely unexpected about this story is that Jesus didn’t wait for the lepers to be properly, or sincerely thankful before he healed them. Jesus didn’t wait till they checked off all the boxes on their to-do list before he cleansed them. Jesus saw that they had nothing to offer, nothing but their disease and outcastness and he healed, restored, and cleansed them anyway. They had nothing to offer Jesus, and yet he had everything to offer them.
This is why Luke starts off this story by telling us in just a few brief words that Jesus was “on the way to Jerusalem.” On his way to be the pariah and the outcast, to die outside the city of Jerusalem, for them and for you and for all. On his way to become the unclean one for us. On his way to make himself nothing by humbling himself unto death on the cross.
Surely he has born our diseases and carried our sorrows. I have not come for the healthy, but for the sick, Jesus declares. For the lepers. For us thanksgiving beggars. For we who are nothing, Jesus gives us everything.
Go and show yourselves to the priest, he told the lepers. And as they went they were cleansed. All of them. By grace. The same grace of God that cleanses us in Holy Baptism. Washing us into his family – no more an outcast, but sons and heirs. Drowning the leprosy of sin in his death and raising us to new life in his resurrection. Clothing us, beggars, with the glorious robe of his righteous, sacrificial death for us.
This is who God is. God is known in giving. He gives his life for us. He gives his Word to us. He gives his body and blood for us and our forgiveness. And he who did not spare his own Son but gave himself up for us all, how will he not with him graciously give us all things.
That’s what we learn in the catechism. We who have nothing are given everything in Jesus.
He gives us body, soul, eyes, ears, and my members, my reason and all my senses, and still preserves them. He also gives me clothing and shoes, house and home, food and drink, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have . He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life…All this he does out of pure fatherly divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.
For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey him.
Thanksgiving, you see, isn’t the root of God’s love for us, but the fruit of God’s abundant giving. We’re like fruit trees. Thanksgiving is the fruit of God’s abundant gifts to us, not our gifts to God. Thanksgiving is God’s work in us, not our work for God. Thanksgiving isn’t the gift, it’s the result of God’s giving everything to us in Jesus. It was true of those 10 lepers and it’s true for us too. Thanksgiving is the fruit of God’s gifts to us in Jesus Crucified.
God doesn’t give His gifts because we’re good enough, or thankful enough. God doesn’t give his gifts only to those who know how to give thanks in the right way. Or feel thanks strongly enough. God gave to you. Broken, hurting, sinful you. Go in peace. For the one who has given you your faith has made you well. The one who has given everything has saved you. And it’s that gift of God alone that brings us to say, Thanks be to God.
A blessed Thanksgiving to each of you…
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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