SERMON FOR OCTOBER 13, 2019 EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST TEXT: LUKE: 17:11-19

My daughter has worked in the restaurant business for almost a decade. Lucy began in high school at an ice cream shop, scooping up sundaes and making chicken salad sandwiches. She moved on to waiting tables. She has planned private events, overseen ordering supplies, stocked liquor, changed out kegs, bar-backed and bartended. She has met a lot of fascinating people and has many wonderful stories to tell. But over all it has been a rough way to cover her living expenses. The wages aren’t great; the tips are unpredictable; the hours are long. She has worked for a number of incompetent managers, several abusive ones and two who regularly crossed the boundary into sexual harassment. One owner was under FBI investigation for embezzlement in his varied businesses. The feds froze his assets. The restaurant couldn’t buy groceries or pay its employees, and they were all out of a job within 48 hours. There was the place in downtown Oakland where she got her first bartending gig. It was dark and crowded and noisy. She had to lean over the bar to hear customers’ orders, and more than once somebody licked her ear. We debated whether that was sexual harassment or not. Enough; you get the picture. When she was back in college as a full-time student, she looked for a job that would accommodate her class schedule. She was thrilled to get a position as a bar back at a really classy establishment — one that has been written up in the New York Times and that makes the who’s who list of you-don’t-want-to-miss bars in America. So she keeps clean glassware coming and the dirties removed, cuts up fruit for cocktail garnishes, replenishes the beers on tap and restocks the wine and liquor. Bar backing pays a pittance compared to bartending, but the owners of the place are good businessmen and considerate employers. The staff is small, and they take care of each other. The establishment attracts a diverse clientele, loyal patrons who have interesting lives and good incomes and know how to behave themselves in public.

Last week the owners asked to see Lucy, and she panicked. For financial reasons, since graduation she has had to take on a second job as a server in another restaurant and cut back her hours at the bar. She worried they might let her go. She went to the office at the appointed time. The owners asked her how her other job was going. She admitted that she found the environment at the restaurant troubling; there were problems with staffing that weren’t being addressed. It was difficult to do her job, and she was considering looking for something else. The owners told her they were very happy to hear that because they wanted to offer her a bartending position. Regular hours, a consistent income, the chance to stay with these good people and keep afloat financially — Lucy was so grateful. “I promise I will work hard for you,” she told them. They responded, “You already do.”

Commenting on today’s Gospel, one New Testament scholar writes: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I think gratitude is the noblest emotion. Gratitude draws us out of ourselves into something larger, bigger, and grander than we could imagine and joins us to the font of blessing itself. But maybe, just maybe, gratitude is also the most powerful emotion, as it frees us from fear, releases us from anxiety, and emboldens us to do more and dare more than we’d ever imagined.” Gratitude is not the same as indebtedness. It is about receiving a gift, not accepting an obligation. It forms a personal bond. You have recognized me, you have singled me out and done me a deliberate kindness, and now I see you in the light of your generosity, your uplifting attention to me. “Then one of the [lepers], when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.”

In response to their pleading, Jesus commands all ten of them to go and show themselves to the priests. They do as he tells them and on the way they are healed. The other nine have not done anything wrong. Jesus instructs them to follow the process for the purification of lepers as recorded in the Book of Leviticus. They are required to present themselves to the priest for examination. If the priest determines them to be healed of the disease, he will make the required ritual offering, sprinkle them seven times with the blood of the sacrifice and pronounce then clean. Then they wash themselves seven times. After that they are allowed to reenter society. No longer are they required to keep their distance. One could argue that the lepers who go straight to the priest in accordance with Jesus’ instruction do indeed give praise to God by their obedience to the law. Their bodies are free of the disease; their lives are renewed, since now they are allowed to return to their communities and live again with their families and friends. All ten of the lepers in today’s story are richly healed. It seems reasonable to assume that they all were thankful for their restoration.

One of the ten, however, does not simply move forward, reentering the world he knew before. He turns around; he backtracks and comes face to face with something new, something unexpected. “Were not ten made clean?” Jesus asks. “But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except the foreigner?” Once again, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus challenges his followers to learn from the despised outsider. Samaria was part of the old northern kingdom; it lay between Galilee and the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrian empire, which transported foreign peoples into the region, resulting in centuries of intermarriage. Over time the Samaritans developed their own religious traditions that conflicted with those of their southern neighbors. The Jews regarded them with hostility. And now, as Jesus travels to Jerusalem, he makes bold to pass through their territory. He then tells a story, spilling the beans to his followers about the protagonist’s identity after the fact: “And he was a Samaritan.” He shows them what it means to love God, just as his countryman in the earlier parable demonstrates the depth of love for one’s neighbor. The foreigner, now healed, praises God by giving thanks to the one whose mercy he sought, whose power he trusted. He has seen God’s glory in Jesus, tasted his grace. His gratitude is born of his faith. It has made him whole.

Today’s Gospel is not an object lesson in the art of good manners, reminding us to express appreciation for benefits received in person or through a note of thanks, although both are worthy practices. The outburst of gratitude recorded here is a revelation in itself. It is the experience of a second blessing that changes the man’s life as powerfully as the first gift of healing. He knows Jesus and is known by him. He is now free to get up and go his way. So are we. Out these doors we will go, back to old challenges with renewed determination, on to new possibilities with fresh hope. “We promise we will work hard for you.” Indeed you will. You already do! Amen.