I spent the last week calling out for help just like the lepers in today’s reading. I have to admit, I didn’t call out to Jesus, but then I didn’t have quite the success they had either. My eyes started to itch and burn on Monday – Sunday evening actually – but I managed to drive safely to FD and work easily through the day. On Tuesday, however, I could tell I had conjunctivitis so I called out first of all to my physician in Ankeny – actually, I used the phone rather than just shouting out. He gave me a prescription based on my description of symptoms familiar from previous episodes. 24 hours later, at Phyllis’ urging, I called out again, this time by walking across the street to the community health clinic because I could barely see to read and work on the computer. Dr Van Han diagnosed viral conjunctivitis as the reason the first antibiotic eye drops didn’t work. He prescribed something else to help with the itching and suggested I see an optometrist if things didn’t improve. On Thursday, my eyes were even more inflamed and my eyesight worse. I called out again, this time to my optometrist in Ankeny. My daughter Kate drove up to get me and brought me home. Have you noticed that life is like a baseball game where everything seems much better if you can just get home safely? My optometrist, Dr. Greg Sunner, not usually known as Jesus, with his up-to-date equipment and knowledge of eyes, nonetheless correctly diagnosed the problem and prescribed the correct medication. He didn’t send me off to the priest for verification of my healing and to be fair I only started to improve, but it was the first real progress and I’m much better this morning – it’s the first time I have been able to read since Monday. Even with the correct intervention it took a few more days before my eyesight was back to normal. Have you noticed how healing always happens slowly and incrementally?

There are several lessons in this experience. One is that healing always takes the help of someone else. You have to call out for help. It seldom works to rely solely on your own devices, which as I have mentioned is my first response. Also, you have to call out to the right person – the one who has what you need. No doubt the lepers called out for help from lots of people, most of whom avoided them like the plague which they were. On this particular day, however, they called out to the right person, who had what they needed. The story of the ten lepers reveals the power of calling out to Jesus. Of course, we don’t call out to Jesus for medical problems anymore, but there are plenty of other difficulties when Jesus is just the right person to call.

The lepers in this mornings reading no doubt called out repeatedly for help. They were completely dependent on the kindness of strangers. Lepers were required to separate themselves from the rest of the community. They lived in leper colonies or huddled outside the village gates with other lepers. They could not earn money because they could not come close to anyone. They had to cry out “unclean” when approached. They relied completely on the kindness of others to help them survive. They called out for help from a distance in the hope that someone might overcome the stigma of associating with and the dangers of approaching the unclean.

Much is made of the Samaritan leper who returns to thank Jesus for healing him and rightly so because he is clearly the hero of the story. Most of us follow Jesus in heaping scorn on the nine who went about their business without returning to praise Jesus for the wonderful gift of healing and rightly so because they missed the most important thing that had ever happened to them: an encounter with Jesus. A leper had to have the certification of a priest that he was clean in order to re-enter society, so all the lepers dutifully set off as Jesus instructed to receive certification that they were no longer unclean. Only the Samaritan knew that he had encountered the mercy of God and returned to give praise where praise was due. The others missed entirely the significance of what had just happened to them. Don’t you feel sorry for those blessed by God who don’t notice?

The fact that the Samaritan was the only one to return may be no surprise. Samaritans were considered outsiders by the people of Israel. The priest in the village would not have examined a Samaritan anyway and would certainly not have pronounced the Samaritan clean. Perhaps this realization that going to see the priest was of no use to him gave the Samaritan enough pause to realize what had happened to him. For whatever reason, only the Samaritan realized that all the lepers had been touched by God when Jesus spoke to them.

I have on occasion helped at the Community Kitchen in Des Moines. I am always moved by the way just about everyone says thank you as I hand them a plate of food. I don’t know what I expect them to say, but somehow their “thank you” always seems really genuine. Something about the circumstances and their appearance make this meal a whole lot more meaningful than most of the meals I eat. Their voices and their eyes make me believe that their gratitude is very real and heart felt. The most frequent question they asked me is why I do this. I suspect they know that they need this meal a whole lot more than I need to be there serving it to them.

I can’t help but think of the people who come to a community kitchen for a free meal as like the ten lepers who stood at a distance and called out to Jesus to have mercy on them. This was the normal call of beggars hoping to get a coin or two from a passer by. Jesus gave them far more than they asked for and far more than they could ever have expected. Unlike the nine lepers, however, every one who receives a meal from me expresses gratitude at my meager effort to help them. Each seems to sense that they are receiving more than just a handout. They are experiencing the kindness of strangers, which as we know is really the hand of God.

I grew up in a home which taught me to write what my mother called “bread and butter” letters. Why do you suppose they are called “bread and butter” letters? These are the thank you notes that we were to write after we had received a present or returned from visiting someone. Christmas wasn’t finished until the “bread and butter” letters were mailed to grandma, our cousins and all the others who had given us a gift. This is a very good thing to do. It lends an air of civility to life, of graciousness, when people say thank you. Saying “thank you” returns to the giver a blessing even sweeter than the gift itself.

Likewise, when you return to thank Jesus for the gift of healing, you get a second blessing. Nine of the lepers got cured, the one who came back to praise and thank Jesus got “saved” as well. It may be important that only the one without a home in Galilee came back. It must have dawned on the Samaritan that the priest was going to be no good to him. He was not welcome in the village. The priest had more against him than his leprosy. He was a Samaritan who would have been banished just for his nationality. The nine had a welcome community to return to and a priest to sanction their homecoming. The Samaritan had neither.

Once again in the life of Jesus, a Samaritan is the hero. Only a Samaritan was a true neighbor to the man robbed and beaten along side the road to Jericho. Only the Samaritan returned to Jesus in praise and thanksgiving, words that in Hebrew mean very much the same thing. And only the Samaritan received a second blessing. Jesus said to the leper who returned to praise and thank God, "Get up and go on your way, your faith has been your salvation." It turns out there is a second healing for those who praise God. Praising God, it seems, affects us in deep and profound ways. A medieval mystic once said, "Those who do not praise God here on earth remain silent in eternity." Those who do not know how to praise God, miss something they often don't even know they miss. Church people like you know this and that’s why you are here this morning: to praise God for the healing in your lives. Those who behave like the nine who did not return know only an emptiness which fails to sustain them in times of need.

I visited such a family in the hospital once. They were not active church people and so did not know the second blessing which comes from praising God as we are doing here this morning. They were in agony over the immanent death of their child. Many relatives joined in the vigil. Several ministers and chaplains were in attendance. Many angry and painful tears and sobs were shared all around. But in spite of the crowd of people, in spite of the deep concern of attending clergy and the prayers of surrounding communities of faith, the family was very much alone in their grief. They were surrounded and yet they were alone. Because they were not in the habit of giving praise and thanksgiving to God, they simply did not have Jesus to lean on when they needed him. They had no faith to sustain them. They did not have the strength that Christians develop with a lifetime of praise and thanksgiving. They behaved like the nine lepers who took their healing and simply went about their lives. You who have come to church this morning resemble the one Samaritan leper who came back to say “thank you, Jesus.”

What we do in church is akin to strength training for athletes. We strengthen our spiritual muscles for the challenges we will someday face. Too often in their lives, the family, alone in their grief had rushed home like the nine lepers without noticing that God played a hand in their good fortune. Too often, like the nine, they had been in too much of a hurry to get on with their lives. They did not take time to offer praise and thanksgiving to God. Too often, like the nine, they took what was given them in life without acknowledging the grace of God which makes it all possible. They did not realize that offering praise and thanksgiving to God in the regular attention to worship and a life of prayer brings with it a second blessing, deeper and more significant than the first. It brings with it a relationship to Christ which can sustain and nurture us when we find ourselves again on the margins facing danger and fear. "People who do not praise God while they can, find silence an eternal companion."

Of course the Samaritan could have rushed off to his own home in Samaria as the others had done. But only the Samaritan realized that Jesus was his new home and his new community. He was cured not to return to his old ways but to accept a new life of Christian discipleship. Only the Samaritan noticed the specialness of Jesus. Only the Samaritan realized that salvation was different than good fortune. Only the Samaritan knew the value of an ongoing relationship with his savior. Only the Samaritan knew that praise and thanksgiving would bring him a second blessing. Only the Samaritan knew that praise and thanksgiving heal our souls. Only the Samaritan knew that leprosy was not his real problem. His real disease was the spiritual emptiness only a relationship with Jesus could fill. Jesus ushers in a new age of truth and love which heals everyone, but saves only those who know enough to enter a life of praise and thanksgiving. The real fruits of the kingdom come only to those who know enough to say thank you Jesus.

Offertory Sentence

Let us give to others in gratitude for all that God has given to us. Our offering will now be received.

Offertory Prayer

O God, we pray that the gifts that we have brought to you now will help to close some of the distances between ourselves and others. Show us where best to carry them in your name, we pray.

Amen.