Luke 17:11-19
Harvest is much more real here than it was in the centre of Moscow or London.
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.’
Harvest is much more real here than it was in the centre of Moscow or London.
The audio of this talk can be found here
We are conscious of the weather, not just for sailing but for the farming.
We get stuck behind tractors on the roads
There is, at times, the healthy smell of fertiliser
And there is the delight of local produce - we are coming to the season for Brian’s leeks. Alison is getting very excited!
In the old church’s year there is the season of Rogationtide, when we ask God’s blessing on the fields and communities, and Harvest tide - when we thank God and give to God the equivalent of the first fruits. Hence the name: harvest thanks-giving.
1. We do give THANKS.
Most of us struggle when people do not say 'thank you'.
There was one man in the congregation where I was curate in Ipswich, and he never said 'thank you'. At first it riled me and then it became a bit of a game. Could we get him to say thank you to anyone for anything?
The problem is that when people do not say 'thank you', we feel that we are being taken for granted; that people expected us to do what we did, that life rotates around them, that we don’t matter and that we are being treated as slaves.
Last week we read the previous verses in Luke 17, that rather jarring passage about the master who does not say ‘thank you’ to his servants. ‘Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?’.
It is not just polite to say 'thank you'. When we say 'thank you' to another, we are recognising their worth, and that they didn’t need to do what they did for us, or to do what they did the way they did it, but that they did it as gift.
And by the way, that is why it is so important to say 'thank you', and to go on saying thank you, to those who are closest to us – because often they are the easiest people to take for granted.
Today we read of a man who does say ‘thank you’. 'Thank you' to Jesus. And we know it meant something because he went out of his way. He returned praising God and fell at Jesus’ feet.
There was no reason why Jesus should have been good to him. What had he done for Jesus? Indeed, he wasn’t even a Jew. He was a Samaritan.
But he recognises what Jesus has done for him. Yes, he has physically healed him; but he has also given him back his place. He can return home (notice how the lepers lived in no-man’s land between Galilee and Samaria). And he has reintegrated him into society - he can again relate to others as a human being (before they are healed, the lepers ‘stood at a distance’ and called out to Jesus. Now he comes right up to Jesus). And Jesus has treated him not as a disease - to be kept at arm’s length - but as a person, and has given him dignity.
And the man recognises that Jesus did not need to do any of this for him. It was all unexpected, wonderful gift. And he is full of gratitude, so he returns praising God to say 'thank you' to Jesus.
And when we begin to say 'thank you' - and maybe if we don’t believe in God, 'thank you' to a vague whoever is beyond us - it may well be the first step to salvation, to meeting with God, to receiving the other gifts that God wants to give us and becoming the person God created us to be.
There is a Garfield cartoon. In the first picture there is Garfield and three flowers. In the second picture, Garfield looks up to the sky and says, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you’. In the third picture he looks very pleased with himself and says, ‘Now we are even!’.
The problem is that there are not only three flowers; there are trillions upon trillions of flowers. And on Garfield’ logic, we should live every second of our life saying ‘thank you’. But Garfield gets it right - our entire lives should be lives of gratitude.
And that is what our healed leper gets. He throws himself at Jesus feet.
Of course, if there is no God, no ‘someone’ who is other to us and beyond us, then while there is place for wonder and to be amazed, there is no ‘you’ to say ‘thank you’ to.
I can say ‘thank you’ to you for what you do. But if there is no God, there is no one who I can say ‘thank you’ to for the gift of you.
Last week we went to the play ‘Every Brilliant Thing’. A seven-year-old starts to make a list of every brilliant thing he can think of. It begins with ice cream and water fights (he is 7 years old) and goes on to include things like sitting next to your friend on the bus on a school trip.
We can write those things down; we can say that they are things which make life worth living, but when we have the urge to say ‘thank you’ to someone for those things, for the rain and the grain and the growing process, for farmers and tractors and sheep dogs, for sheep and cows, dogs and cats, birds and hens, for taste buds and chocolate and ice cream, for the beauty of clear autumn skies and leaves - the list is endless; when we have that urge to say ‘thank you’, we are being moved out of ourselves to recognise that behind all this there is someONE. Someone who we can say ‘thank you’ to.
And that is the exciting because it is the beginning, the first step towards salvation.
2. And Harvest is about GIVING
We’ve noticed how this man praises God, gives thanks to Jesus and throws himself at Jesus feet. It is an act of surrender and a sign of the willingness to serve – but not one that comes from fear, but one that comes from love.
Maybe he recognises that Jesus is the presence and power of God who has given him life. I doubt it at that point. That recognition will have come later. But he certainly recognises that it is Jesus who has healed him, has given him acceptance, love and new life. And he wants to give his life back to Jesus.
This is the logic of the gospel. It begins when we recognise all that God has given us, that God is love, that he loves you, and we respond by giving ourselves back to him.
So when we give the tin of tomatoes, or the £10 note, it is not, I hope, simply from a sense that I ‘ought’ to do this (although we don’t deny the importance of duty), or from a feeling that we should be supporting those less fortunate than ourselves, or that we want the ministry of the church to continue.
I hope that our desire to give comes from that glimmer of a recognition that everything we have is gift, life itself and the offer of new life and eternal life – and so the giving of some nappies or tin of tomatoes is a very English way of throwing ourselves at Jesus feet and offering him ourselves.
You will remember when we used to receive the offering at the front, pre-Covid, on the large collection plate. Perhaps we should reintroduce that.
But there is the story told about a church in a faraway place in a faraway time. It was the time for the offering. The minister held a large plate, and people came up to the front to place their offering on the plate. And a little boy came up. He asked the minister to lower the plate. The minister thought it was too high for him, so he lowered and then lowered again, but still the boy did not put any money on it. The minister lowered it one more time, and the boy stepped on to the plate.
We are conscious of the weather, not just for sailing but for the farming.
We get stuck behind tractors on the roads
There is, at times, the healthy smell of fertiliser
And there is the delight of local produce - we are coming to the season for Brian’s leeks. Alison is getting very excited!
In the old church’s year there is the season of Rogationtide, when we ask God’s blessing on the fields and communities, and Harvest tide - when we thank God and give to God the equivalent of the first fruits. Hence the name: harvest thanks-giving.
1. We do give THANKS.
Most of us struggle when people do not say 'thank you'.
There was one man in the congregation where I was curate in Ipswich, and he never said 'thank you'. At first it riled me and then it became a bit of a game. Could we get him to say thank you to anyone for anything?
The problem is that when people do not say 'thank you', we feel that we are being taken for granted; that people expected us to do what we did, that life rotates around them, that we don’t matter and that we are being treated as slaves.
Last week we read the previous verses in Luke 17, that rather jarring passage about the master who does not say ‘thank you’ to his servants. ‘Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?’.
It is not just polite to say 'thank you'. When we say 'thank you' to another, we are recognising their worth, and that they didn’t need to do what they did for us, or to do what they did the way they did it, but that they did it as gift.
And by the way, that is why it is so important to say 'thank you', and to go on saying thank you, to those who are closest to us – because often they are the easiest people to take for granted.
Today we read of a man who does say ‘thank you’. 'Thank you' to Jesus. And we know it meant something because he went out of his way. He returned praising God and fell at Jesus’ feet.
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There was no reason why Jesus should have been good to him. What had he done for Jesus? Indeed, he wasn’t even a Jew. He was a Samaritan.
But he recognises what Jesus has done for him. Yes, he has physically healed him; but he has also given him back his place. He can return home (notice how the lepers lived in no-man’s land between Galilee and Samaria). And he has reintegrated him into society - he can again relate to others as a human being (before they are healed, the lepers ‘stood at a distance’ and called out to Jesus. Now he comes right up to Jesus). And Jesus has treated him not as a disease - to be kept at arm’s length - but as a person, and has given him dignity.
And the man recognises that Jesus did not need to do any of this for him. It was all unexpected, wonderful gift. And he is full of gratitude, so he returns praising God to say 'thank you' to Jesus.
And when we begin to say 'thank you' - and maybe if we don’t believe in God, 'thank you' to a vague whoever is beyond us - it may well be the first step to salvation, to meeting with God, to receiving the other gifts that God wants to give us and becoming the person God created us to be.
There is a Garfield cartoon. In the first picture there is Garfield and three flowers. In the second picture, Garfield looks up to the sky and says, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you’. In the third picture he looks very pleased with himself and says, ‘Now we are even!’.
The problem is that there are not only three flowers; there are trillions upon trillions of flowers. And on Garfield’ logic, we should live every second of our life saying ‘thank you’. But Garfield gets it right - our entire lives should be lives of gratitude.
And that is what our healed leper gets. He throws himself at Jesus feet.
Of course, if there is no God, no ‘someone’ who is other to us and beyond us, then while there is place for wonder and to be amazed, there is no ‘you’ to say ‘thank you’ to.
I can say ‘thank you’ to you for what you do. But if there is no God, there is no one who I can say ‘thank you’ to for the gift of you.
Last week we went to the play ‘Every Brilliant Thing’. A seven-year-old starts to make a list of every brilliant thing he can think of. It begins with ice cream and water fights (he is 7 years old) and goes on to include things like sitting next to your friend on the bus on a school trip.
We can write those things down; we can say that they are things which make life worth living, but when we have the urge to say ‘thank you’ to someone for those things, for the rain and the grain and the growing process, for farmers and tractors and sheep dogs, for sheep and cows, dogs and cats, birds and hens, for taste buds and chocolate and ice cream, for the beauty of clear autumn skies and leaves - the list is endless; when we have that urge to say ‘thank you’, we are being moved out of ourselves to recognise that behind all this there is someONE. Someone who we can say ‘thank you’ to.
And that is the exciting because it is the beginning, the first step towards salvation.
2. And Harvest is about GIVING
We’ve noticed how this man praises God, gives thanks to Jesus and throws himself at Jesus feet. It is an act of surrender and a sign of the willingness to serve – but not one that comes from fear, but one that comes from love.
Maybe he recognises that Jesus is the presence and power of God who has given him life. I doubt it at that point. That recognition will have come later. But he certainly recognises that it is Jesus who has healed him, has given him acceptance, love and new life. And he wants to give his life back to Jesus.
This is the logic of the gospel. It begins when we recognise all that God has given us, that God is love, that he loves you, and we respond by giving ourselves back to him.
So when we give the tin of tomatoes, or the £10 note, it is not, I hope, simply from a sense that I ‘ought’ to do this (although we don’t deny the importance of duty), or from a feeling that we should be supporting those less fortunate than ourselves, or that we want the ministry of the church to continue.
I hope that our desire to give comes from that glimmer of a recognition that everything we have is gift, life itself and the offer of new life and eternal life – and so the giving of some nappies or tin of tomatoes is a very English way of throwing ourselves at Jesus feet and offering him ourselves.
You will remember when we used to receive the offering at the front, pre-Covid, on the large collection plate. Perhaps we should reintroduce that.
But there is the story told about a church in a faraway place in a faraway time. It was the time for the offering. The minister held a large plate, and people came up to the front to place their offering on the plate. And a little boy came up. He asked the minister to lower the plate. The minister thought it was too high for him, so he lowered and then lowered again, but still the boy did not put any money on it. The minister lowered it one more time, and the boy stepped on to the plate.
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