THANK YOU NOTES Luke 17:11-19 November 29, 2015 Dr. Howard Batson First Baptist Church Amarillo, Texas Sure, their marriage ceremony went off without a snag. Their friend, Morris, journeyed from Frisco, Texas, to Las Vegas, Nevada, and gave the couple some friends from work a generous gift. He gave them a crisp Benjamin Franklin. A $100 bill. About a month later, Morris received an e-mail. It was a mass message from the bride s Yahoo account addressed Dear Friends. It thanked the group for attending the wedding and for all the nice gifts, Morris recalls. No monogrammed Crane stationery, no ballpoint pen signature. Not even a stamp. The e- mail, a mass mail, was the impersonal thank-you note. Morris, himself a young man only 34, responded by saying, It was cheap and pitiful. I would just as soon have received no thank-you as to receive that. During this season of giving, a lot of Americans will receive exactly that in return. They will not receive a thank-you. About this time of year, everybody owes somebody a thankyou note for something. I m making you nervous just talking about it, am I not? The missing thank-you notes are a reflection of how Americans short attention spans and electronically wired lives, combined with a diminished mindfulness of etiquette, have made the USA a pretty ungrateful nation. Our transgressions of taste would have made first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis faint, according to Shelly Branch, the co-author of What Would Jackie Do? An Inspired Guide to Distinctive Living. The first lady was known to write thank-you notes within 24 hours of having received a gift handwritten, detailed thank-you notes. I ve even seen fill-in-the-blank thank-you cards. Now, I m not speaking for children who are learning to write, but for the rest of us. Dear (blank), Thank you so much for (blank). I love it! From (blank) Now there s a warm, personal touch. There is even a company called Knock Knock. It s a company that promises etiquette the easy way. Multiple choice correspondence. You check off the boxes of what you want to
say, and with a wink, Knock Knock says its cards show that someone cared enough to check off just the right phrases for you. You ve got to be kidding me! Our ingratitude may have just cost us. A survey in August 2005 by CareerBuilder.com found that nearly 15 percent of hiring managers would reject a job candidate who neglected to send a thank-you letter after an interview. Thirty-two percent said they would still consider the thankless prospect, but their opinion of him or her would diminish in the evaluation process. Anna-Marie Ganje has been sending gifts to her nieces and nephews for 23 years. She has never read a word or even heard a verbal Thanks, Aunt Anna-Marie! Not even, Yes, we received the package, Aunt Anna-Marie. Well, aunt Anna-Marie, who is 41 years of age, has had it. So this past Christmas she threw down the gifting gauntlet. She tucked into each family s shipping box a note, handprinted in a Sharpie: If I do not hear a reply from you on receipt of this package, do not expect another gift. Not for Christmas, not for birthdays nothing. She has yet to get a response, and she really doesn t expect to. Or best yet, I love the thank-you letter that said, Thanks so much for your present. I returned it and got something else I m really excited about. (Okay, the author was only seven years old!) (Olivia Barker, Whatever happened to thank-you notes? USA Today, 12/26/2005) We are ungrateful people. Ungrateful to each other but, even more frightening ungrateful to God. In Luke 17:11-19, Jesus is journeying toward Jerusalem. Jesus is journeying toward what Jerusalem represents the crucifixion, His death. He knows what lies ahead for him in Jerusalem the cross. But obediently, He makes his pilgrimage to the city. In chapter 9, verse 51, Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem. And, as with any long journey, travellers experience so much along the way. Turn back to chapter 9, verse 51. And it came about, when the days were approaching for His ascension, that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus knows in 9:51 that His ministry moves swiftly to its close. Jesus is about to be received up an expression used later by Luke to refer to the Ascension (Acts 1:2). The Ascension implies, of course, the whole drama of crucifixion and resurrection, as well as ascension. Finally, verse 51 tells the reader that toward that end Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. Set His face echoes the song of the suffering servant in Isaiah 57: Therefore I have set my face
like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near foreshadowing this strong opposition which is ahead on the way to Jerusalem. By the time we reach Luke 17:11, Luke can almost see Jerusalem in the distance as he points it out to his reader. This section will end at Luke 18:30, because in verse 31 we hear, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. Jesus will not leave the meaning of the journey to His disciples memory. He will prophesy for a third and final time of His passion in the city (18:32-34). Turn forward to 18:31 And He took the twelve aside and said to them, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again. And they understood none of these things. Yes, we know as readers what it means to hear the word Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke. Notice, Jesus is now on the journey between Galilee and Samaria. Luke doesn t tell us exactly where Jesus is. As he entered a certain village, ten leprous men, who stood at a distance, met Him. Ten lepers victims of a terrible microbacterial disease that was incurable. This ailment is given more attention in Scripture than any other. Sores, loss of hair all signs that you might have the dreaded disease. You would report to the priest who would determine if you were to be forever banished from the community a social outcast living on the edge of life far enough away that you would not threaten anyone with the disease, yet close enough to receive a toss of charity from the community. These ten leprous men had to leave their families, their jobs, their homes, their all. In a real sense, they were dead to their families. So they huddled together around the outskirts of the village, making their own communities huddled around in their own hopelessness. If only they could hold their children again. But, because they were contagious, they could not. They were banished. They were segregated from society and pushed away from the populace. They could only sit and wonder how their families were getting along without them as they sat on the fringe of the community. They lived a fearsome and condemned life. In medieval times, a priest would often read a funeral service over a leper before he was cast out of the city. The phrase he is unclean is a constant refrain in any text dealing with leprosy. The leper was treated like a corpse. So much was the leper treated like a dead man that to cure a leper was akin to raising the dead. The miracle of Christ in curing the lepers is a testimony to His compassion as well as to His power.
How helpless a family would feel and hopeless about their outcast father or mother, brother or sister. No one could care for a leprous loved one for fear that they, too, might soon be infected. The lepers had nothing to lose. They heard that this new rabbi Jesus had healed other people given sight to the blind caused the lame to leap. Just, maybe, he could heal them too. What Luke tells us about these lepers corresponds with what we know about them elsewhere. First, they had to keep their distance from non-lepers found in Leviticus 13:45-46. Second, they formed their own colonies outside of the regular community 2 Kings 7:3. Third, they positioned themselves near traffic ways in order to make appeals for charity. And, fourth, showing themselves to a priest after healing was according to the Law Leviticus 14:2-32. And so, they cry out in desperation, hoping He can help. They raised their voices, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us. Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when He saw them, He said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests. And it came about that as they were going, they were cleansed. Jesus did not tell them, indeed, that they were healed. But, rather, He told them to go and present themselves. He called upon them to act healed when, in fact, they were still infected. He called upon them to go to the priest. Leviticus 14:2 reads: This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. Now he shall be brought to the priest. The priest was to make the examination, and once he was satisfied that the disease had really been cured, he would order purification rituals to be initiated. The Ceremony of Cleansing lasted eight days. When Jesus told the lepers to go to the priest, he was asking them to behave as if they were well. The priest acted something like a health inspector to insure that, indeed, the cure had taken place. Jesus was putting their faith to the test asking these men to act as though they had been cured. And as they obeyed, so it happened. As they went, they were cleansed. Look at verses 15-16. As they were making their way to the priest for inspection, to be pronounced clean, one of the lepers realized that, indeed, he should go no further until he stopped, turned back, and gave glory and thanks to the rabbi who had healed him. Jesus asked the question: Were there not ten cleansed? But the other nine where are they? Jesus had healed ten lepers, but only one bothered to say thanks. Jesus said, with a bit of bewilderment, Did I not heal ten? Just where are the other nine? I want us to quickly notice three things about this text.
I. Never let Jesus ask these questions. Look at Luke 17:17-18. And Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner? The three questions from Jesus in these two verses make the point. The questions emphasize that all ten were healed, but only one a Samaritan of all people, a foreigner found it in his heart to return to Jesus to thank Him and to glorify God. Let s make a comparison. Part 1 Part 2 Vs. 11-14 Vs. 15-19 Ten come to Jesus One comes to Jesus Ten keep distance One at Jesus feet Ten cry for mercy One praises God for receiving mercy Jesus sends the ten Jesus sends the one Ten are cleansed One is saved Ten lepers with one voice boldly appeal to Jesus for mercy, and only one returned to show gratitude. II. Always let gratitude fill your worship. Look at verse 18...who returned to give glory to God... Worship is, in fact, an act of gratitude, isn t it? Worship is an act of remembering, remembering all that God has done. For ancient Israel, they were to remember the Exodus, when the water stood like walls and they crossed over to safety on dry land. For us, the church, it is to remember the gift of grace found in the cross of Calvary to remember God s gift of His Son, to remember the cost of Calvary, to remember the glory of the resurrection, to look forward to the fullness of the kingdom. Psalm 106:7 tells you that when things go wrong, Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Thy wonders. They did not remember Your abundant kindness. When you and I forget gratitude, when thankfulness is no longer part of us as a people, we fall away from God and we fall away from our worship. You know, actually getting up out of bed, coming and gathering and singing hymns and praises and reading scripture and listening to the prophetic word proclaimed is an act of gratitude in worship. Those who are not here are not thankful. Have they forgotten, do they not remember that God has done so much that it is nothing for us to give Him this day, to give Him His due glory, to gather our voices as one to say thanks.
III. The final purpose is always salvation and not healing. Look at Luke 17:19. Stand up and go; your faith has made you well. I actually regret the translation made you well, because you lose something there. The word is your faith has saved you. That s the literal translation. I don t think Jesus is merely speaking about the leper s healed body. Ten were healed, but only one was saved. I think Jesus is making a statement about his whole being. It s not just that the sores have dried up, or the skin is replenished. It is that he is now a saved child of God. You see, ten lepers were cleansed or made well. Only one was saved. The purpose of every miracle of healing that Jesus ever performed was never merely for physical restoration. It was to provide a door, a window for a saving relationship with God through Jesus. Jesus wanted to be thanked. He expected that all ten lepers would rejoice and glorify God. He stands perplexed by their absence, numbed by their negligence. What about you? When is the last time you wrote a thank you note a thank you note to God? Is your heart bitter and cold or thankful and full? Imagine with me this very moment taking out a note, a real card, opening it up with a pen in hand and saying, Dear God, I want to thank you for... For what would you thank Him? This moment, I want you to imagine yourself writing that note and what you would say to the One to whom you owe the most gratitude. For what should you be thanking God? For whom should you be thanking God? Jesus waited on the other nine. Don t leave Jesus waiting on you.