Thanks Be To God

Homily Harvest Thanksgiving 2011

“You crown the earth with your goodness, O Lord.” So writes the psalmist.

As we mark both Harvest Thanksgiving and Back to Church Sunday, perhaps the link between welcoming people to our Christian fellowship, and the traditional Harvest Festival is the idea of people coming together to give thanks to God for everything He has provided for us.

Perhaps as we have grown in material well-being as a society, we have lost our sense of thankfulness, our sense of gratitude in the never ending quest for more wealth, and technological advances.

The idea of Back to Church Sunday started in England when Anglicans in Manchester realized they were dwindling in numbers, and had lost their focus on welcoming new members to their parishes.

Now the idea has spread throughout the world, and many denominations.

We need to come together to give thanks, at the Harvest, and indeed every Sunday because it is too easy to accept God’s gifts, without properly giving thanks, and having an attitude of gratitude.

In our Gospel reading the one leper who came back whole had not only been healed of his disfiguring disease, but had understood the importance of giving thanks to Jesus, the agent of his healing.

The other nine may have been physically healed, but their lack of response to Jesus showed that they were still not whole persons.

This story would have had quite an impact on Christians, since most still saw themselves as Jews. The reason: the one who returned to say thanks was a Samaritan. And he alone received Jesus’ blessing.

Samaritans and Jews were bitter enemies. They would have no dealings with each other. Yet Jesus pronounced the Samaritan as the one of the ten healed who was truly whole, and blessed him.

This was no coincidence. Jesus wanted the Jews to understand the salvation of God, the gifts of God are for all people.

The other lepers who were healed followed the Jewish law in going immediately to show themselves to the priest, as Jesus advised them.

But for Jesus, thankfulness is an integral part of real healing, real wholeness.

Lepers were outcasts in first century Galilee. If a leper was on the windward side of a healthy person, he was told stand at least 50 yards away.

Jesus is depicted throughout the Gospels as showing only love for Lepers, not fear or contempt. They were often the focus of his healing ministry.

Unlike some of the healing stories, Jesus does not touch the ten lepers, Luke reports they are healed “as they went.”

Not only is the Samaritan leper thankful, he takes action by turning back, glorifying God, and falling on his face giving thanks.

This humility; this attitude of thankfulness, is something we need more of as Christians today.

Rather than worrying about what’s wrong with our lives, we need to give thanks for our many blessings.

That is a challenge for all of us. We get so caught up in the details of our lives that we don’t take the time to give thanks to God, or members of our families or our friends.

An attitude of gratitude helps in every aspect of our lives. Sometimes we don’t realize how much expressing thanks really means.

Gratitude to God is part of living out our faith. It’s easy to fall into being a foxhole Christian—only coming to God when things are at their worst.

God is the source of our being. Without the fruits of the harvest we could not survive.

So we need to give thanks, and often, during good times and bad, for all the gifts God has given us.

To do so should come as naturally as breathing. Somehow in our materialistic culture, this attitude of thankfulness has been replaced either the endless drive to acquire more, at the expense of others, or a denial of God’s role in creation, and God’s intention for us to live in peace and justice, loving God and loving our neighbour as ourselves.

To conclude with another psalm verse: “O come let us sing unto the Lord, let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving.”