After every Christmas, after every birthday, I always dreaded the “thank you note fight.”
“Here’s a list of all of the people who gave you presents,” I would intone to my children, inwardly steeling myself for battle. “You need to write them all notes this weekend.”
“Aww, mom …. Do I have to?!?” my children would whine in chorus. “I’m really busy.”
“Yes, you have to” I would insist …. “before you can hang out with your friends.”
General flopping on the sofa, expert procrastinating, and fierce sighing and eye-rolling would ensue, until about twenty minutes before the deadline. Then, as they sat hunched over a teeny note-card, the tears would usually begin to flow.
“But Mom, I don’t know what to write ….” they would sob. “This is so stupid!”
“Start with, ‘Dear Granny, thank you for the pretty blue sweater,’” I would coach in a cheery voice, trying to pretend like I didn’t know how this would end.
“But Mom, I hate that sweater! I’m never ever going to wear it. You don’t want me to lie to Granny, do you?!” they would argue, beginning to enjoy the debate, despite themselves.
I would respond in lecture mode: “No, but you have to think of something nice that you can say. Granny loves you and needs to know that you appreciate her gift.”
“But she knows that already, Mom,” my children would explain with a sigh. “Why do I have to write it on a stupid card? This is just some dumb politeness rule like dressing up for church. People write stupid things on stupid cards that they don’t really mean. I can’t believe that you are making me do this!!!!” Then usually a door would slam, as they would stomp off to their rooms to write the note.
Sound familiar?
While they were young, I never got beyond “politeness rules” in convincing my children about the joy of writing sincere, loving things on those cards. It wasn’t until they had matured that they were able to move beyond those short notes dripping with “my mother made me do this” language.
We who are so insistent on teaching our children to express their written thanks often have just as much trouble offering timely and authentic thanks to our heavenly Father. I mean well, when it comes to expressing gratitude for God’s presence in my life, but like my children, I get busy with other things; I worry that my thanks will sound silly and feel inauthentic; I get resentful that I can’t just enjoy life without always having this annoying “gratitude duty” hanging over my head.
In today’s Gospel lesson, those nine lepers who didn’t go back to thank Jesus weren’t bad people. In fact, I can imagine lots of reasons why they didn’t stop. Maybe some of them planned to write Jesus a polite, formal note once they got home. Maybe some of them planned to make an extra big donation to the Temple treasury in honor of their healing. Maybe others saw their healing as the result of their own ingenuity in calling out to Jesus on the road. Maybe others were just slow to believe that they were really healed. I can imagine that some of them saw their healing as merely a turn of good luck—nothing to do with Jesus at all. And others might see their sickness as a punishment from God. Their thanks might be buried under thick layers of guilt and shame.
We can imagine all kinds of things about the nine lepers who joyfully ran toward home. We can easily identify with them. There's got to be more to this story, then, than the importance of giving thanks.[1] I wonder about the Samaritan. The Samaritan alone returned to give thanks to Jesus. Why a Samaritan? Have you ever wondered why Luke lifted up this foreigner? Think about it for a minute. Samaritans were the hated enemies of the Jews in Jesus' time. Actually, the hatred dated back hundreds of years. It was both religious and political, a huge rift between sibling-peoples.
Imagine, perhaps, a group made up of nine liberal Episcopalians and one MAGA Christian Nationalist, all with a severe, extra-contagious new Covid variant. For weeks, they had been isolated together in a hospital ward, away from all of their family and friends, touched only through layers of PPE. In their pain, fear, and illness, they bonded and looked out for one another, despite their differing views. It seemed like an amazing kind of reconciliation. They prayed together, and God heard their prayers. Jesus appeared and made them well. As their symptoms vanished, he told them to make their way to Washington DC and to present themselves to President Biden and Dr. Fauci for a special "all-clear" card. Without a thought, the Episcopalians all hopped on a plane together, delighted to be free of their illness and on their way to restoration.
What, though, was the Christian Nationalist to do? He couldn't go to leaders that he considered illegitimate and ask for their validation! He was left standing there in the dreary hospital waiting room, alone and suddenly realizing that his friends really weren't his friends. Pain had bound them together, but wellness undid their bond. Where was the glue of gratitude? Bereft, the Nationalist turned to Jesus, to the one who truly accepted him, no matter what.
Why didn't the Episcopalians realize that the Christian Nationalist wasn't with them at the airport? Why didn't they care? Wouldn't true gratitude expand their hearts? Wouldn't an abundance of true thankfulness flow into love of neighbor, into love of enemy? Shouldn't healing have brought a real wholeness that reached beyond a cure for disease? Jesus was disappointed: "Where are the other nine?" he asked. "Weren't all made well together? Why is there now separation?"
Jesus, you see, loves us all. He wants to make us all whole—me, you, our friends, our enemies. Jesus wants nothing more than to gather us together in his arms. Our weaknesses, our divisions, mean nothing to him.
When my children finally wrote those one-line thank you notes to their grandmother, do you know what she did with them? When she pulled them out of the bills and advertisements in her mailbox, and saw the young handwriting on the envelope, her eyes filled with tears of joy. She held those little notes to her chest with love, as she remembered the grandchild she longed to see more often. Smiling at their childlike attempts to write her a note, she took the little cards and placed them on her kitchen table, where she could see them as she ate her meals there alone. She treasured those one-line notes, because she loved and longed for the children who had written them... just like Jesus loves and longs for each one of us, even for each broken part of ourselves that we will bring to him. For this Good News I say, "Thanks be to God."
[1] See the interpretation of the Rev. William J. Adams, "Proper 23, Year C," Sunday Gospel Talk. Found at https://sundaygospeltalk.com/wp/proper-23-year-c/
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