THANKSGIVING DAY

Luke 17:11-19

AIM: To encourage the hearers in thanksgiving 

A man had just sat down to have lunch in a crowded restaurant when another man asked if he could join him. The restaurant was full and there was no other place vacant. AOf course,@ the first man replied. ADo join me.@ Then he bowed his head, as he was accustomed to do, to thank God for the meal he was about to enjoy.  When he raised his head again, the second man asked: ADo you have a headache?@

ANot at all,@ the first man replied. AI was simply thanking God, as I always do, before I eat.@

AOh, you=re one of those,@ his companion replied. AWell, let me tell you something. I never give thanks. I earn my money by hard work. I don=t need to give thanks to anyone before I eat. I just start right in.@

AYou=re just like my dog,@ the first man said. AThat=s what he does too.@

Many people are like that man=s dog. They believe they have earned everything they have. They see no reason to thank God for it. They forget (if they ever knew) that the good things we enjoy were God=s blessings before they became our achievements. 

What did any one of us do to merit being born instead of aborted, as over a million babies are in our country each year? If we had good and loving parents, what did we do to deserve them when so many parents are neither good nor loving?  Why weren=t any of us on one of those four planes on September 11^th, 2001? What did any of us do to enjoy sight, hearing, speech, two arms and two legs? There are plenty of people who lack one or more of these basic faculties.

How much did any of us pay God to make us the intelligent, beautiful people we are? Think of all the people who helped us as we were growing up: teachers, friends, relatives. Do we take them for granted? Ralph Waldo Emerson said that if the stars came out only once a year, we would stay up all night to gaze at them.  We=ve seen the stars so often that we hardly ever bother to look at them any more.  How easily we grow accustomed to all the blessings God showers on us, and forget to give thanks for them.

In the gospel reading we just heard how Jesus healed ten lepers. Leprosy was the dread scourge of the ancient world, something like AIDS today. Because the disease was contagious, the leper had to live apart, calling out AUnclean, Unclean!@ lest others approach and become infected. In healing the ten, Jesus was restoring them from a living death to new life. Yet only one came back to give thanks for his healing.

He is a Samaritan, a kind of illegal immigrant, despised by Jesus= people. If he goes to the Temple, the priest will probably tell him to get lost. He doesn=t belong to the right religion, or the right people. Related ethnically to the Jews, he doesn=t observe the Jewish Law. Priests in Jesus= day were also quarantine officials. The other nine go to the Temple priest to fulfill the law=s provisions. The Samaritan, who lives outside the law, follows the impulse of his heart, returns to Jesus, and gives thanks.  

What about ourselves? Are we grateful people? Do we take time each day to count our blessings, and give thanks to God for them? As a schoolboy I used to do that in a special way on my birthday. Kneeling or sitting before Jesus in the tabernacle, I would make a list each year of all the reasons I had to thank God. The list was always a long one; and it was never difficult to compile. It is many years, decades even, since I have done that.  But that youthful practice may be the reason why prayer of thanksgiving has always been easy for me.  I know of no better remedy for depression, anxiety, sadness, or envy than consciously to count one=s blessings C and to thank God for them.  Show me someone who is embittered, angry, filled with resentments and hate B and I=ll show you a person who has little or no time for thanksgiving. But show me a person who radiates peace and joy B and I=ll show you someone who daily and even hourly gives thanks to God for all his blessings.

On the Italian Thanksgiving Day one year, Pope Benedict said: "We should get into the habit of blessing the Creator for each thing: for air and water, precious elements which are the foundation of life on our planet; as well as for food that, through the fruitfulness of the earth, God gives us for our sustenance."

The Church helps us to be thankful people by placing thanksgiving at the heart of its public prayer. The word Eucharist, you know, means Athanksgiving.@  The Mass C every Mass C is a public act of thanksgiving to our heavenly Father for all the blessings he showers upon us. In a few minutes we shall hear once again the familiar story of what Jesus did for us at the Last Supper. AHe took bread and gave you thanks .... When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise.@

Giving thanks to God over something is the Jewish form of blessing. In giving thanks to his heavenly Father for the bread and wine, Jesus was blessing them. And in so doing he was transforming them: changing their inner reality into his own body and blood. It is because of this miraculous though unseen change that we genuflect to Jesus present in the tabernacle when we come into church. We ring a bell at the consecration, reminding everyone in the church: Jesus is here, right now, in a special way, with a special intensity! The light burning near the tabernacle, day and night, says the same thing. 

Let me conclude with two quotations. The first is from the great nineteenth century convert, John Henry Newman, at the end of his long life a cardinal. He writes:

AIt would be well if we were in the habit of looking at all we have as God=s gift, undeservedly given, and day by day continued to us solely by His mercy.  He gave; He may take away. He gave us all we have, life, health, strength, reason, enjoyment, the light of conscience; whatever we have good and holy within us; whatever faith we have; whatever of a renewed will; whatever love towards Him; whatever power over ourselves; whatever prospect of heaven. ... While he continues his blessings, we should follow David and Jacob, by living in constant praise and thanksgiving, and in offering up to Him of His own.@         

The medieval German Dominican, Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) says it more briefly: AIf the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is 'Thank you God',..... that would suffice."

I cannot tell you how often I say every day: ALord, you=re so good to me, and I=m so grateful.@ Happy if you can do the same.

On this Thanksgiving Day we give thanks to God for his love, lavished upon us so far beyond our deserving, in ways too many for any of us to count.