October 8, 2023

Thanksgiving

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

Luke 17:11-19

Jesus said, “Weren’t there ten who were made well? What about those other nine? Where are they?”

A friend of mine tells a story about his mom and dad having company over when he was just seven or eight years old. The doorbell rang, the company came in, and after saying hello to my friend’s parents one of the guests turned to my friend and said “Hi,” and then gave him a dollar. He couldn’t believe the wonder of this gift and he was overjoyed and couldn’t contain his happiness – what a great thing just happened! And then his dad said, “Now Glen, be a good boy and say thank you.” And just like that, his dad killed the mood. A great gift became on opportunity to teach a kid about boring polite manners. And the sheer joy that the gift stirred up in my friend was pushed aside in favour of an obligation he was supposed to fulfil.

I think that something like that is what happens with this story that a lot of us have heard more times than we could count. Jesus heals ten people who have a skin disease, and only one comes back to say thanks. Someone should have told those other nine, “Now be good and go say thanks.”

But the story’s not about making sure you say thank you, and Jesus doesn’t ever seem to be in the habit of scolding people who he just finished healing. This old old story is about ten people who needed to be made well and Jesus made them well. And it’s about a Samaritan, whom Jesus calls a foreigner, some kind of outsider, whose joy and gratitude overflow long before anyone gets a chance to tell him to be a good boy and say thank-you.

But still, what about those other nine?

We’ll come back to them later.

So it’s Thanksgiving. How about that?

A few days ago I was given a Thanksgiving feast that I did not expect. I was in Halifax for a few days this week for a meeting of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue of Canada. We were five Anglicans, five Catholics, and two Lutherans; we were three bishops, two super-organized staff people, a few professors and a couple of parish pastors. We’re all more-or-less white European settler types, and the work we’ve been doing has involved a lot of talk about apologies, and reconciliation, and making amends and conversion and healing relationships, and responsibility and accountability.

We didn’t just talk, though. On Wednesday we travelled an hour out of Halifax to a Mi’kmaw First Nation called Millbrook, a small community that spreads out among rolling hills and forests and more rolling hills and forests. It’s a beautiful spot on land that was never ceded, never handed over to the crown.

After visiting with some elders and other community members in the local church we went to the community centre and watched a brief film about the history of the Mi’kmaw people. When the film ended we moved chairs into a circle and all of us – community members and visitors - sat down and shared for awhile. One of the elders wanted us all to be able to tell a bit about who we are and where we’ve been, and about what fears and hopes we might have for our communities. So we all took a turn; some spoke for a long time, and some just offered a few sentences. Our hosts and we the guests shared about hurts and joys and struggles and forgiveness or the difficulty of forgiveness. People shared about residential school experiences and people just told stories about growing up. Our hosts expressed their gratitude that we had come to visit, and we guests thanked them again and again for having us. We laughed a lot too, because sometimes life is funny and sometimes life needs some funny to carry us along.

Halfway through the sharing time, we broke for lunch. The people in our group – the churchy dialogue types - who were organizing things had asked that our hosts in Millbrook just provide us a light lunch. You know, soup and sandwiches. So that’s what we were expecting. But there was none of that. No soup and sandwiches for us; instead we had to settle for a feast. There was a roaster filled with ham and there were mashed potatoes as far as the eye could see. Roasted vegetables were everywhere, and there was a big big plate filled with Luski – the Mi’kmaw name for what we out west call Bannock. Butter and wild blueberry jam. There was a desert tray that wouldn’t stop, and there were Nanaimo bars, which are the best things ever. Ever.

We asked for soup and sandwiches, but we got a feast instead.

And then we went back into the room where we’d been before, and we picked up the sharing again. Hurts and joys, worries and gratitude, prayers and thanks.

We all knew about the mixed history that was gathered together in that room. First Nation and settler communities were sitting there in a circle, with all our connections to the people and communities who have been hurt and people and communities who have caused so much hurt. And all the hurt hurts us all in some way, I guess. We sat there with our mixed histories, taking the time to speak and taking the time to listen to each other. We all recognized that we need to keep working on all of this together and being honest about it all, because healing wounds and making things right is going to take more than just saying sorry and expecting everybody to move on. This thing we call reconciliation is a life’s work – hard work and good work - that we need to commit to doing together.

And with all of that going on as we gathered, we stopped to eat. And when we expected soup and sandwiches, we got to have a feast together.

There will be feasting together today. Yes, there will be feasts today and tomorrow at some of our tables at home, and that’s good. Feasts are a good thing. God gives the gift of feasts!

But not everybody will have a Thanksgiving feast…for all kinds of reasons.

But there will be feasting together today. People with fabulous and complicated and simple and difficult and loving and struggling relationships will be brought together by food and drink. People with more money than they could ever spend and people with not quite enough will be brought together by food and drink. People who have been here every Sunday for fifty six years and people who are singing along for the first time today will be brought together by food and drink, by bread and wine, by the body of blood of Christ, given for us, giving life for the whole creation.

We might have expected soup and a sandwich, but instead we get a feast.

Let’s go back to where this all started now. Jesus said, “Weren’t there ten who were made well? What about those other nine? Where are they?”

We never get to hear where they are. But we can imagine…

Maybe some of them were already starting to have a party, because something unbelievable, something fabulous, just happened. Some people are really good at throwing together a party when there’s something to celebrate. Some of them might have headed straight home to say to the people they love the most, “Look what just happened to me! Some guy named Jesus did this – isn’t it great?” I suppose a few might have picked up and gone back to try to open up the market stall they had to shut down when they first got sick. They’ll be picking up the pieces of a livelihood that’s suffered just as they have. One or two might be at the temple, finally offering prayers and sacrifice that they couldn’t while they were ill. And maybe one or two of those nine were always people who had a hard time finding their way in life, and they’re now healed and have gone back to the everyday work of having a hard time trying to find their way in life.

Where are the other nine? The other nine are out there having a life, whatever that life might be. The other nine are out there among Israelis who rightly fear for their lives today, and among Palestinians who fear for their lives too. The other nine have gone off to the hospital to visit a lover who is sick. Some of the other nine are the ones in the hospital bed. The other nine have to get out of bed in the morning to go to work. Again. And some of the other nine can’t wait to get back to work after this pesky long weekend. The other nine have to get home soon to get the turkey in the over, and the other nine are wondering why they’re so lonely this weekend while everyone around them is talking about friends and family. And sometime today some of the other nine will sit down and say, “Ahh, that was a good day.”

The other nine are back to whatever their lives bring, but they carry something with them that they didn’t have before. They came to Jesus and said “Have mercy,” and maybe they were expecting some soup and a sandwich. But Jesus gave them a feast of healing.

And now the other nine are right here, back for the feast again. Here with us. We’re the other nine, and you know what? We get healed too. We probably all arrived here with our own reasons to say, “Lord, have mercy on us.” And as we gather, Christ has mercy on us. Gives us a feast of forgiveness. Gives us a feast of his own life and love to fill us and send us on our way. We might have expected soup and a sandwich (they’re pretty good too, you know), but Christ gives us a feast today. It’s a feast that will heal the world.

AMEN.