Readings:
Jer 29.1, 4-7; Ps 66.1-11; 2 Tim 2.8-15; Lk 17.11-19
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
The Lord be with you. And also with you.
Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise.
It is right to give our thanks and praise to the Lord, our God, through Jesus Christ.
Doing so can initiate a deeper healing to occur, one that brings wholeness and peace. This kind of peace can exist along with physical pain or restrictions.
I want to make sure you walk away with two points today: first, all ten people with leprosy were healed. They all had faith, they all obeyed Jesus’ directions and were healed. Secondly, our correct response to goodness is to praise God, through Jesus. I am quite careful when I use the word “correct” other than for mathematical equations, so when I use it here to say our “correct response” is to praise God, it is a big statement for me.
The difference we see in this story is that one man, a Samaritan, noticed his healing and turned back to Jesus, praising God loudly on the way and thanked him. This moment of recognition, praise, and thanks is what caused Jesus words: “Your faith has made you well.” That phrase can also be translated, “Your faith has saved you.” The Samaritan man’s healing was deeper than that of the other nine.
Last week we had readings from the book of Lamentations, and I invited you to consider the rightful place of lament in our lives. It is important that we take the time to honour the feelings we experience, especially when our circumstances lead to long-term suffering. In that homily I said, “We cannot truthfully praise God, or have hope in God’s enduring goodness… if we haven’t honoured the pain we feel and purged it.”
I’m sure you can imagine that the group of leprous people had lamented their situation. We don’t hear it, but I’m sure they even confronted God with the eternal question, “why?” And now, they call out for healing, in a tentative hope! They follow their faith, which tells them that bad times befall us all, and that God intends the best for us, and call out to Jesus. They all have the faith to follow Jesus’ commands to show themselves to the priests even before they are healed.
I wonder what it takes to notice that a skin disease is healing. Maybe if its incessantly itchy you might notice the relief, but it’s not like suddenly being able to see or hear, is it? It might take some time.
But the Samaritan man notices. He is filled with such gratitude that his whole being turns to praise and thanks. He walks back to Jesus, loudly praising! His voice, his feet, I can only imagine his arms are raised too. A few years ago when Isaac had some good news his whole face turned up – eyebrows, smile – then he raised his hands in the air, and then because he is a very funny boy, he stayed seated, but put his feet in the air and said, “Everything is up!” This is the posture of celebration and praise. Up!
The Samaritan man experiences a fully embodied movement from suffering, to calling out for healing and noticing the healing, to rejoicing, praising, and thanking – the Samaritan man’s healing was all-encompassing. As I mentioned earlier, when Jesus tells him that his faith has made him well, we can also read that his faith has saved him. This acceptance of right praise has caused a deeper healing of his soul, something that we are not told of for the other nine.
People often talk about so-called “pop-psychology,” and I imagine many of you would have heard about the benefits of keeping a gratitude journal. But this is not pop-anything, it is ancient wisdom which science is just catching up with and is now able to research the effectiveness of the practice.
The health benefits of people who practice gratitude on a weekly basis are significant. Psychologist Michelle Maidenberg writes, “studies on gratitude and appreciation found that participants who felt grateful showed lower levels of cortisol, had better cardiac functioning, and were more resilient to emotional setbacks and negative experiences.”[1] In other words, taking the time to be grateful changes the way our brains work and therefore how our bodies respond to different stimuli.
Kirk Schneider is a psychologist and wrote a book called Awakening to Awe. In it he says:
“Awe is the sense of amazement (humility and wonder) before the mystery of life… Awe is not just a cheap thrill, or a stunned helplessness; it is an appreciation of the whole of life—the fragile as well as the exalting. Awe inspires us to see through the pettiness of life, and connects us to the grand picture, the “great adventure;” and this adventure has remarkable potential to lift us, to heal us, and to give our lives meaning.”[2]
This is what the Samaritan man did, and I would venture to guess was his practice. He praised God in gratitude for the miraculous physical healing he had received, and in taking the time to thank Jesus, he experienced a deeper, soulful healing.
Julia Baird writes, “I love the way you feel when you’re awe-struck. Goosebumps, tingling, giddy, laughing, sometimes crying, you feel intoxicated but instead of the sodden hangover, you return to life lifted up, expanded, content.”[3]
Last week, I was gifted an opportunity to attend a performance of Verdi’s Requiem. Whenever I hear magnificent voices singing, I get goosebumps. It took me a long time to realise, and is what science is now identifying as, awe. And boy did I get goosebumps last week. (N.b. I encourage you to look up an episode of Compass on ABC iView called Awe Hunters.)
So, I have a gift for you. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, developed a number of Spiritual Exercises to help people deepen their relationship with God. One of these exercises is called the Daily Examen. It is an opportunity to reflect over the day that has been and look for God’s presence in it. Not simply in the “good” things, but also in the difficult things, and then pray from those moments. I feel like this exercise balances the paradox of lament and praise well by acknowledging that God is in it all and they are not mutually exclusive but rather live together in the diverse tapestry that is life.
You are invited to take one of these little bookmarks to take away with you today, to help encourage you to seek God in your day to day lives, and give God the praise.
As we see in today’s gospel, we are called to look for, and notice, the good things. This is what we do when we gather for Eucharist, here. Eucharist means to give thanks.
Searching for good things is not to the exclusion of those things which cause us suffering… the group of people who had leprosy were definitely suffering, and it is that suffering that urged them to call to Jesus for healing. And we are to notice the goodness and give God the praise, through Jesus Christ.
Amen.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/being-your-best-self/202010/practicing-gratitude-is-more-important-now-ever
[2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/compassion-matters/201511/the-healing-power-gratitude
[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-03/awe-hunters-stunning-secret-solace-wonder-transformation/102755992