“You Ungrateful Wretch” – Luke 17:11-19

“You ungrateful wretch.” These words haunted my father when he was a child. When his actions and attitude left his mother frustrated and without recourse, she would call it as it was—she would point out that he was an “ungrateful wretch.” My father now recalls how much he resented those words as a child—that they stung deep down. And who among us can argue with him on that? These words seem outright atrocious to us. In this world of niceties and tolerance the very idea of saying something like this to someone, especially our own child, and meaning it, absolutely blows our mind. It simply looks like verbal abuse on the surface, but the more I think about it, the more I am not sure. I am reminded of Jesus’ own harsh words. Jesus’ words about Herod, “Go tell that fox” (Luke 13:32), or Jesus’ words to the Pharisees and religious leaders when he calls them “fools,” “snakes,” “unmarked graves,” “hypocrites,” “blind guides,” or “brood of vipers.” Sometimes we need harsh words like these to teach us a hard truth about the world or about ourselves. Self-awareness does not come easy and what we discover is very often unpleasant and difficult to swallow.

Our text for today, if we look closely, is a text that does such a thing. This story from Jesus’ life I have heard every Thanksgiving, and, for me at least, it has often left me wanting more. I have always felt that the explanations given were too clean and too easy when in fact the text should hit us right between the eyes like the words “you ungrateful wretch.” Let me set the scene…

Jesus’ mind was made up. His destination was clear. He was between Samaria and Galilee and he was headed directly to Jerusalem—the city of his forefathers, the seat of the Temple of God. This is where his message needed to be proclaimed, where his message needed to be lived out. Confrontation with the religious authorities was inevitable. They had been skeptical of him before, and now they were beginning to show signs of violence towards him.  But he had a job to do—he was on a mission. He was here to show them that God’s rule had arrived—that the time of man’s rule was up; they would need to relinquish their crowns, they would need to lay down their swords.

Just as Jesus was about to enter the next village, his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by spine-tingling cries: “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” He looked around. His gaze focused in on the group of men—ten in all. There they stood at a distance. The Jewish designation for these men was not just a name, there was no misnomer here—these men were clearly unclean. The clothes that clung to their withered forms were nothing but rags. Their limbs were gnarled and raw. Open wounds bled freely in some places, in others the scarring took on twisted shapes all its own. The sight was heart wrenching, but the grossness threatened to shove aside any compassion—this was not the way humanity was supposed to live—if this even was humanity. Jesus knew this was not right. This was broken, this was out of order, all was not right with the world—that was crystal clear. Jesus’ heart went out to them. “Go, show yourselves to the priests”—were his only words.

Confused and unsure what this meant, the men decided they had nothing better to do—so they headed out. Along the way there, the ones in the back began to notice something strange. The skin of the men in front of them was starting to clear up, the wounds were beginning to heal. They quickly looked down at their own hands and feet. They couldn’t believe their eyes—they were healing! This realization spread through them like wildfire. At once, the pace of the group quickened—they couldn’t get to the priests quick enough—salvation was at hand, this life as exiles and outcasts was almost over! Suddenly, however, one stopped dead in his tracks. He called out to the rest: “Wait! We need to go back. Jesus deserves our thanks.” The others replied: “Nonsense! We are finally as we should be, God has finally reversed this injustice. Jesus told us to go see the priests and that’s what we are doing.” Alone he stood. His companions were fading into the distance. He knew what he needed to do. He turned back. And he started to run.

The memory of his companions soon faded and the joy of his situation soon overtook him. Old songs and chants soon came to the surface—he shouted and cried aloud to God, praising him for the undeserved mercy he had just received. He had been as good as dead, left alone without the help and support of the community, and now he was whole—he was back in the community! As he approached Jesus, he threw himself at Jesus’ feet, thanking him over and over. The words he stammered seemed impotent and inadequate but he couldn’t help himself. This gift was too much. Who was he to deserve such mercy?

Jesus was startled by the scene. Here this man he had just healed thanked him, groveling at his feet seemingly without dignity, honor, or self-respect. And then things became even more baffling. Through the jumbled thanks Jesus heard an accent—this man was no Galilean, this man was a Samaritan! Stunned, Jesus asked the man and his disciples: “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” The disciples were bewildered and speechless. They looked around aimlessly at the surreal situation. The man who had been cleansed didn’t even register the question—he was too consumed with his praise for God. Jesus then grabbed the cleansed man’s attention and said to him: “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

This story is quite remarkable. Ten healed lepers—one thankful—and that one a foreigner, an outsider. The nine others, who were most likely Jewish, were nowhere to be found. They had no need to give thanks to Jesus—sure, they were happy and elated to be healed, but they were God’s chosen people, Jesus is what they had deserved all along and had now finally received.

Therefore, the message for us today is this: Be careful of being an “insider,” of being in a position of privilege, of being a “good Christian,” because you will very likely fall into the trap of the nine lepers, the trap of being an “ungrateful wretch.” If we are honest with ourselves that is exactly what the nine lepers were in the story—ungrateful wretches. They are often praised for obeying Jesus’ command to go see the priests but in reality that says little about them. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And they were desperate since they had been thrown out and ostracized from the community. But once they were healed—once the desperation was over—once they suddenly had prosperity—the true character of their hearts was immediately revealed. Fred Danker analyzed it well: “The other nine also had faith that Jesus could heal them but they exploited Jesus for the gift; they were not in the market for inward change.” In other words—even the demons know that Jesus is powerful and can heal, but that is not what true faith is about. True faith goes much deeper than this. True faith is intertwined with gratitude.

In her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Barbara Kingsolver describes her family’s yearlong pledge to eat only locally-produced foods. Speaking of the incident Barbara talks about their discovery of gratitude:

“For me, the biggest miracle is the fact that this project, which may have seemed to us in the beginning to be an exercise in deprivation, very quickly guided us through a paradigm shift. Very quickly, we came to see this way of living with a sense of gratitude. We moved from beginning each meal by asking. ‘What do I feel like?’ to asking, ‘What do we have?’ We would look at what’s coming in — what’s wonderful and abundant right now — and work from there.”

The shift she speaks of is simple: it’s no longer about “what I want” or “what I deserve”, it’s now about “what have we been given?” For some strange reason human beings have the awful tendency to turn bounty, goodness, and prosperity into “not enough.” We have mastered the art of being ungrateful wretches.  Mark Twain said it beautifully: “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”

Mankind cannot seem to handle prosperity—we strike out to bite the hand that feeds us. You have probably seen it all over the place—in your own life, in your children, in a homeless person, in your coworkers—the tendency to take a gift and then bad mouth it behind the scenes, because it wasn’t the right thing, or good enough, or enough at all. We may be thankful for the big things we receive in life, but are we thankful for the small, insignificant things? Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it clearly: “We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the small gifts we receive daily. How can God entrust great things to those who will not gratefully receive the little things from God’s hand?” If we fall into complaining about what we “don’t have” or how what we have isn’t “good enough” or how God hasn’t answered our prayers to our liking, then we have lost sight of God.

So how can we overcome our tendency to be ungrateful wretches? And more deeply and honestly, how can we learn to be thankful in a world full of brokenness, suffering, and pain? Ellen Vaughn recognized this hard reality of life in her book Radical Gratitude, saying: “We cannot look at the child who has been raped and offer the theological maxim that God will draw something good from out of this. We cannot think of the children consumed by the fires of Auschwitz and Hiroshima and manufacture some easy gratitude. Gratitude does not take away the horrors of violence.” Gratitude cannot and must not overlook the tragedy of this life, though Vaughn continues: “Death makes it clear that each day of life is an opulent gift.”

We see this opulent gift of life most poignantly in Jesus Christ. He embodied gratefulness in his life—his life that was riddled with pain, suffering, and brokenness. In the face of a world that was spinning out of control around him, Jesus remained focused on all the gifts and blessings that his Father showered upon him. He remained obedient to the Father amidst a world that was rejecting him and putting him to death. It is here in Jesus that God’s love, bounty, and mercy are most clearly displayed. In Jesus gratitude knew no bounds. In Jesus gratitude was able to embrace even pain and suffering—not making light of this pain and suffering, but moving through the pain and suffering to God’s grace on the other side. We do not thank God for the suffering and tragedy in this life—we instead thank God in the midst of the suffering and tragedy of this life. Through gratitude even the darkest corners of this life are penetrated by God’s love. To be truly thankful means to say “yes” to all that God gives and takes away—to cry out with Job: “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21). Gratitude embraces all aspects of our lives—even the darkness of our pasts—because gratitude knows the future. Through gratitude the brokenness of our pasts can become fruitful for the present and guide us into the future life God has in store for us after the resurrection of our bodies.

And so to be certain, gratitude does not rest complacent in the present, but pushes forward to God’s future. In Jesus we see that gratitude leads to generosity. Gratitude is not stagnant—it is active. Gratitude is not the nine lepers continuing on without returning to Jesus—gratitude is the one leper returning to actively praise God. Therefore, gratitude is not contentedly sitting at your thanksgiving table thanking God for what you have, while there are those around you whose table is empty. To thank God for what you have while doing nothing to help those who are without is hypocrisy. In Jesus we see that true gratitude passes on the love of God that we have experienced to others. Gratitude bears fruit by generously giving to others so that they too may praise God.

So, “you ungrateful wretch.” My dad now looks back on these words with a sort of fondness. Through the wisdom of a life of experience he now sees how right his mother was—and that she has taught him a valuable lesson that has remained with him when so much else has faded away. The poignant words, “you ungrateful wretch,” are a consistent reminder of our tendency to take advantage of the many gifts we have been given—to feel a sense of entitlement. But we do not despair in the face of this, for God came to us through Jesus when we were ungrateful wretches, and now you and I have been given new life and it is our turn to go forth giving thanks and praise to God by filling the tables of those who have none. Therefore, this Thanksgiving we not only say thanks to God, we live out our thanks to God by passing on the many blessings we have received. Thanks be to God! Amen.