Luke 17-18

THANKFUL SAMARlTAN

Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner? Luke 17-18

I must admit that I was somewhat surprised, when I came to sort out my files prior to coming to Hereford in 2003, that the slimmest file in my filing cabinet was that headed "Appreciation".

Files under the headings of 'Church Flowers', 'Church Drains' and even 'Pet Services' were bursting under the weight of correspondence. But the one headed 'Appreciation' had just.a few letters in it, reflecting thirteen years of parochial work.

And when I began to read some of these letters, what surprised me most was that most of them were from the most unexpected people! People I hardly knew. People who did not attend church regularly. Even people with whom I had had disagreements.

So I can understand the disappointment Jesus must must have felt after he healed the ten lepers when only one of the ten lepers he had healed bothered to return to him and say 'thank you'.

And.as if to pour salt into the wound, we are told that he was a Samaritan, whose race were age-old enemies of the Jews,

It seems that those two simple words, thank you" are the hardest words for people to say.

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Maybe the unthankful nine did not go back to Jesus because they knew he was a marked man and they did not want to become involved in his eventual downfall,

Maybe they just wanted to get back to their families from whom they had been excluded for so long because of their leprosy?

Maybe they met up with some old friends, when they went up to Jerusalem to get their certificate from the priests to confirm that they were now free from the disease, and completely forgot about the source of their new found freedom?

Or maybe they just took their healing for granted?

Try as we may to find excuses for the ungrateful nine, we are left with the simple fact that they did not return to Jesus and say 'thank you'.

And why is it that we too find it difficult to say 'thank you'?

ls it because we do not like to feel dependent upon others?

ls it because we are eaten up with resentment and jealousy at the fortune of others?

Or is it because we think we have a right to everything - whether it be health and wealth, education and family life, success and popularity - that we no longer consider such gifts as blessings for which we should be thankful?

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When I was first ordained in 1965, the Rector of the parish, who was a bachelor, took me to meet Nurse Lovelady, a patient in Newsham General Hospital, in Liverpool. I shall never forget that visit because of what Nurse Lovelady said as we left her bedside. She said, 'The days are not long enough to thank God for all the good things he has given me'.

And what had God given her? Her husband died in the First World War. In order to provide for herself, she bought a

terrace house in the parish and turned it into a maternity home, in which many of the parishioners had been born. This was, of course, long before the days of the National Health Service. Now she was sinking fast from an inoperable cancer of the lung. Yet 'the days were not long enough to thank God for all the good things he had given her'.

This reminds me of Mervyn Stockwood, a former Bishop of Southwark, (another bachelor) who maintained that one of

happiest wards he ever visited in hospital was the one where patients had incurable illnesses.

When the great journalist, Bi!! Deedes died he was well into his nineties and still working for the Daily Telegraph. He always considered himself most fortunate to have survived the First World War when so many o! his contemporaries

had been killed. He was a High Church Anglican who used to say his prayers every day. The prayer he used most regularly was that known in the Book of Common Prayer as the 'General Thanksgiving'. Sadly, it is seldom used nowadays. It reads like this:

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Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we, thine unworthy servants, do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving kindness to us and to all mankind.

We bless thee for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life: but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace and for the hope of glory,

And we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips but in our lives; by giving.up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days.

What more can one say?

I love that expression that 'We show forth thy praise not only with our lips but in our lives'.

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As you place your head upon the pillow tonight, recall those words of Nurse Lovelady, and ask yourself have you thanked God for all the good things he has given you?