There was a time in my life when my car radio was tuned to a station that broadcast commentator Paul Harvey’s interpretations of news stories. A portion of the broadcast was entitled “The Rest of the Story.” These snippets focused on famous people and events in a way that expanded the story, giving us information that provided a more three-dimensional portrait of the people involved and usually had an unexpected turn that gave us a new perspective for something we thought we knew. At the end of each story, Paul would growl, “And that’s the rest of the story.”
I frequently wish we had a lens on the rest of the story when we read scripture. Because these stories were told and ultimately written for people who lived in Jesus’ time, much of their context—the basics of daily life that would have framed the stories for listeners in that day—is invisible to us as we read. This absence of context in our awareness is a factor in the way we hear today’s gospel portion. Perhaps because it gives such an excellent opportunity to stand by Jesus’ side and point our fingers at someone else, we tend to focus on Jesus’ question about the nine lepers who haven’t bothered to thank him for the miracle that’s happened in their lives. Jesus’ question focuses our eyes on those other folks so completely that we don’t notice what’s happening to the leper who came back.
Remember the story we’ve just heard. Ten lepers see Jesus. Keeping a safe distance so that they won’t defile him, they beg him for the mercy of healing. He tells them to go show themselves to the priest, and as they make their way to the priest, they are made clean. It’s at this point that one man turns back to throw himself at Jesus’ feet in gratitude. And Jesus tells him to go on his way—that his faith has made him well.
To those who were watching and to those who first heard the story, the man’s decision to turn back on his way to the priest would have been a shockingly powerful act of gratitude and faith. According to the understanding of that era, neither Jesus’ implied promise of healing nor the lepers’ own experience of seeing themselves to be free from disease made any difference to their lives. According to Mosaic Law, priests were had the last word. They pronounced the presence of leprosy, and only a priest could say that a person was once again clean. According to the law, these men were not clean and could not rejoin society until their healing was pronounced by the priest. But this man is so overwhelmed by gratitude and absolute faith in the healing that has happened that he abandons the procedure that will bring him back into community. He is so overwhelmed with gratitude that he risks being labeled as a person who willfully contaminates others with his presence. He is so overwhelmed that he even disobeys the instructions Jesus has given him.
I’ve thought about the moments of profound thankfulness in my life, and I haven’t been able to identify a time when my gratitude has made me willing to risk the very thing that was the cause for my rejoicing. I think that kind of experience is a rare event in our world. I have trouble just hanging on to the feelings of thankfulness that come to me often during the day and seem to slip away almost as easily as they are born. This whole business of thankfulness is a slippery kind of thing, and I think most of us probably have a pretty steep learning curve leading to lives that are responses to all the ways God blesses us.
Today we are remembering the way of thankfulness that Francis of Assisi teaches us: thanksgiving not only for the occasional things of wonder that happen in our lives but for the gift of all creation.
Most of us probably hold a picture of Francis in our minds. He’s standing there like the statues we’ve seen. There are the little bunnies around his feet, a deer is perhaps eating from his hand, and birds are fluttering around his shoulders. He looks very much like he belongs in an early Disney movie, and I keep waiting for him to break into song like Snow White at the well. (sings: I’m wishing, I’m wishing…) But I digress. Back to the story.
It’s easy for us to identify with this picture, and it brings all kinds of warm feelings to our hearts. But the thing is, Francis’ love for all living things was a reflection of his gratitude for all of God’s creation, the dark as well as the light, the wolf as well as the lamb. His canticle to the sun is a song of praise which names the essence of creation around us. He says, “Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures” and goes on to speak of the ways God is praised by all of creation, naming Brother Sun, Sister Moon and the stars, Brother Wind and Air, Sister Water, Brother Fire, our sister Mother Earth, and Sister Death.
Francis gave thanks for all that is in creation. At our services today, we are giving thanks for a part of creation that is dear to us: the animals whom God has given us as companions, comforters, and friends. These creatures teach us about gratitude in many ways. They live in the moment, savoring the good things that come their way. They take joy in each day. They are always ready for the next good thing: the nap in a spot of sunshine, a snack, a walk, (A dog in the congregation barks immediately after the word “walk”)…well, maybe I’d better spell the word next time. My own dogs—who live across the street from me at my neighbor’s house—are convinced every time they see me that I am carrying treats for them. These creatures who are so dear to us know a lot about the goodness of life. They teach us that perhaps this whole business of thankfulness doesn’t have to be the slippery sort of thing we humans so often experience.
Thanks be to God.