Homily for Trinity 14

(Readings: Proverbs 4:10-23 / Galatians 5:16-24 / Luke 17:11-19)

I think we totally miss the point if we imagine that today’s Gospel is all about feeling thankful. No way. Can you really imagine that ANY of the ten lepers would feel in their hearts anything BUT gratitude toward Jesus Christ? I can’t imagine it. One minute living with a body that was grossly decaying before your eyes, forced to live apart from your loved ones, no future, no hope. But then calling out to Jesus for mercy and receiving from the Master that wondrous word of healing. Skin suddenly restored. Soft like a baby’s bottom. Beautiful and whole again. I’m sure any and all of them were as thankful as could be that Jesus had crossed their path and brought them healing. Indeed, they experienced the truth we heard in Proverbs that God’s words literally are “healing to all their flesh.”

But if the problem isn’t ingratitude, what exactly does Jesus find wanting in the nine and yet praises in that one Samaritan who came back? Well, let’s listen again to these words from the text:

“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.” And then what our Lord said: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner.”

Did you hear it? This text is not about feeling thankful, it is about giving thanks and praising (or more literally, giving glory to) God!

Maybe there is one lesson we learned too well: with us sinful human beings, it is possible for the heart to come disconnected from the mouth, so that the heart speaks one way and the mouth another. This is what God condemned through Isaiah the prophet condemned when he wrote: “This people draws near to me with their mouth, but their hearts are far from me.” We have mistakenly concluded from that that it’s just the heart that God is concerned about, as if if we are properly thankful in our hearts, that’s sufficient.

But that is to mistake His words through Isaiah. He is not only concerned about what goes on in your heart; He is vitally interested in what comes out of your mouth, in the words that come tripping from your lips.

That mouth of yours and those lips were created by Him so that you might sing His praises, celebrate His goodness, and tell the world what He has done. “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise” – so David prays in Psalm 51. Created to praise – that’s what you were. And if there is a first commandment to guard against the sins of the heart going astray, there is also a second commandment to guard against the lips going astray in God’s direction (not to mention an eighth commandment to guard against those lips going astray in your neighbor’s direction).

Well did the lepers – all ten of them – begin: they knew that in their affliction, they should lift up their voices to the Master. And they did. Asking for mercy. How often we can relate to that. When times are bad for us, it seems far more natural to pray. After all, when you don’t have anywhere else to turn, then you rejoice that you have been given the name of God to “call upon in every trouble.”

But then there’s the joy of His answer. We call and He responds. He answers and delivers us – he does so that, as Psalm 50 says, “I will deliver you and you will glorify me.” And that’s precisely where we fall flat. We think it’s enough to be thankful to God in our heart – let’s leave our thanksgiving there and be spiritual about it all. But God isn’t into that kind of spirituality. He wants those lips to be opened and praise to be pouring forth.

Now – understand me aright – He doesn’t desire that because He’s insecure in Himself and needs someone to always tell Him how great He is. Nonsense. He wants it because that’s how we come into our own as true and full human beings. He created us to enjoy Him forever and what you enjoy, you praise. You glorify. You say: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! How blessed is the person who trusts in Him!”

It is the conviction of the Holy Church that in Jesus Christ each one of you has been given reason to open your lips and sing praise to God every moment of every day. We confess this week by week before the altar: “It is indeed meet, right, and salutary…at all times…in all places…through Jesus Christ our Lord.” What is meet, right, and salutary is not a feeling of thankfulness, hidden in your heart. What is meet, right, and salutary is an explosion of praise from your lips.

Mercy the lepers received, but how it pales in response to what He has given you. Upon the Cross, He suffers and dies in order that no sin might be able to accuse you, or hold you in its grasp. He destroys all your sin by forgiving it – every last bit. From the grave He arises in incorruption that death will never be the final word over you. In Baptism, He has adopted you as His own child. Named you His very own. For time and for eternity. Washed away your every sin. In the Absolution, He speaks to you personally a word of love and acceptance that is as valid and certain on earth as it is in heaven. He gives you His word as a shining light upon your path through this world. And in the Holy Eucharist He reaches you the unfathomable gift of His body and blood – nothing less than the sacrifice once offered for you upon Calvary’s tree, now given into your mouth for your forgiveness, for union with Him, the pledge of life undying. Think about it: the lepers got a few more years to live on this earth; you have been given eternity with the Father.

So in view of the huge mercy that is yours, the Lord Jesus invites and summons you today to use your mouth. To open your lips. To join the Samaritan in giving glory and praise to God incarnate in our flesh. The liturgy is there to help. It’s there to teach you how to train your lips to glorify God, that you might learn to offer the sacrifice of praise. “Glory to God!” “Holy, holy, holy” “Blessed is He!” “Lamb of God” and so on. We who have received through His holy Cross and Resurrection a life that death can never destroy, a pardon that sin can never deface, are learning to praise as we join the angels and archangels and all saints in falling down before Him and singing: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Indeed it will. Amen.