Making Eucharist

Proper 23C-25

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Good morning, Immanuel. It’s good to be back. I want to say a very big ‘thank you’ to all of you. I was charmed and amazed at the great privilege you gifted me and my family with. Your support and encouragement were amazing. I feel we are blessed by our leader team. I’m truly thankful to pastor Kelly, and our staff Ricardo, Jordan, and Julia. I spent time in Colorado with my mom. Kari and I hung out with friends in Banff, Canada.  I went back packing with my sons (and a girl friend) in Isle Royale National Park. Leah and I explored Scotland.  I lived the monastic life at Iona. I tramped around London. I took online classes, attended conferences, and planted a savannah garden of Illinois natives. (It’s growing very well.) Out of curiosity, I worshiped in a different church most every Sunday and watched the Immanuel livestream each week. I know I’m biased but Immanuel, you’re the best.

How fitting that giving thanks is our theme this Sunday. Last week we heard Jesus scold the disciples.  He told them not to expect thanks for all the good things they do in Jesus’ name (Luke 17:10). Today, we hear the rest of the story.  Don’t wait to receive thanks, Jesus says, but always remember to give it. Thanksgiving is not a duty but a lifeline.  Thanksgiving—literally eucharist—is a means to grab onto grace and take it inside us like lighting in a bottle. Gratitude spills into love.

We begin with the story of ten lepers who were cured.  All ten were cured but only one was made whole—the one who turned to give Jesus thanks, and that one was a Samaritan—in other words—a despised foreigner.  As a group the Samaritans go two for three in Luke’s gospel: 1) Yes. They refuse welcome the disciples in chapter nine (9:53); but 2) the Good Samaritan is a Christ-like figure (10:25), and the Samaritan leper is a church-like figure (17:11). The leper is exemplary of the sort of devotion God expects from the faithful but does not always receive.

Ten are healed. But one returned to say thank you. It took him but a moment. Yet in that moment he is changed. Jesus told him “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well” (17:19). The Greek word for “well” is sózó. That word doesn’t just mean to be cured from an illness. Rather, it means to be saved, rescued, or delivered — healed body and soul.” (Diana Butler Bass, The Cottage, Sunday Musings, “Turn Around, Say Thanks,” 10/11/25)

The Samaritan leper shows us where the church of Christ must be today. It is the story about the gratitude of a foreigner who receives welcome. The church must be such a place. These days, as brown-skinned children languish in cages, racist politicians weaponize borders, and racial and religious minorities fear mistreatment in their own neighborhoods, schools, and worship spaces, the leper’s story shows us where to look for the kindom of God. This gospel spells out what it means that in Christ, we are all one. It proclaims the church’s ongoing responsibility to the stranger, the alien, and the Other. It reveals what happens to our differences at the foot of the Cross. Such distinctions disappear. In a spirit of joy and thanksgiving we give thanks, literally, we make eucharist everywhere we go. We carry the spirit of thanksgiving into the broken places of society so all may be made well. (Debi Thomas: A Foreigner’s Praise, Journey with Jesus, 10/06/19).

You might be saying, well, I’m not sure I have much to be thankful for right now. There’s crisis and collapse everywhere I look. I don’t know whether you noticed, but things are not looking good. It is tempting to disengage.

To you, scripture whispers this gospel truth. Giving thanks is a life hack gleaned from real-life experience of our ancestors in faith who coped and thrived in times more chaotic, difficult, and dangerous than our own. Giving thanks gives life.  Giving thanks gives us courage. Giving thanks shows us where and with whom to be the church. Giving thanks takes practice. Our tradition offers many ways to strengthen our thanks-giving muscles through prayer, song, and meditation. The Jesuits practice the daily examen. Some keep a gratitude journal. Others routinely give thanks at mealtime.

Ask yourself ‘why does a leper give thanks?’  Because gratitude is living water to quench thirsty souls and brings life to the entire landscape. Gratitude gets lost in the ledger when we keep accounts and life becomes small.  Gratitude, like love, grows when it is shared

Making eucharist flows from awe and wonder. It is the recognition that life is a gift and everything in it. Give thanks to the plants for the air we breathe.  Give thanks to the earth for clean water.  Give thanks to the Sun for the color of the sky.  Give thanks to the creatures for tending to the earth, for clothing, for tools, and for food. Does such thanks-giving sound familiar? Such is the wisdom of indigenous peoples and cultures that our civilization has worked so thoroughly to root out and destroy.

Making eucharist may be the antidote for the death-dealing economy of colonialism, extraction, domination, land theft, and exploitation we all participate and benefited from leading toward civilization collapse. It is perhaps ironic that the wisdom of the Samaritan leper is now echoed by quantum physics, and eco-biology pointing toward embrace of the wisdom indigenous teachers once proclaimed on these shores. They told us that we are all relations, and our futures are interwoven in one web of life. “They reflect the gracious spirit of the Shoshone elder who said, ‘Do not begrudge the white man for coming here. Though he doesn’t know it yet, he has come to learn from us.’” (Brian McLaren, Life After Doom, p. 125).

Native teachers tell us that gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from hand to hand, a truly renewable resource. This is how the natural world has worked and thrived for millennia. Can we imagine a human economy with a currency which emulates the flow from Mother Earth? A currency of gifts?

Come to the table.  Come to the Eucharist. Lay your burdens down. May bitterness be replaced with laughing; despair exchanged for joy; and grief become an occasion for new love. Don’t count your thanks, but always remember to give it, for in doing so we are made well. May we always be so bold and fearless as to say “thanks.”