Wellness: A Meditation

I went shopping this morning. I ran into the store to buy “just one thing” for a gift that needs to be shipped soon, and I came out with an armload of other stuff, none of which I actually need. And I had fun doing it. Thanksgiving … well … that’s just SO last week! Enough of all that “pausing to give thanks” stuff. Time to get ready for Christmas! Time to make lists of what I haven’t yet acquired. Time to covet. Time to rush to get those things wrapped and shipped.

I may have rushed on ahead, but the scripture reading from Thanksgiving Day hasn't left my mind. It’s about Jesus healing ten lepers. They are double outcasts, these ten lepers, for they were also Samaritans: disgusting on top of offensively disgusting. Any ONE of these things, leprosy or Samaritan ethnicity, would have been enough to cause any respectable Jew to go out of their way to avoid these people. But Jesus, of course, doesn't avoid them. He hears their calls for mercy, and he cures their leprosy. This story is about Jesus caring for outcasts, the most disgusting people imaginable in his time and place. But it is more than that, because the story doesn't stop there. One of the ten lepers, seeing that he was healed, praised God with a loud voice, prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. Then Jesus asks where the other nine were - why hadn't they praised God or come to thank him? Then comes Jesus’ final quote in this story, the punch line. Jesus said to the one who had praised God and come to thank him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Weren't all ten of the Samaritan lepers healed? This is an important detail about this story. They were all cured of leprosy. And nowhere in the Gospel is it even implied that Jesus took away this miracle from the other nine when they failed to say “thank you.” Freeing them of leprosy was a gift of God’s grace, an act of love and mercy from Jesus that did not have to be earned and wasn't going to be taken away. They were all cured of their leprosy, but only the one who expressed gratitude was made well. What does “made well” mean in this story?

There is a difference between being cured and being well. To be well, like this leper was well, is a state of the soul. Wellness has to do with being in right relationship with God and with neighbor, being at peace within yourself and with those around you. Gratitude is one of the cornerstones of wellness, of right relationship with God and neighbor, of faith. Gratitude is intertwined inseparably with an abiding trust in God’s goodness, with the knowledge that the grace, mercy and love of God are given to us freely, in abundance beyond measure, and do not have to be earned, fought over or bargained for. When the one leper says “thank you” to Jesus for being healed of the physical disease (leprosy), Jesus says to him, “Your faith has made you well.” When we stop to say “thank you” for what God has done for us and what God has given us, it builds up our faith and it makes us well. It shifts our relationship with God and neighbor closer to love, and gives peace. Gratitude is an antidote to stress and anxiety. So as we rush to get ready for Christmas, the coming of the Prince of Peace, Let us not forget thanksgiving. Return and give thanks to God. It will make us well.

The Rev. Amanda K. Gott

Grace & St. Peter's Episcopal Church

Original painting by Bec Cranford

#meditation #thanksgiving #healing #prayer #faith