Lynne Baab • Wednesday November 27 2019
As a young adult, I disliked the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19. I read it as describing one more thing we should do. I had been raised with an enormous list of “shoulds,” and I had found freedom in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A life-changing book of the Bible for me as a young adult was Galatians, where the Apostle Paul lays out so clearly that we are free from the demands of the law.
Even in my forties and early fifties, when I discovered the power of thankfulness (which I wrote about here), the ten lepers was a story that didn’t resonate very much with me. It wasn’t until I read Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer by David Steindl-Rast that I understood something significant.
That one leper isn’t presented to us as a model for something we should do. No, that one leper was really blessed by going back to thank Jesus. The leper received a gift because of his thankfulness.
Rast explains why:
“When I acknowledge a gift received, I acknowledge a bond that binds me to the giver. . . . The one who says ‘thank you’ to another really says, ‘We belong together.’ Giver and thanksgiver belong together.”
—David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 15-17.
The leper who said thank you to Jesus built a connection with Jesus. We have no idea if that was the leper’s intention. The story, like most stories in the Gospels, is pretty cryptic. When I read the story through the lens of Steindl-Rast’s notion that thankfulness affirms relationship, I can imagine what happens in the future. Because this one leper has connected with Jesus as he gave thanks, the next time Jesus comes to his village, he would feel the freedom to approach Jesus and tell him how things were going for him. I like to picture his relationship with Jesus flourishing even further.
Thankfulness nurtures relationship, and relationships often build upon themselves. As relationships deepen, we are enriched.
For the past ten or fifteen years, I’ve been viewing the story of the ten lepers through this lens of relationship building. But now, as I’m exploring grief AND thankfulness, I see some more aspects of the this story. I wrote last week about the ways grief is built into one of my favorite passages about thankfulness, Colossians 3:12-17. I see grief built into the story of the ten lepers in similar ways.
I grieve that leprosy is such a contagious disease that people with leprosy in Jesus’ time had to live outside their villages, cut off from family and friends. I grieve that lepers were treated that way in many parts of the world until recent times and maybe are still treated that way in some places. I grieve that the social isolation for these ten lepers had probably damaged them in profound ways. Their reentry into village life may have been very challenging for them.
I grieve that so many healings involve great challenges for the person who is healed. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote fascinating books, tells the story of a blind woman who recovered her sight and found the world so overwhelming she wished she could be blind again. The book where he tells her story is called An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales, and the use of the word “paradoxical” in the subtitle exactly captures this strange phenomenon – some people don’t really want to be healed, some people don’t enjoy having been healed, and many people who have been healed find great challenges in living a different style of life. I grieve about all of this, and I grieve for the small ways I have experienced this reality in my own life.
In a year filled with grief AND thankfulness, I am loving exploring so many connections I’ve never seen before. For my American readers, happy Thanksgiving, and may you make room for grief even as you are embracing and expressing thankfulness. I am learning the two can co-exist in helpful ways.
Next week: another scripture I’ve been pondering. Illustration by Dave Baab. I love getting new subscribers, who receive an email when I post on this blog. Sign up below.
My book on this topic – Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life, now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle.
In honor of American Thanksgiving, here are some past posts about thankfulness:
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Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is an author and adjunct professor. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christians spiritual practices. Read more »
Lynne is pleased to announce the release of her two 2024 books, both of them illustrated with her talented husband Dave's watercolors. She is thrilled at how good the watercolors look in the printed books, and in the kindle versions, if read on a phone, the watercolors glow. Friendship, Listening and Empathy: A Prayer Guide guides the reader into new ways to pray about the topics in the title. Draw Near: A Lenten Devotional guides the reader to a psalm for each day of Lent and offers insightful reflection/discussion questions that can be used alone or in groups.
Another recent book is Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life, available in paperback, audiobook, and for kindle. Lynne's 2018 book is Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care for the Twenty-First Century, and her most popular book is Sabbath-Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (now available as an audiobook as well as paperback and kindle). You can see her many other book titles here, along with her Bible study guides.
You can listen to Lynne talk about these topics: empathy, bringing spiritual practices to life. Sabbath keeping for recent grads., and Sabbath keeping for families and children.
Lynne was interviewed for the podcast "As the Crow Flies". The first episode focuses on why listening matters and the second one on listening skills.
Here are two talks Lynne gave on listening (recorded in audio form on YouTube): Listening for Mission and Ministry and Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry.
"Lynne's writing is beautiful. Her tone has such a note of hope and excitement about growth. It is gentle and affirming."
— a reader
"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
— a reader of Sabbath Keeping
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