Eucharistic Living

Sermon for The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost

St. John's, Georgetown Parish | Washington, DC

Luke 17:11-19

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“Faith has made you well.”

To a person who has experienced a transformation, Jesus proclaims these words. “Get up and go on your way, your faith has made you well.”

Throughout our scriptures, this notion of being “made well” is often interchangeable with the notion of ‘salvation.’ Within the saving work of God, time and again, both the wholeness of souls and material wellbeing are important. The phrase from Luke’s gospel can also be accurately translated, “Get up and go on your way, your faith has saved you.”

But what causes these words to come to this person, though? Let us consider the body: A large group approaches Jesus. Within the bodies of these ten persons are held many things. They carry need for healing, and they carry desire for wholeness. They carry social stigma, and they carry hope for mercy.

Bringing all of this with them, they present to Jesus their plea. Their need and desire is like a meager offering figuratively laid at the feet of Jesus. What they have is themselves—and they bring all of themselves forward in their wish to be made well.

Jesus hears them, receives the offering they bring, responds, and bids them on their way. As instructed, they go to see the priests—still carrying with them all that their bodies hold—and along the way they are miraculously healed.

And then, as the gospel writer notes, one “turned back.”

Throughout the Gospel of Luke, one especially prominent theme is Jesus’ concern for the material wellbeing of oppressed and marginalized persons. For the inherent worth and dignity of bodies. Here, ten socially outcast persons have been healed of physical ailments. But the physical healing that occurs is hardly even noted in this story—what is emphasized instead is a new orientation in this one person.

For this one who turned back, a wonder at what has just occurred in his body seemingly moves throughout the whole of his person. And this wonder moves his soul toward God.

So, returning himself to the feet of Jesus, his body is made prostrate. In this position of reverence—lying on his belly with his face pressed downward—he offers praise and thanksgiving. It is a humble offering brought and laid before Jesus.

As we picture this scene unfolding, we might also imagine those grateful lips uttering familiar words. “Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow” ...with this, the leper in today’s lesson demonstrates what it is to lead a eucharistic life. In a few moments, we will again gather at this table. And as we celebrate together, we will again do so with the words, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” This “great thanksgiving” is the literal definition of the Greek word “eucharistia.” And this act is the very foundation of faith—from this core flows all radical, embodied action.

In the Anglican tradition and those with a similarly sacramental expression, regularly observing Eucharist affirms the necessity of thanksgiving. It is of critical importance. As we partake in the Eucharistic, we give thanks for the person of Jesus Christ—for the very incarnation of Love. With faith, we trust we are transformed by his body.

Giving thanks is a reorientation. Gathering our bodies in this place of community is a humble affirmation that we are people of need. Bringing our bodies into this place of worship—and here offering the whole of ourselves to God—is an affirmation that we desire to be made well. And by turning toward the salvation of God, we are strengthened and renewed to strive for justice and peace among all people.

This is the heart of what we do at this table each week. Through Eucharist we relinquish our fixation on ourselves—and we instead take on a new posture.

Even an ever-increasing field of secular research affirms this. Evidence suggests practicing gratitude reduces stress, aides the immune system, and enhances feelings of hope. Giving thanks, then, quite literally aids our physical wellbeing.

This posture is not the way of the world we live in, though. Offering praise for what exists is rare. Rather, fixating on how to get what is absent from our lives and chasing after fulfillment is par for the course.

For as popular as gratitude journals and mediation apps seem to be these days, this is no easy practice—and little encouragement is offered in our day to day lives. Thanksgiving is quite difficult. To live in this way, we must be transformed. In this way, leading eucharistic lives is not only counter-intuitive: it is radically subversive.

Fortunately, though, for those of us who might falter in this, being adequately grateful is not a precondition to the compassion of Jesus. Nine other persons in this lesson experience restoration of their physical bodies—and yet they don’t turn back and give thanks. Even those who don’t fully get it are still met in their need.

This same need is surely present here among us—for who has not longed for healing in their lives? So often, this kind of wellness can seem elusive. But even after obtaining a miraculous, physical deliverance, the gospel lesson suggests the other nine still lack what it is to be made well.

Salvation entails far more than the presence or absence of physical healing. And in “turning back,” this is precisely what the one leper discovers. Thanksgiving is critical to knowing the fullest depths of wellbeing.

It may look like familiar practices within these walls—of kneeling and prostrating our bodies, either figuratively or literally. And it may be infused in all that occurs in the sacred places and moments beyond this place. But however it takes form, offering ourselves in thanksgiving is integral to the salvation we so long for in our lives and in this world. For in reorienting the fullness of our being to the source of love and creation, what world might we co-conspire with Jesus to bring forth?

Give thanks. Live eucharistically. Be made well—that all might be made well. “All that has life and breath, come now with praises before him.”

Amen.