THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU, LORD!

When Naaman first approach Elisha, the prophet,
he was expecting something dramatic to happen.
He thought that the prophet would perform some grand gesture
or demand some demonstration from Naaman of his worthiness.
Instead, Elisha told Naaman to bathe and be clean.
Now that sounded ridiculous.
It seemed to simple.
How could the God of Israel work such wonders
without doing something dramatic and over-the-top?
How could Israel’s God do something so wonderful
without a grand demonstration?
How could any God work wonders with such simple instructions,
“Wash and be clean?”
Naaman at first didn’t believe,
But even without faith in the God of Israel,
Naaman took a chance, washed in the Jordan and was cleansed.

THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU, LORD!

Ten lepers approach Jesus looking for a miracle.
He didn’t even touch them.
He didn’t pray over them.
He simply said, “Go and show yourself to the priests.”
The priests of the Temple were charged with determining
if a leper had indeed recovered from leprosy.
Their pronouncement would mean that the leper could return to normal life.
The leper could return to his or her family,
to life in the village,
wo worship in the Temple and the synagogue,
to ordinary daily life.
The priests could not cure leprosy.
All that they could do is declare that one who had been thought to have leprosy
no longer seemed to have it.
Like Elisha,
Jesus did not make a show of curing leprosy.
He didn’t ask those suffering from the disease
to do something extraordinary.
He simply instructed them to go and be declared cured,
even though it didn’t look like they had yet been cured.

THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU, LORD!

As we gather here today,
none of us is suffering from leprosy.
Yet all of us come here looking for something.
We are all in need of God’s grace one way or another.
We come here to encounter the living God,
to be in the presence of God,
to hear the Word of God,
to eat the Body and drink the Blood of the Lord.
It sure would be nice if God would come to us in some dramatic way:
if God’s voice would thunder from heaven,
if Jesus would change the appearance of the bread and wine
so that we could actually see his Body standing before us.
It would be so much easier to believe
if the Mass were more of a spectacle,
if angels’ choirs would burst into song
as we gathered around the altar.
But today,
we are invited to do what Naaman
and the lepers in today’s Gospel did,
to have just enough faith to do something as simple
as washing and being clean,
or as showing ourselves to someone who can declare that we have been made whole.
Neither Naaman nor the ten lepers knew what would happen.
Naaman in fact had his doubts,
we’re not so sure about the ten lepers.
But they were willing to take a chance
and do something simple.

THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU, LORD!

There are lots of people in our world today
who wonder why we bother to come here week after week.
They wonder about a gathering that doesn’t have much drama or excitement,
They wonder where God is if there isn’t any grand display
of God’s power and might.
But you and I know why we are here.
We are here because we know that
The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power,
and we come here to do what Naaman did after he was healed,
we come here to do what the Samaritan who had been cured came to do.
We come to give thanks.
We come to give thanks not just for what happens here,
but for what has happened in so many other places in our lives,
to join Naaman who gave thanks for what happened at the Jordan,
to join the Samaritan leper for what happened on the way to the Temple,
and to give thanks for all the blessing we have received.
We come here to do eucharist,
to simply give thanks.

THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
THANK YOU, LORD!
I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU, LORD!