Luke 17:11-19.

The nine who had Leprosy and have been healed, go off, apparently ungrateful. Only one returns to Jesus. I remember the story from my childhood. ‘Don't forget to say thankyou!'

But there's more! He was a Samaritan! You wouldn't expect a Samaritan to say, ‘Thankyou!', because ‘we all know what Samaritans are like!' Luke is challenging prejudices of his day. What group of people would we insert instead of Samaritans to make the same point?

The childhood lesson about saying thankyou only goes part of the way. The Samaritan returned to give glory to God. Martin Luther wrote, “What is worship? One leper turning back.”

How do we show thanks to God? We show it in our worship. Worship is our response to God in all our life, not just one hour on Sundays. To better understand such an approach to worship it is important I think to also better understand the notion of Sabbath.

To understand Sabbath requires a leap of faith. The world will continue to operate without us running around running it. Sabbath promises seven days of prosperity from six days of work. In this surplus is the gracious giving of God. The world is for us rather than against us. We can trust in that goodness and we can give our thanks and that then becomes our worship.

Rev. Chris Howard
12th. October, 2007