Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C 2 Kgs 5: 14-17; Ps 98:1, 2-3, 3-4; 2 Tm 2: 8-13; Lk 17: 11-19
I want Thanksgiving to survive as the quintessential American Holiday. As far-fetched as it may seem, Thanksgiving may be taken from us. It is a holiday that only could have arisen in a country and a people who believed in God. Where atheism reigns, it is impossible to think they would have come up with such a holiday.
The reason for my fear? A new Pew Research Center survey predicts that by 2070 those professing Christianity will be a minority in our country and that those choosing no religious affiliation will be the majority. Although there may be a number of those who are unaffiliated who still believe in God, the number of those professing no belief in God is rapidly rising.
What is a proper response of Christians? Increased and unceasing thanksgiving. I have always believed that prayers of thanksgiving are one of the most subversive things that a person can do to fight the dominant culture of their day. Prayers of thanksgiving always and necessarily lead us to faith in God. To whom else would you pray?
There are some events in our lives that we recognize that giving thanks to family, friends, or others in our lives is insufficient to our experience of receiving a true graced moment. To whom should we give thanks for the birth of a child, the experience of unexpected joy or being overwhelmed by the beauty of nature or art, if not to God?
Both Naaman and the man cured of leprosy have this realization. Naaman first tries to give Elisha the thanks for his cure, but Elisha’s refusal causes him to redirect his thanks to the one from whom he truly received his cure. This leads him to making an act of faith in the God of Israel and totally changing the course of his life.
The man cured of leprosy returns to give thanks to Jesus for his cure, but that act of thanksgiving is far more profound than simple gratitude. It is also an act of faith. Jesus’ last words to the man in response to that act of thanksgiving are, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”
By becoming a people and a community that makes thanksgiving to God a priority of our prayer, our lives and our attitudes, I believe that we will similarly change the directory of our culture. We seem to reserve our thanksgiving to God only for the big things in our lives. What would be truly transformative for us and for our culture is if we cultivate a constant and universal practice of thanksgiving for each and every aspect of our lives. This way we will not only save the holiday of Thanksgiving, we will allow thanksgiving to God to save us.
Msgr. Timothy Keeney is pastor of Incarnation, Charlottesville.