Today is Thanksgiving Sunday, a day we gather with family, friends, and neighbours to share joy, food and stories. But Thanksgiving is more than a meal; it is a posture of the heart. We turn to God, the giver of every good gift, to offer our thanks, especially in this harvest season.

We give thanks for the gifts that sustain life: sunshine and rain, seeds and soil, trees heavy with fruit. We give thanks for the gifts that gladden life: loving families, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; meaningful work, new homes and renewed hope, restored health and strong bodies, reconciled relationships. We rejoice over babies born and babies on the way, and we celebrate the engagements and marriages that add new branches to our family trees. God’s generosity exceeds our memory, and the list of blessings is endless.

I once learned that some Jewish people practice naming one hundred blessings each day, from waking to sleeping. Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kaplan of VST encouraged our class to try it, and I did. Was it easy? Not at all. It took far more effort than I expected. Our lives are busy, and naming a hundred thanksgivings is nearly impossible unless we slow down and pay attention. Gratitude requires mindfulness in each moment, and that, too, is a gift.

Thanksgiving isn’t only celebrated in Western countries. Many East Asian communities also mark a harvest thanksgiving around this time of year. Last Monday was the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, the date of the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节) in Chinese tradition. Families reunite, admire the full moon, share seasonal foods such as mooncakes, and express hopes for harmony and good fortune.

In Korea, the same lunar date is Chuseok (秋夕), meaning “autumn evening.” For several days, families travel home to give thanks for the year’s harvest, honour ancestors through memorial rites, and share traditional foods like songpyeon rice cakes. Chuseok blends long-standing Korean folk customs with Confucian ancestral respect, yet its core message is very human and universal: gratitude for the harvest binds families and communities together.

Many scholars argue that rituals of thanksgiving are near-universal across cultures, that humans are not fully themselves without worship. To refuse acknowledgement and avoid celebration is almost as unnatural as holding one’s breath. Gratitude lies at the heart of our Christian life, and in today’s Gospel, the one who returns to Jesus models it, praising God and giving thanks.

In that story, Jesus makes ten people with “leprosy” clean. Despite the seriousness of the illness, Luke gives few details: Jesus does not touch them, and no prior confession of faith is mentioned. He simply says, “Go and show yourselves to the priests” – the step required by the Law for restoration to community life. They go, and as they go, they are made clean.

Then the focus narrows. One man, a Samaritan, a foreigner, realizes he has been healed. He turns back, lifts his voice in praise, falls at Jesus’ feet, and gives thanks. Among the ten, he alone returns to express gratitude.

Who is this man? He is a double outsider, ritually unclean because of his illness and, in Jewish eyes, an outsider as a Samaritan. Yet, he sees what the others miss: the Giver behind the gift, the One through whom a new life has come.

When he thanks Jesus, he hears: “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” What does that mean, “your faith has made you well?” His skin has already been healed, just like the others’. The verb Luke uses can also mean “saved” or “made whole.” Jesus is pointing beyond restored skin to a restored life. Gratitude has opened him to a deeper healing.

Here we glimpse the bond between faith and thanksgiving. The Samaritan moves from lament to praise, from exclusion to belonging, from spiritual dimness to awakening, from sorrow to joy. He is not only cured; he is made whole.

Not everyone experiences this transformation. The nine are healed, but only the one who recognizes the gift and turns back to give thanks receives the fullness of salvation. He receives his new life as a gift, and gratitude completes the miracle.

“Your faith has made you well” suggests that gratitude is the first language of faith. If we say we trust God, our first response is thanksgiving for all we are and all we have are gifts. It does not matter our age or status, wealth or health, education or background. What matters is a grateful heart that recognizes life itself as God’s gracious gift.

When I was a child, I watched my father’s hands as he came home from work, hoping for something he might be carrying. As I grew older, I learned to delight more in his presence than in any present. Our faith is like that. We give thanks not only for God’s gifts, but for God’s own presence with us.

So we bless the God who has given us life, and we offer our praise and thanks, today, tomorrow, and for as long as we live. Thanks be to God. Amen.