Pentecost 21C
October 13, 2013
October 13, 2013
Luke 17:11–19
This week Michael and I
had someone come and paint one of the rooms in our house, the room that will
become my sewing room. The painter is a friend of a friend, a really good guy,
and a devout Christian. I got to talking with him one day, and before I knew it
he was sharing his conversion story with me. He used to be pretty heavily into
drugs, both using and dealing, a heavy drinker, and an absent husband and
father. But then one night he started to have a pretty intense reaction to
whatever he had been using, and, not wanting his friends to see him in this
vulnerable state, he stumbled home. As he fumbled for his keys, he felt like he
was burning up, like needles all over his body, though his skin was cold to the
touch, and he couldn’t see or hear anything – until he heard, clear as day:
“Flush your drugs.” He couldn’t believe it! Those were worth a lot of money.
But he heard it again: “Flush your drugs.” He found his key and let himself in
and did as he was told. As he flushed the last of his drugs down the toilet,
suddenly his vision returned, and he could hear again. The pain left his body
and he felt new – even the air smelled different, he said. And then, he told
me, he dropped to his knees, there in the bathroom, and started thanking Jesus.
As he shared his story with me, there in
my future sewing room, I couldn’t help but think of the ten lepers – or more
specifically of the one leper, the Samaritan, who, when he discovered he was
healed, turned back, fell to his knees, and started thanking Jesus. That is an
appropriate response to such an extraordinary gift and blessing, right? To be
delivered suddenly from a life spiraling downward because of drugs, or from
life as a double outcast – leper and Samaritan – with a disease so bad that
even your family will have nothing to do with you… Yes, it would seem that
falling to your knees in thanksgiving is exactly the right response.
I think we all know that gratitude is
important. Every time I read one of those articles that is called something
like, “Ten Traits of Happy People,” or, “Eight Ways to be Healthier and
Happier,” gratitude is at the top of the list. Even Oprah Magazine did a huge spread a few years back on the remarkable
and positive effects of gratitude on our lives.
Sometimes gratitude is very easy to
practice. When things go well, when a new child or grandchild was born healthy
and beautiful, when a promotion at work comes through, when a marriage is
blessed, gratitude comes very naturally. The struggle is when life isn’t offering
us much to grateful for. When a disease doesn’t respond to treatment. When a
son doesn’t return from war. When a job is lost, or a house, or an important
relationship. It is easy for the leper, or our painter to fall to their knees
and give thanks, when grace is so obvious, but what about when healing doesn’t
happen, when brokenness persists? In these cases, those words that Jesus says
to the leper, “You faith as made you well,” do not sound like good news. They
sound like salt in the wound. If the leper was made well, why not me?
Those words, “Your faith
has made you well,” can be translated several ways. The Greek word for “made
you well” can also be translated, “made you whole.” What a richness that adds
to the possibility of being made well! See, the other nine lepers were made
clean, too, as Jesus points out. But only this one returned to give thanks. Only
this one was made whole. And it is to him that Jesus says, “Your faith has made
you whole.”
It seems this is not so
much a story about healing as it is a story about faith and wholeness. And
since it is the one leper who returns to give thanks who is told that his faith
has made him whole, it would also seem that gratitude has a lot to do with
faith and wholeness.
We talked last week about
some things that faith is, and some things that faith isn’t. Today we could
build on that by saying that faith is not something you have so much as it is something that you live – and to live faith is to give thanks, to practice gratitude.
Living a life of gratitude, and hence a life of faith is what has brought this
Samaritan man with leprosy from the depths of his disease and his social isolation
into a place where he is made deeply well and whole.
Living a life of
gratitude: it sounds simple enough, but it takes practice, even in the best of
times. If I asked you right now to list five things you are thankful for, you
would probably all include one or more of the following: your family, your
friends, your home, your job, your health. Those are big things that I hope you
are always thankful for. But living a life of gratitude goes deeper than that –
such a life finds gratitude in more specific things. So try this – everyone
think of one specific, thing for which you are thankful, something other than
family, friends, job, home, or health. I’ll give you a moment…
Would anyone like to
share?
Last November, I saw some
people doing something on Facebook called “30 days of thankfulness.” Instead of
giving thanks on just one Thursday in November, people posted in their Facebook
status every day one thing they were thankful for. It sounded like a good
practice, so I tried it. It was easy at first. But after a while, especially on
days when nothing extraordinary happened, I had to get creative so I wouldn’t
repeat. I was thankful for pumpkin seeds, or for a working heater, or for the
ability to call my friends whenever I wanted to. I had to search specifically
for something to be grateful for. And then I had to articulate it, sharing it
with others. In doing this, I found my attention was less on myself, and more
on the many blessings around me. And when I found so many blessings around me,
I also found myself trusting God more and myself less – because there was no
way I could possibly provide for myself the beautiful color of the leaves, or
the way a child smiles at me, or the love that greets me from a wonderful
husband and a wiggly, whiney little Dachshund when I walk in the door each
night.
That’s what happens when
we practice gratitude: we learn to rely on and trust utterly in God. And, when
we notice things to be thankful for, we also notice God’s presence within all
the various circumstances of life. And when we do that – trust God and notice
God’s presence in all things – we live our faith.
In this way, Jesus’ words
to the former leper, “your faith has made you whole,” can be good news for us
all after all – for the healed and the still sick, for the promoted and the
unemployed, for the safe and the endangered, for the put-together and the
broken. Prayers of thanksgiving, you see, heal the soul, such that whatever
physical circumstance the pray-er endures becomes less all-encompassing.
Prayers of thanksgiving bring wholeness.
It is the gratitude the leper expresses that saves him, and such thankfulness
is possible and available in every circumstance.
Practicing gratitude not
only changes a person; it changes a congregation. When gratitude becomes a
habit, it feels wrong not to give
thanks. We find fulfillment in coming to worship – not to get something out it,
but to have this chance to give thanks and praise in the presence of other
grateful people. We find giving of our time, talents and treasures becomes not
a result of arm-twisting or a fulfillment of duty, but an act of glad gratitude
by joyful givers. We see not only ourselves and our own needs and longings, but
we are pulled out of our sense of scarcity to see the whole world, and pray for
the needs of all.
God’s grace comes to us by
many avenues. Sometimes it is as clear to us as a recovery from drug addiction,
or healing from illness. Sometimes it is as apparent as a gorgeous sunset. Yet
sometimes it appears to us as strange and incomprehensible as a man hanging on
a cross. Because God can express grace to us by such unlikely means, Jesus’
statement that “your faith has made you well” is no longer hard to swallow for
those of us whose bodies or spirits are still broken. It becomes instead a
description of a life of blessing for the church and for each of us. As we go
on our way, we rejoice and give thanks, for in giving thanks for all things, in
all circumstances, we see that God is, after all, in all things.
Let us pray. God of grace, we sometimes find it difficult to give thanks – when we
are broken, sad, tired, angry, or sick. Help us to remember that your grace
comes to us even from a cross, so help us also to give you thanks in all the
circumstances of life. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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