A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

Go To The Source

Luke 17:11-19, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, October 14, 2007

A woman stood patiently at the curb, too proud to ask someone to take her across, yet too afraid to attempt the journey by herself. She hoped someone would notice the folded white cane in her hand. Finally, a gentleman touched her hand and asked if she'd mind him taking her arm to cross the street. At the other side, the gentleman sighed with relief and said: "Thank you very much, Miss. I'm blind and am grateful for your assistance." Sometimes we should be even more grateful than we know, actually most of the time.

Our text this morning is about gratitude, obviously. Being grateful is not at its core an act of civility or consideration. It is a religious expression of the proper response to God’s grace. Thankfulness should not be a once in a while gesture at the big moment when you are saved from a speeding truck by the quick acting of a stranger. If you were to spend your whole day giving thanks to God and others who are workers of God’s grace in your life, your day would not be wasted. In fact, it would be complete, as in perfect, as when Jesus commanded us to, “Be perfect (or complete) as your Father in heaven is perfect,” which reminds me of the story of a bank teller at the drive-in window, who was having difficulty with the glaring sun. He lowered the shade. Behind the shade, he could see customers as they drove up, but they couldn't see him. As one woman drove in, he punched the button. The money drawer opened just as the woman came to a stop. She put her check in the drawer and it withdrew. Seconds later the drawer rolled out again with her money in it. She took the money and stared at the window. She couldn't see anybody. "I know you are completely automated," she said, "but I want to thank you anyway." Our bodies, souls, spirits, minds, and wills are constructed upon the spiritual energy of gratitude. Gratefulness is the vitamin and mineral, the protein, etc. that is needed to build the healthy soul and spirit. Thankfulness is the nutrient that our body, soul, spirit, mind, and will craves to make us healthy. As Scripture says, “It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord.” Ps. 92:1 This is a holistic, spiritual, Christian response that keeps us connected to God, to our best and healthiest selves, and to the true character of those around us and God’s creation. This is why we hear such sadness in Jesus’ voice when he plaintively asks, “Weren’t ten made clean? The other nine, where are they?” To have gratitude is to have God-attitude, a great attitude, and Jesus was hoping these ten, these ten lepers now made clean, would certainly have this God-attitude, this great attitude, gratitude. They didn’t, but we should. Proverbs 3:6 directs us: “In all your ways acknowledge the Lord.” Give thanks to God. Let your heart be joyful because of what God has given. Lift your thoughts to the wonders and miracles of blessings that are all around you. Don’t take for granted the good things in life and the source of all that is good, God’s abundant graciousness toward us. Thanks be to God.

What we want to see this morning is that giving thanks is part of a much larger spiritual and Christian lifestyle.

Giving thanks isn’t easy, which is why we have to talk about it fairly often in church. Yet it is so important. Let me give you an example. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Marit and I haven’t had many good nights of sleep in the last three or more years—Marit fewer than I—and certainly not for the last 18 months. Linnea sleeps upstairs but because we sleep on the first floor of our home, the babies still sleep in our room, since their room is upstairs also. One or both of them will almost always wake up during the night more than once, crying or something, which will of course wake us up. If they are inconsolable enough, the way to get them to go back to sleep is of course bringing them into Mommy and Daddy’s bed. And then there is Linnea, who comes down most nights at some point during the early morning hours, stands at the gate we have put up so that the twins are stopped when they try to go upstairs during the day, and calls out for Mama normally. By the time five or six o clock in the morning rolls around, it is customary that we have two children in our bed, with feet and arms poking and turning into us. It’s a mess. So Thursday late night, early morning, and Linnea is on my pillow, Lucas is sleeping by mom. I am at the edge of the bed, and Linnea has taken my left hand and is holding it in her hands, while she touches and plays with my wedding ring, which is what she does whenever given this opportunity. After nights and nights of this, week after week, month after month, year after year literally, one might get a little grouchy, lose perspective, and lose a little gratitude. It’s definitely happened to me. But Thursday morning, it didn’t. I remembered to give thanks to God for Linnea, for her wanting to hold my hand and be so close to me, for how blessed I was to have children. And you know right when I did, all the tension went away, from my head through my chest and shoulders and stomach down through my legs. I still don’t think I fell asleep, but I was certainly happier. Gratitude to God for my sleeplessness and tiredness because I have children who love their mommy and daddy and need us was the perfect and right response. Gratitude to God healed me and made me whole. Giving thanks and praising God is that powerful. It can change our hearts and minds in God’s direction. Giving thanks gives us our soul back again. Praising God makes us selfless again. So lift your heart to the Lord. Turn your spirit right side out by getting your heart right inside out.

Jesus was walking with his disciples along the border between Samaria and Galilee. They were entering a village when they came upon a band of lepers, ten in all, both Jews and Samaritans. It is amazing, isn't it, how mutual misery can cut across social, religious and racial lines? When you are hurting, like these lepers were hurting, you cannot afford the silly prejudices that afflict the rest of humanity. When Jesus saw these lepers, he said to them, "Go show yourselves to a priest." The Old Testament required the cured leper to have his cure validated by the temple priest. Luke tells us that, as they were journeying to show themselves to the priest they were healed. What a celebration they must have had these men with decaying and disfigured bodies who suddenly discovered that they had been healed. They must have been delirious with joy.

A man who played the French horn in the Salvation Army band used to say, "When I think of what the Lord has done for me, I could just blow this old horn out straight." However, as soon as nine of these men were healed, it appears they became like everybody else. They once spoke with one voice, now they've scattered. They once called Jesus "Master," now they forget him. They once cried for help, but when they got it, only a tenth of them went to the source of their help and gave thanks. Now I know they were excited to get home and show themselves to their wives, children, parents, friends. No doubt we should expect they would head out to them as soon as possible. And something else that I haven’t read from any commentator on this passage: We don’t know how far they walked away from Jesus. Maybe even after they were healed, they all still dutifully made the trip to see the priest, who was a ways a way. So by then they were much closer to their families, and much farther from Jesus. And maybe they thought that by now Jesus had moved and they didn’t know where he was; and they were going to say thank you as soon as they had seen their family, been hugged by their family and cried tears of joy with their family… But they just didn’t get back to the source of their joy. Giving thanks and praising God doesn’t always come easy, for a lot of reasons. Ultimately, this story isn't a lesson in good manners; it is a lesson in true gratitude, a gratitude that is a God attitude, a great attitude, even, especially when it doesn’t come easy.

God gives us seven days a week, whether we care enough to return to give praise and thanks on the Sabbath. He gives us food, clothes, family, friends and all we need in this daily life, whether we are grateful enough to share with those who have less, bringing his grace to others. God has redeemed us not with silver and gold, easy minerals found in the ground, but with the precious body and blood of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, whether we care enough to thank him, praise him, or share his gifts with others. Nine lepers got their lives back, celebrated their healing, believing they had everything again, but they didn’t make the return back to the source of their amazing blessings. Many of us, in our own ways, do the same, and still, God doesn’t rescind his gifts, which again shows the grace of God. As Martin Luther wrote in The Small Catechism: "To be sure, God provides daily bread, even to the wicked, without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that God may make us aware of his gifts, and enable us to receive [them] ... with thanksgiving." Not that God needs our thanks, but we need to be right with ourselves and God—and so we give thanks. It’s not God who doesn’t know the magnitude of his kindness toward us; it is the rest of us who forget—and so we ought to praise God. So give thanks to God. Literally stop yourself, your mind from thinking about everything but God and how blessed and fortunate you are to be alive, to be loved, to be healthy, to not be in a hospital, to have a home, and the list goes on and on and on. I know it seems like it would take all day and be nonstop once we got going, but let us give thanks for some of these at some time of the day and night each day. Nothing is stopping us from stopping our thinking at 9 a.m., 3 p.m., and 9 p.m. each day and night for a minute or two to thank God for all that we have and are. Remember when you remember God’s goodness toward you it can only help you to be good in turn.

As someone observed: If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills, If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains, If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles, If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it, If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time, If you can overlook when people take things out on you, when through no fault of your own something goes wrong, If you can take criticism and blame without resentment, If you can face the world without lies and deceit, If you can conquer tension without medical help, If you can relax without liquor, If you can sleep without the aid of drugs, If you can truly say that you wake each morning with undying loyalty to everyone you know, If you can find great happiness in the simplest things in life and gives thanks for them, If you can forgive any action in the blink of an eye, Then, you are almost as good as your dog.

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