Luke 17:11-19
Like every other kid who received a 10-dollar bill or a shirt for their birthday…
- I was expected to send a thank you note to Grandma.
- But it never felt like a natural outpouring of my gratitude.
- It felt like an obligation…an obligation I would gladly give $10 to get out of.
- So yes…there have been times in my life I have not been so grateful…
- That gratitude naturally flowed into a thank-you note to someone.
But our text for today tells of a leper who Jesus healed returning to praise God and give thanks to Jesus.
- And this week as I thought about the grateful Leper…
- I began to realize that I do not praise God as I should.
- I realized how much easier it was for me to talk last week about lamenting and complaining to God…
- And how much trickier it feels to cut loose and praise God.
It is so much easier for me to long for what I want…
- To resent what I have lost…to resent others for what they have…
- Then it is for me to be thankful for what I have.
- I am not alone here though.
- I mean…when is the last time we heard a newscaster say:
- Not a single school shooting in America this week. Praise God.
- Or…the Nation is grateful this week for all the successful cancer treatments that have left thousands of people with a clean bill of health.
- We generally do not find a lack of trauma to be worthy of comment…
- Much less to be worthy of gratitude.
This week I thought about what praise is and what it is not.
- How praising God is not just stroking God’s ego…sycophantically telling God how awesome he is…
- As though God has low self-esteem and created us for just this purpose.
- How thankfulness is not an obligation like the thank-you note to Grandma was…
- But…is an act of freedom that doubles the joy of what was received.
So…rather than talk about praise…I thought that what I really needed this week…on a spiritual level…was to praise God.
- So…I invite you to listen in.
- The Lord be with you.
11On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.
- That you O God…are one who comes to us in the regions between.
- The boundary spaces that we often fail to notice or we fear altogether.
- I thank you…thank you for those who bring water in the desert danger of liminal border-crossings.
- Thank you for the space between my wakefulness and sleep.
- Thank you for being in the regions between…that we try to pretend are not there…
- Demilitarized zones and back-alley ways and underneath bridges.
12As he entered a village…ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance… 13they called out…saying, “Jesus…Master…have mercy on us!”
- For your approachability in Jesus…O God…I give you thanks.
- Thank you for coming to us in the most vulnerable way possible…contained in human skin.
- Thank you for revealing your glory in the person of Jesus Christ whom lepers approach.
14When he saw them…he said to them… “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
- That you see me O God…I give you thanks.
- Thank you for seeing that which I try to hide.
- Thank you for seeing my hurt and my fear.
- Thank you for seeing my heart and my humor.
- Thank you for seeing that I am stronger than I think…
- And that I am also not nearly as strong as I think.
- Thank you for seeing this broken world in all its beauty…
- And…especially thank you for seeing all these things and then responding in nothing but complete love.
Thank you for (over many years of ministry) how you have sent these your people to show themselves to me…
- In sending babies and retired folks and suburban moms and corporate guys and social workers and students…
- That you for having shown yourself to me.
- Knowing…as you do…that without the stories…gifts and scars of each of these people…I would never see enough of you.
And as they went…they were made clean.
- That healing happens in community O God…I praise you.
- Thank you for the way in which you bring your people together to be healed.
- For the ways in which we harm each other instead…forgive us.
15Then one of them…when he saw that he was healed…turned back…praising God with a loud voice.
- Praise to you God for the ones who turn back.
- Thank you for all the people in my life who speak your name…
- Who bravely point to you as the source and ground of all goodness…
- Who dare to recognize you as God and who remind me that you are real…
- And you are actively redeeming me and them and all of creation.
16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked… “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine… where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
- Blessed be God the Word who came to his own and his own received him not…
- For in this way…God glorifies the stranger.
- Thank you for revealing yourself in the foreigner…I think.
- I mean…it is one of the less comfortable aspects of following you…Jesus.
- But thank you for loving me too much to allow me to stay comfortable for too long.
- Thank you for interrupting my pride and for refusing to leave me as is.
- It is uncomfortable but…in your faithfulness…
- You always lead me through death to more abundant life.
19Then he said to him… “Get up and go on your way…your faith has made you well.”
For all the things that in going on my way I have failed to even notice I give you thanks today.
- Thank you for this community.
- Thank you for the chaos of children.
- Thank you for the two Christmas palm trees in my yard.
- Thank you for friends who text me back.
- Thank you for coffee.
- Thank you for the person in my 12-step meeting who reminded me that when in doubt…
- Just say…Thy Will be Done…because I totally had forgotten about that part.
- Thank you for clean water and safe roads and electricity and garbage pick-up.
- Thank you for 55 years of marriage to my college sweetheart.
- Thank you for babies.
- Thank you for never leaving me.
- Thank you for the supper I got to share with my daughter and family this week.
- Thank you for all the people who make me laugh.
- Thank you for creating us to sing.
- Thank you for cats and dogs.
- Thank you for the way in which I am fed at your table of grace…
- And for allowing me to speak there and tell the story of the night you were betrayed.
- Thank you for the bread and wine which we are about to receive.
- Thank you for giving me one more day to sing your praise.
- And for every other gift I am too blind to see…that comes from you.
It is all a gift!
- Every day…we stand in the shade of trees we did not plant…
- We live in houses we did not build…
- We eat food we did not produce…
- We ponder ideas that are not original to us…
- We sing songs and tell jokes that we did not compose…
- We live in physical bodies with minds and spirits that we did not create…
- It is all a gift…every flower that we smell…
- Every drop of water that we drink…
- Each and every minute of our lives is a completely unmerited…undeserved gift from God.
- Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.