Sermon preached by Fr. Tom
at St. Thomas Episcopal – Plymouth
October 13, 2013
Twenty-first Sunday of Pentecost – Proper 23
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Psalm 66:1-11
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19
“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be an acceptable offering in your sight, Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”
Last week, I read you a portion of the “Sermon to the Birds” by St. Francis. It ends with “beware the sin of ingratitude,” and this was one of my takeaways. The Scripture this week lends itself to developing this takeaway a little, and it has been where my heart has been this last week as well.
I would like for each of you to start by thinking of someone who has made a difference in your life. I won’t call on you, so you can think about the question and not worry about being called on. How did this person influence you? All of us have people like this in our lives. There are coaches and that friend of your mother’s who always seemed interested in what you were doing. Hold that thought.
I have often thought about today’s lesson, and if I am ever asked to speak at a graduation, this will probably be my text. I can tell you that Jesus had one in ten return, and as a teacher, you have maybe one in one hundred. It is tough to estimate but it probably is close to one in a hundred. I see more of the Culver kids, and for some reason about half of the students I taught in the 80’s keep up with me on Facebook because they come back for reunions, but for the eight years I was teaching in the public schools and teaching at MTSU at night, I had about 350 students a year, and I have only heard from one or two of them.
In today’s Gospel, nine of the lepers go on and never look back. Their lives have been changed. One returns to say thanks.
Now when I say lives were changed for these lepers, you have to realize that In the time of Jesus, those suffering from various skin diseases were treated as total social outcasts. They had to keep their distance from other people. The only company they had was their fellow lepers.
One day Jesus is traveling through border country that separates Samaritan and Jewish territory. From a distance, a group of lepers call out to him, begging to be healed of their affliction.
Jesus tells them to show themselves to the priests. He seems to be getting ahead of himself. Inspection by a priest is the rule for certifying that a former leper is now disease-free. This rule is recognized by Samaritan and Jew alike. But the lepers accept what Jesus says; off they go to see the priests. And on the way, they become clean; they are lepers no longer.
Notice what happens now. These people are free from their disease. After who knows how many years of separation––perhaps a lifetime––they can rejoin their families and their communities. Now they belong to their people, and to the human race! A new and joyous world has opened up for each of them. There’s so much to do, so much they can do, because they are outcasts no longer.
I can hear my mother now on Christmas morning. “Oh no you don’t. You are going to sit down now and write five thank you notes before you can go outside.” Only one of these ten turns around and demonstrates gratitude. Ten percent is a pretty poor response from people whose lives are suddenly a lot different thanks to Jesus.
Ninety percent of this group of lepers seems never to have thanked Jesus. In a way it’s easy to see why: they were hugging their relatives, perhaps for the first time in decades.
Do Christians today do much better when they can offer thanks during public worship?
I will tell you to think of the intercessions and the thanksgivings when we do the Prayers of the People. I am guilty of this myself. I will have a long list of people I am praying for. Thanksgivings are never the long list.
I would like to suggest some sources for us to learn from.
The first is the poor. Often the poor are thankful, whether they are conventionally religious or not. We imagine that they are ungrateful or bitter about circumstance, but in general I am not seeing it. This was true when I went with the Cathedral youth group for two years to Barnes Mountain in Kentucky. We were working with people who did not having running water or electricity in some cases. They were remarkably sincere in their gratitude to our group, and really we did not do much for them in the big picture.
I am going to suggest that we can learn from another religious tradition as well. I attended all the Shabbat services for a few years at Culver when I was there. They were a wonderful group of very faithful students, and giving thanks was an important part of their tradition. They had some prayer books which were English on one side and Hebrew on the other, and I was flipping through one day and came on a section of thanksgivings. There were some I really liked, and some of them are things I do not think to give thanks for.
On eating a seasonal fruit for the first time in its season
Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season.
On hearing thunder
Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, whose strength and power fills the universe.
On seeing an exceptionally beautiful person, tree, or field
Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has this in his universe.
How about this one!
On seeing exceptionally strange looking people or animals
Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who makes the creatures different.
Perhaps we find it hard to express our thanks in prayer. I think we just find it hard to say thanks in general.
You may not know that our own prayer book has a section for prayers of thanksgiving that starts on p. 836. They are not as interesting as the Jewish thanksgiving for having seen a strange looking person, but we have them there.
Perhaps we can learn from the poor that life is a cause for celebration.
Perhaps we can learn from Judaism to put our gratitude into words addressed to God.
If we have a hard time finding the words, we can look in the prayer book.
We need to find a way to be grateful for our many blessings. Jesus has redeemed us and made us new men and women. We are like those lepers. Our lives have been transformed. Let’s be the one who says, “Thanks.”
Think now about the person I asked you to remember at the beginning of this sermon. This might be a good time to look that person up and say thanks as well. You can’t always do this of course. It may be that the best we can do is live by the lessons they taught, and pass on that care they showed.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “It is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” I am encouraging you to be rich in spirit – grateful for all God has given you. Grateful for those who made a difference in your lives.
I am encouraging you to say your thank yous.
The mystical writer Eckhart said: “If the only prayer you ever said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.”
I have said these words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen