THE POWER OF GRATITUDE

Transcription

1 THE POWER OF GRATITUDE By Andrew Wilson 2 Corinthians 4: 7-11, July 31, 2016 Luke 17:11-19 There s a lot going on in that story about Jesus healing the ten lepers. The story is mainly about gratitude and ingratitude, and the power they have in shaping our walk with God. That s what we re going to focus on this morning. But we can t ignore the bigger picture. We can t separate the story s core message from the broader spiritual themes that have been woven into the story. So we re going to begin by looking briefly at three themes. As you ll see, each of them raises a different set of issues relating to faith. Yet they all help us to understand the gratitude or ingratitude displayed by the ten lepers. The first theme is the coming of God s kingdom in Jesus. Wherever Jesus goes, he blesses those who are poor, sick, or marginalized. The ten lepers are all of those things. They re unemployable, desperately ill, and utterly cut off from society. In healing them, Jesus shows them and us what new life in God s kingdom is like. The poor are lifted up. The unclean are restored. The outcasts are welcomed home. Again, the story s first theme is the coming of God s kingdom in Jesus. The second theme is the power of faith. When Jesus tells the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests, they have a choice. They can fall to their knees in despair, or they can follow the Lord s instructions. We ll talk more about that later. The point, for now, is that the lepers are cleansed because they listen to Jesus and do what he tells them to do. They show their faith through their actions, and it s because of their faith that they re healed. The story s second theme is the power of faith. The third theme is the inclusiveness of God s kingdom. The story of the ten lepers challenges Hebrew ideas about kingdom boundaries. It reinforces the message that God manifests his grace and power in all kinds of people, and not just in the Jews. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan another magnificent passage, like this one, that s completely unique to Luke the Jews in the story act like jerks. They pass by the guy who has been mugged and left for dead. It s only the half-breed Samaritan who acts like a true child of God. 1

2 Well, something very similar happens here, except this time in real life. The one leper who returns to thank Jesus is a Samaritan. The nine others who fail to thank him, we can infer, are Jews. So once again, it s the despised half-breed and not the spiritual insiders who acts like a true child of God. The point isn t that Jews are selfish, ungrateful people. It s that God s kingdom isn t confined to Israel. God showers his grace on sinners of every nation and tribe, including those that were once enemies of God s chosen ones. That s the third theme we find in the story. With those three themes in mind, let s look more closely at the details. As the Lord is preparing to enter a small village on the border between Samaria and Galilee, word of his presence somehow reaches the local leper colony and ten of the residents seek him out. They cry out at a distance, Master, have pity on us! Even to Jesus, who regularly hangs out with the poor and the sick, the scene is shocking. Most likely, the men have hideous skin lesions all over their bodies, especially on their faces and fingers and toes. The filthy rags they use to wrap their sores identify them as people who should be avoided at all costs. According to Old Testament law, people suffering from leprosy and a host of other disfiguring skin disorders are supposed to live apart from society. To us it seems cruel and heartless to cast out the sick, but the rationale for ostracizing lepers was to protect the general public. In most pre-scientific cultures, people suffering from leprosy were confined to colonies. Leper colonies still exist in some regions of the developing world. Jesus tells the ten to show themselves to the priests. In the book of Leviticus, priests are charged with determining if a person is unclean because of a skin disorder. We don t need to talk about the actual criteria outlined in Leviticus. The main point is that Jesus is signaling to the lepers that they re going to be healed. The lepers know perfectly well that, in their current condition, the odds of them being declared clean are zero. So they show at least a small measure of faith when they set off to meet with the priests. As the lepers are walking down the road, all the symptoms of their disease disappear. Fingers and toes that have been lost reappear. Faces that have been disfigured by disease suddenly look flush and healthy. Their night-of-the-living dead comes to an end and a new day dawns. Why does only one return to thank Jesus? What distinguishes the Samaritan from the other nine? Obviously all ten are ecstatically happy to be healthy and free. So the Samaritan isn t unique in that regard. 2

3 Nor is the grateful Samaritan the only one that understands what Jesus has done. All ten had heard about Jesus miracles. That was why they cried out to him, Jesus, Master, have pity on us! They know perfectly well that their healing is a miraculous gift from Jesus. So what is it? What drives the Samaritan to throw himself at the Lord s feet and thank him? We don t really know why the Samaritan expresses his gratitude and the others don t. The most we can say is that the Samaritan loves his deliverer and can t rest until he finds him. So often we thank people just to fulfill a social obligation. The Samaritan s thank-you, by contrast, is a joyful expression of praise that comes straight from the heart. If we could follow them around, I m sure we d find that the other nine have nine different excuses for their thanklessness. The first, maybe, is angry with God for allowing him to suffer so greatly for so many years. He still feels betrayed. Instead of thanking Jesus, he wants to lecture him. The second is wondering if his parents are still alive, and if his younger brother has inherited the estate that should have been left to him. The third still loves a young woman in Galilee. He s desperate to find her. Does she still think about him? What if she s married? The fourth has been dreaming of a Mediterranean cruise. He s headed to Joppa to book a first class cabin. The fifth is sure his recovery is temporary and that his disease will be back tomorrow. The sixth is indignant about his treatment in the leper colony. He s arguing with the priests, demanding reparations. The seventh launches a campaign to change the Levitical laws relating to skin disorders. The eighth is convinced that Jesus is operating under the authority of Satan. And the ninth heads straight home to catch up on his , and post his awesome new selfies on Instagram and Facebook. OK, maybe I m reading too much into the story. Maybe the ungrateful nine just got so caught up in celebrating with their families and friends that they forgot to return thanks. The main point is that gratitude is an uncommon virtue. No matter how blessed or how troubled we happen to be in life, we can always find a reason to be ungrateful. We re all guilty, from time 3

4 to time, of being thankless, and we all have many excuses to offer. Worse than that, our hearts sometimes turn against those who help us the most. We see that ugly tendency on full display at the end of Jesus earthly ministry, when the spiritual leaders of Israel conspire to kill him. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wisely observes, We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. Jesus blesses the Samaritan lying at his feet. Rise and go, he tells him. Your faith has made you well (Luke 17:19). The Lord s words have a double meaning. At one level, he s referring to the physical healing that all ten lepers experienced. They looked to Jesus for healing; they followed his instructions when he told them to go to the priests; and Jesus rewarded them by healing their bodies. But Jesus is also speaking in spiritual terms. He s commending the Samaritan for his simple prayer of thanksgiving. More than that, he s telling him that God has adopted him as his very own child. Notice the connection that Jesus makes between faith and gratitude. Faith begins when we reach out to the Lord in desperation, and we confess our need for his healing grace and mercy. Faith grows when we make an effort to be obedient to the Lord, even when there s no obvious reward for doing so. But the final proof of authentic faith is gratitude. Faith that saves us faith that leads to wholeness and new life eventually blossoms into praise. Why was Christ disappointed when nine of the ten lepers he healed failed to thank him? We ve completely missed the point if we think that Jesus somehow needed to feel appreciated and affirmed by those he served. What we should say instead is the lepers needed to give the Lord their thanks. They needed to honor the Lord who had healed their bodies so that that same Lord could heal their spirits, and give them life in his name. God isn t wrestling with self-esteem issues. He doesn t need us to remind him of his goodness and love. The Lord enjoys our songs and our prayers of thanksgiving because he knows they re good for us. Our worship leads to greater intimacy with God. And greater intimacy with God always translates into greater love for other people. That s why God is able to use our worship to mold us into the joyful and loving people he wants us to be. The Bible tells us we should be grateful to God for everything that comes our way, including our temptations and our trials. In the Letter of James we read [BIBLE]: My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. - James 1:2-4 The First Letter of Peter echoes those words [BIBLE]: 4

5 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ s sufferings, so that you may be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. - 1 Peter 4:12-13 When we give thanks in the midst of suffering, what we re saying to God is: I may not understand what you re up to right now. But I trust you to see me through. And I trust you to bring good out of bad, just as you did when Jesus suffered and died on the cross. How do we cultivate gratitude? What concrete steps can we take to nurture a spirit of thanksgiving? Let s end today by looking at three of them: The first step is to understand how gratitude works. It s to realize that gratitude isn t a function of our outward circumstances. It isn t something that spontaneously erupts when good things happen to us. Gratitude, rather, is an attitude that springs from deep within us. Its strength, or depth, is determined not by how much we ve been blessed, but instead by where we choose to focus our time and attention. If we re in the habit of looking for things to complain about, we generally find them. And the opposite is true as well. If we re in the habit of looking for reasons to give thanks, we generally find them as well. All of us who know the Lord have good reasons to give thanks regardless of what we may be struggling with right now. We have even more reason to give thanks than the ten lepers had after they were healed. Our sins have been forgiven. God s Spirit lives inside us. We have the promise of eternal life. It s pretty hard to be a glass-is-half-empty kind of Christian if you wake up each morning counting those blessings. The second step in cultivating gratitude is to drop your precious sense of entitlement. People who feel entitled to things aren t thankful for what they have. Why would I be thankful for something that the world owes me? Why would I be thankful for my house and car and great job if I felt I had earned those things? Why would I be thankful for my education or my social security check or my health insurance if I believed I had a fundamental right to receive them? Why would I be thankful for being treated well by my family and friends if I thought they were obliged to treat me well? According to the Bible, none of us is entitled to the good things we enjoy. God gives them to us not because we deserve them, but just because he loves us. We can t be truly grateful for our blessings until we understand that. We can t be truly grateful for any of the good things in our lives until we see grasp in the very core our being that we re not entitled to them that they re gifts of love from our gracious heavenly Father. 5

6 The third step in cultivating gratitude is to express thanks. Many times, as I ve noted, our thankyous are insincere. They re phony and manufactured. We don t really mean them. But here s the salient point: the fact that we don t feel thankful should never stop us from giving thanks. Our mothers got that right. The fact that we don t like the birthday gift shouldn t stop us from writing a thank-you note. The fact that we re irritated with our spouse for failing us in a thousand ways shouldn t stop us from thanking him for doing some small favor. And the fact that we don t actually feel grateful for God s blessings shouldn t stop us from offering him praise. We cultivate gratitude by expressing gratitude. We become kingdom people by acting like kingdom people. Our feeble and often insincere attempts at gratitude are received by God with joy. More than that, no act of faith is ever received by God with indifference. He always meets us more than half-way. He s always working inside us to shape our hearts and minds in the image of Jesus. Pray with me using the words of Psalm 92: It is good to give thanks to the Lord, To sing praises to your name, O Most High; To declare your steadfast love in the morning, And your faithfulness by night For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; At the works of your hands I sing for joy. ngratitude is found at all levels of society. Poor people sometimes have just as hard a time saying thank you as do rich people. Nevertheless, poor people and rich people don t have an equal capacity for thankfulness. Those who have little, materially speaking, seem far more inclined to count their blessings. And those who have a lot, materially speaking, seem far more inclined to whine, complain, worry, feel entitled, and express dissatisfaction with the way their lives are going. Martin Luther said it like this: We exhibit a degree of thanksgiving in reverse proportion to the amount of blessings we have received The greater God s gifts and works, the less they are regarded. A hungry man is more thankful for his stale crust than a rich man is for his steak and potatoes. A lonely kid appreciates being included at the lunch table more than a popular kid appreciates an invitation to a party. 6

7 A Christian in China is more thankful for his dog-eared Bible than we are for all the Christian literature available to us. AW stories about Tanis and driving Pilipino friends to LA A few years ago Mary and I attended an evangelism conference in Monterrey. Church workers from all over the world were there. On the last day we were approached by two Filipino pastors we had met. They wondered if we could give them a ride to Los Angeles. We had been looking forward to spending the time in the car alone together, but Mary and I felt obliged to help our new friends. We suspected they were poor and were trying to save money by hitching a ride. What we soon found out was that they had no money at all. They had spent everything they had just trying to feed themselves during the conference. Though only one of the two spoke English, they proved to be endlessly entertaining. They taught us Filipino songs. They performed magic tricks. And they told us amazing stories about their churches. One of them was the only pastor at a huge church in Manila. He was struggling because he had a limited education and a very modest income. He worked 16 hours a day, 6 days a week. The second was serving a church of less than 50 people in a tiny village where people lived in shacks with dirt floors. He had a second job doing some kind of manual labor. We stopped for lunch at Carl s Junior. That s when I found out they were out of money. They told us they didn t want to eat but we bought them hamburgers anyway. The way they thanked us you d have thought we d sent them to Hawaii for a month. We had to stop by our house so I could drop off Mary before taking our friends to a church in Orange. When we pulled into our driveway they were absolutely astonished. Beautiful! they kept saying. Beautiful! Look, you live in the mountains, up close to God! And you have two cars? Then they spotted the swimming pool. Does every pastor in America live like this? they asked. I felt like crawling under a rock. The Bible tells us we should be grateful to God for everything that comes our way, including our temptations and our trials. In the Letter of James we read [BIBLE]: My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. - James 1:2-4 The First Letter of Peter echoes those words [BIBLE]: 7

8 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ s sufferings, so that you may be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. - 1 Peter 4:12-13 When we give thanks in the midst of suffering, what we re saying to God is: I may not understand what you re up to right now. But I trust you to see me through. And I trust you to bring good out of bad, just as you did when Jesus suffered and died on the cross. [SLIDE # 6 Picture of black man, buildings, palms behind, By the grace of Jesus ] I have a good friend in the Dominican Republic who s the pastor of a church and the superintendent of a large school. I ve know Tanis for about 18 years, and I ve watched him over most of that time struggle with one major challenge after another. Tanis and his wife, Esther, live with their two kids in Las Colinas, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods outside of San Pedro. It has only been in the past few years that Tanis has realized his dream of opening a Christian school for kids whose parents can t afford any of the local schools. Tanis ed my wife recently to thank our SPARKS kids for the books they sent for their new school library. Ask yourself, as I read, if Tanis sounds like a guy who ever spent a day in his life whining about his low salary, or the long hours he has to put in to grow his church and school [PAPER]: Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Jesus: By the grace of Jesus we are ALIVE, we have lived [through] many traumatic moments because of the storms that [have] affected our country Some little houses of our brothers and sisters in Esperanza had been affected, the good thing is that everyone is alive and can restart again, praise God. Now there is an outbreak of illness and many of us, teachers, students, church and family members are being affected by conjunctivitis causing us to be out of all activity for more than a week. Praise the Lord we are back We know God is in control. We are rejoicing for the new atmosphere of inspiration we have in the school, our teachers are doing better work, using all the materials we have It is amazing to see every day the students that come to take class in the morning coming back in the afternoon to work in the library. It gives us the hope that many things will change in their lives now they are not expending so much time playing without supervision. 8

9 We praise the Lord for you brothers and sisters that [he] is using to [help] this ministry whose vision is to change the lives of the poorest kids of our community through education, having the Word of God as our priority. Love in Jesus, Tanis The grateful Samaritan lay face down before Jesus, thanking him and praising God. And Jesus said to him [BIBLE}: Rise and go; your faith has made you well. - Luke 17:19 I believe Jesus words have a double meaning. At one level, he s referring to the physical healing that all ten lepers experienced. They looked to Jesus for healing; they followed his instructions when he told them to go to the priests; and Jesus rewarded them by healing their bodies. But Jesus is also speaking in spiritual terms. He s commending the Samaritan for his simple prayer of thanksgiving, and he s telling him that God has adopted him as his very own child. Notice the connection that Jesus makes between faith and gratitude. Faith begins when we reach out to the Lord in desperation, and we confess our need for his healing grace and mercy. Faith grows when we make an effort to be obedient to the Lord, even when there s no obvious reward for doing so. But the final proof of authentic faith is gratitude. Faith that saves us faith that leads to wholeness and new life eventually blossoms into praise. Those of us who are rich, and who have tasted the world s pleasures, have trouble appreciating treasure from heaven even when we hold it in our hands. So often, instead of savoring the simple pleasures God opens up for us each day, we fret about what we don t have. Instead of allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, we push ahead in search of a better job, a bigger house, or a more fulfilling lifestyle. The Lord wants to reverse this twisted pattern of living. He wants us to count our blessings, and express to him our sincere and humble thanks. But more important than that, God wants us to learn to lay aside the things that hinder us from serving him, and to cling to the things that bring us closer to him. More than that, while our excuses usually sound plausible to us, ingratitude towards God always looks ugly, and always seems unjustified. 9

10 Seven Principles for Cultivating Gratitude: 1. Gratitude is independent of our objective life circumstances 2. Gratitude is a function of attention 3. Entitlement precludes gratitude 4. We often take for granted that which we receive on a regular basis 5. Gratitude can be cultivated through sincere self-reflection 6. Expressing gratitude, through words and deeds, enhances our experience of gratitude 7. Our deepest sense of gratitude comes through grace, with the awareness that we have not earned, nor do we deserve all that we've been given. it may not have happened exactly that way. maybe I m reading too much into the story. From a human point of view, all these excuses are plausible. This foreigner (17:18), as Jesus calls him, isn t just and tell him it s no use, the priests are going to follow his instructions or they can a story about faith. The lepers wouldn t have, but the central point of the story is hard to miss. gratitu is about Like most good stories, that one is full of surprises. The first surprise is that those ten lepers took the risk of being seen in public. According to Old Testament law, people suffering from leprosy and a host of other disfiguring skin disorders were supposed to live apart from society. To us it seems cruel and heartless to cast out the sick, but the rationale for ostracizing lepers was to protect the general public. In most pre-scientific cultures, people suffering from leprosy were confined to colonies. Leper colonies still exist in many regions of the developing world. Even to Jesus, who regularly hung out with the poor and the sick, the scene would have been shocking. As Jesus was preparing to enter a small village on the border between Samaria and Galilee, word of his presence somehow reached the local leper colony and ten of the residents left the colony to seek Jesus help. Most likely, the men had hideous skin lesions all over their bodies, especially on their faces and fingers and toes. The filthy rags they used to wrap their sores identified them as people who should be avoided at all costs. The scene conjures up scary images images that are fed to us by the media. Think of the endless stream of movies about Zombies and virus-infected monsters who feed upon blonde supermodels in tank tops. Think of Night of the Living Dead, Flesh Freaks, Resident Evil, 10

11 Automaton Transfusion and 10,000 other films, the titles of which tell you everything you need to know about them. The story of the ten lepers stirs up our deep-seated fear of disease and death, but it contains a joyful message of redemption. The Lord has his eye on the outcast. He hasn t forgotten those who suffer in silence. He has a good plan to rescue us. The night-of-the-living-dead will soon come to an end, and a new day will dawn. The second surprise in is the story is the way in which the healing of the lepers took place. Old Testament law outlines an elaborate process for the ritual cleansing of people with skin disorders. It s safe to assume that some or all of the ten lepers had already sought help from the local priests. The priests had administered the treatments prescribed in Leviticus, and nothing had come of it. Imagine the disappointment of the ten, therefore, when Jesus told them to present themselves to the priests. In their minds Jesus was telling them he wouldn t help them. He was passing them off to the same old doctors so they could administer the same old failed remedies. A simple analogy might help us to empathize with those poor lepers. Imagine that you re gathered on a Friday night at one of our candlelight prayer services. In walks a friend of yours who has disease that, from a medical point of view, is terminal. When your friend raises her hand and requests healing prayer, the worship leader says to her: Sorry, you re in the wrong place. You ll need to see a doctor about that. From the perspective of the lepers, that s essentially what Jesus told them. Sorry, guys, leprosy is beyond my pay grade. You d better consult the priests. Thankfully, what sounded like a no from Jesus was actually a yes. As the lepers made their way to the priests, all of the dreadful symptoms of their disease disappeared. The healings demonstrated Christ s compassion on those who suffer. They were a sign of God s power to heal even the walking dead. The third surprise in the story is the fact that only one leper returned to thank Jesus. It turns out that he was a Samaritan. This fact made his behavior seem even more remarkable. Samaritans and Jews generally didn t get along. Most Jews thought Samaritans were ritually unclean halfbreeds who didn t belong to God s inner circle. So it was really sort of a scandal that the one person who returned to offer his thanks was a Samaritan. Jesus posed series of rhetorical questions to express his disappointment at the other nine lepers: 11

12 Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? - Luke 17:18 Apparently some or perhaps all of the other nine lepers were Jews. They should have known better. As God s chosen ones, they should have interpreted the healing as a gift from God and fallen on their knees in gratitude. But for some reason it never occurred to them to return to Jesus to thank him. The story reinforces the message found throughout the Bible that God s Kingdom isn t confined to the nation of Israel. God issues his call to everyone, including those who have been pushed aside by presumed insiders. The final surprise in the story, maybe the biggest one of all, is revealed at the end. While all ten lepers were healed physically, only one received salvation. Every parent worries about raising ungrateful children. We don t want our kids to be whiners. We don t want them to feel entitled to their X Boxes, their Oreo McFlurrys, their early morning cartoons and their trips to Disneyland. By the way, Pat Chambers explained to me the other day why it is that little boys whine. She says they re practicing to be men. There are all kinds of things we can do to cultivate gratitude in children. We can start by introducing the concepts of moderation and delayed gratification as early as possible. It also helps to model gratitude by giving thanks at mealtime and bedtime for God s simple gifts. Another thing we can do is teach our children to worship. Children who worship God regularly tend to look at the good things in their lives as blessings instead of entitlements. They also tend to be more charitable towards others, including those who are different from them. There s nothing that pleases God more than the songs and prayers of his children. You can be confident that his Holy Spirit is powerfully present and active wherever children gather in his name. That s why worship is a central part of the ministry we offer at the Center for Children. So remember God s blessings. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Praise God every day for his Son, Jesus, who offers wholeness and new life to all who put their faith in him. CLOSING PRAYER LED PRAYER IN SILENCE, IDENTIFY THE THINGS FOR WHICH YOU ARE THANKFUL Material things 12

13 Family Friends Trials Jesus Now let s praise God using David s prayer: Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength Bring an offering and come before him; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let them say among the nations, The Lord reigns! We pray in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Speculate about the responses of the other 9 lepers: #1 figured he just got lucky. #2 was mad at God for making him sick and figured he was just giving him the good health he deserved. #3 etc. We can never comprehend all that the Lord has done for us, and all that he continues to do by the power of his Spirit. When we die and we greet the Lord in our resurrected bodies we ll be able to look at our lives and see them as if for the first time. We ll see our foolish mistakes, when we turned from God and tried to cut our own path through the swamp. We ll see how God sustained us when we thought we were walking alone. And we ll see how God blessed us again and again when all we could see was trouble. Perhaps only then will we be able to worship and enjoy God as we were created to worship and enjoy him. Until that day arrives, God wants us to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. remember our blessings. One of the reasons I am a Christian is because when we walk with Christ, our suffering has meaning and purpose. We suffer so that we can learn to discipline our mind and our body. We suffer so that the Lord s kingdom will prosper. We suffer for the glory of God, whose name we bear. For all those reasons we can give thanks even in the darkest hours. Senator Richard Neuberger once said the experience of contracting cancer changed him forever. Here is how he described that change [PAPER]: 13

14 Questions of prestige, of political success, of financial status, became all at once unimportant. In their stead has come a new appreciation of things I once took for granted eating lunch with a friend, scratching Muffet s ears and listening for his purr, the company of my wife, reading a book or magazine in the quiet cone of my bed lamp at night, raiding the refrigerator for a glass of orange juice or a slice of coffee cake. For the first time I think I am actually savoring life. I shutter when I remember all the occasions that I spoiled for myself even when I was in the best of health by false pride, synthetic values, and fancied slights. If you re worried about whininess, grow up happier, healthier and better able to cope with They also tend to oesn t mean they never complain about their food, but it does understand where their food comes from. They understand that all blessings come from But it s incredibly difficult, in a society that s as rich and as materialistic as ours has become, to cultivate gratitude. lead to greater intimacy with him. praise him because he knows that worship pour when we do so we put our relationship with him on its proper terms. We affirm our role as stewards of God s blessings. We embrace our calling to serve Christ in our neighbor. We humble ourselves so that God can mold us into the joyful creatures he wants us to be. CONCL The Lord wants us to take time every day to remember what he has done for us. Instead of listening for God s voice, we surround ourselves with noisy distractions. Gratitude is expected of all of us, even if our lives have been difficult. But gratitude is sometimes hard to cultivate. long and hard. he story of the ten lepers reminds us, even those In the story of the ten lepers, ninety percent of the people turned out to be ungrateful, even though the gift they received was more valuable than gold. The message of the story isn t that ninety percent of all people are ungrateful, but I don t think we should conclude from the story that ninety percent of all people don t appreciate God s blessings. But The strange thing is that gratitude is often lacking in those who have been blessed with the most. 14

15 Those who have little tend to express gratitude more readily and more sincerely than those who have much. I observe that principle at work every time we help with the ministry of Food for Body and Soul. It makes me feel almost ashamed to hear our homeless friends express their thanks, and complement our chefs, and tell us God bless you as we serve them. I realize I m usually not half as thankful for the fine dinners my wife cooks for me. That night I offered a prayer of gratitude that was as sincere and passionate as any I have uttered before or since. Hans Seyle has done extensive research in the area of stress and stress management. Seyle claims that two attitudes more than any others influence the quality of our everyday life. They are revenge and gratitude. On these two emotions, he wrote, depend our peace of mind, our feelings of security or insecurity, of fulfillment or frustration, in short the extent to which we can make a success of life. He added that gratitude, more than any other [emotion], accounts for the absence or presence of stress in human relations. It s intriguing when scientific research confirms the wisdom found in our Bible. But the trouble with Seyle s research of course is that it provides no answers for us to the two most important questions it raises: What do we have to be grateful for? And to whom should we express our gratitude? When we abide in Christ, we find we always have a reason to give thanks. We re on the lookout for God s blessings. As we search them out, more and more of them emerge. And they seem to brighten as we count them. Mother Theresa told this story in an address at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994: One evening we went out, and we picked up four people from the street. One of them was in a most terrible condition. I told the sisters, You take care of the other three; I will take care of the one who looks the worst. So I did for her all that my love could do. I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand as she said two words only: Thank you. Then she died. I could not help but examine my conscience before her. What would I say if I were in her place? My answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said, I am hungry, I am dying, I am in pain, or something. But she gave me much more; she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face. And here are three to remember: Because Jesus Christ defeated the power of sin and death, we have the promise of eternal life. God desires to give us the kingdom, and all the blessings that 15

16 are contained there. And God is using every circumstance of ours lives to prepare us for life with him. CONCLUSION? The actions of the ungrateful Jews and the grateful Samaritan call to mind the words recorded at the beginning of John s gospel. Speaking of Jesus, the Evangelist says [BIBLE]: He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. - John 1:11-12 Again and again in the Bible the faithlessness of God s chosen people is contrasted with the faithfulness of the foreigner. who aren t part of God s inner circle. we learn about the unfaithfulness of God s chosen people Next: talk about ingratitude in our generation how the Samaritans of our day are the poor and those who have suffered in various ways. We have a sense of entitlement. We expect things, feel the world owes us, people owe us. Look up jokes, stories on entitlement. Read letter by Tanis. CONCLUSION: Return to the story, talk about the ending. There s one more surprise in the story : Rise and go; your faith has made you well. All were made whole physically, but the grateful Samaritan was made whole spiritually. Gratitude is the virtue that opens the door to God s healing. And that revelation makes Jesus final word to the thankful Samaritan all the more surprising [BIBLE]: Rise and go; your faith has made you well. - Luke 17:19 suffice it to say that the Samaritan who was healed 16

17 In light of the fact that only one of the lepers came back to thank Jesus, it might appear that the rest of the lepers didn t have any faith. This supposition seems to be confirmed at the end of the story when Jesus says to the one who thanked him: Rise and go; your faith has made you well. If the one who thanked Jesus had faith, doesn t that imply that the other nine didn t have faith? What is surprising for those of us who know the Lord is not so much that Jesus healed, but that he did so without touching the lepers, and without requirinthose of us who know the Lord maybe aren t so surprised by the fact that Another surprise in the story is the If Jesus was startled by the lepers, the lepers were stunned by the way that nthe area and they traveled to the and protect people from exposure to the sight of As is true even today in many parts of the world, lepers in were forced to live in coloniesto us it would be deeply unsettling to suddenly be confronted by 10 lepers. Both the story and the message behind it seem pretty clear. Jesus heals ten lepers, but only one of them returns to give thanks. Ten are healed of a hideous terminal disease, but only one returns to thank the L Jesus is passing through a little town between Samaria and Galilee. Ten lepers approach him and ask to be healed. They re probably from a nearby leper colony. It isn t hard to imagine their bandaged hands, their pathetic cries, or the look of compassion on Jesus face. The Lord tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. And as they turn to go their request is granted. Strangely, only one of the healed lepers returns to thank Jesus. He s a foreigner, a Samaritan. This fact adds a layer of irony to the story. We might have expected the grateful leper to be a pious Jew. Instead, he s a half-breed, one who wouldn t have been welcome in respectable Jewish circles even if he hadn t been suffering from leprosy. The Lord expresses his amazement at the ingratitude of the other nine. Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? [Luke 17:17]. Then he says to the one who has returned, who s lying on the ground at Jesus feet, Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well [17:19]. This last remark is a little confusing. Jesus seems to be saying that the grateful leper has been healed of his leprosy because of his faith. But if that s what Jesus means to say, then why were all the lepers healed, and not just the one who showed faith? We need to understand that Jesus is speaking of a spiritual healing that has accompanied the grateful leper s physical healing. When we make that distinction, the message becomes clear: We demonstrate our faith in Christ when we express our gratitude to him for the blessings he has bestowed on us. And faith like that leads to forgiveness and new life. 17

18 The story of the ten lepers reminds us that we need to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. That s the message this morning. Leprosy is an infectious illness caused by a bacterium that damages peripheral nerves and the upper respiratory tract. People suffering through the advanced stages of leprosy have hideous skin lesions all over their bodies, especially on their fingers and toes. Leprosy was a common illness in Jesus day, but according to Old Testament law, sufferers were ostracized. The book of Leviticus contains elaborate regulations pertaining to all kinds of skin disorders, including leprosy One. The first surprise is that those ten lepers were out It would have been surprising even for Jesus to be confronted by ten lepers in a Jewish village. In nearly every pre-scientific culture, those suffering from leprosy have been confined to colonies in order to contain the disease. The ten lepers who approached Jesus were probably wrapped in filthy rags that served as bandages. Those bandages identified them as people who should be avoided at all costs. Most likely, the men had hideous skin lesions all over their bodies, especially on their faces and fingers and toes. The filthy rags they used to wrap their sores identified them as people who should be avoided at all costs. The scene conjures up Halloween images, and images, and Zombie movies like Night of the Living Dead and Flesh Freaks, and out-of control virus movies like I Am Legend, 28 Days Later all feed on our fear of infectious diseases and of the and of the Night of the Living Dead, I Am Legend and in a world where the evidence seems to suggests he has abandoned us. We shouldn t expect him to work spectacular miracles. We should instead trust He heals leprosy with anti-biotics. He heals alcoholics through Twelve-Step programs. He heals marriages through psycho-therapy. [Most of us don t know what to do with miracles. When we hear someone we know someone we trust testify that her chronic back problems were healed through prayer, we don t say, Praise the Lord! I need to be more faithful in prayer! I need to be more persistent in praying for my sick friends! Instead, our instinct is to be skeptical. We say, Hummm I wonder if that was really God at work, or just an example of psycho-sematic healing? Or we say, I wonder why God decided to bless that person with a miracle, and why he never blesses me or my friends with miracles? We re also skeptical of the miracles of the Bible. Many of us believe that they aren t just fanciful stories. We believe they actually happened. But it s hard for us to see how they apply to us today. 18

19 For example, when we read about Jesus cleansing ten lepers we don t say, Wow, if the Lord can do that for them, think what he can do for me! Thinks what he can do for the people I love! Instead we say, That was Jesus. That was a special time and place in history. People needed miracles back then so they would understand that Jesus was the true Messiah. Today God is more subtle. The workings of his hand are less visible to us. For us, faith means trusting in his goodness even though it looks like he has abandoned us. It means believing he s eventually going to set things right, but not expecting too much of him from day to day. ] They help us to appreciate the power of gratitude. They help us to understand how we can cultivate a spirit of thankfulness and become more aware of God s daily blessings. ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR VICTORIOUS LIVING: REMEMBERING GOD S BLESSINGS By Andrew Wilson 1 Chronicles 16:8-13, October 26, 2008 Luke 17:11-19 [SLIDE # 1 Title slide, photo of grassy hillsides] Like most good stories, that one is full of surprises. The first surprise is that those ten lepers took the risk of being seen in public. According to Old Testament law, people suffering from leprosy and a host of other disfiguring skin disorders were supposed to live apart from society. To us it seems cruel and heartless to cast out the sick, but the rationale for ostracizing lepers of course was to protect the general public. In most prescientific cultures, people suffering from leprosy were confined to colonies. Leper colonies still exist in many regions of the developing world. Even to Jesus, who regularly hung out with the poor and the sick, the scene would have been shocking. As Jesus was preparing to enter a small village on the border between Samaria and Galilee, word of his presence somehow reached the local leper colony and ten of the residents left the colony to seek Jesus help. Most likely, the men had hideous skin lesions all over their bodies, especially on their faces and fingers and toes. The filthy rags they used to wrap their sores identified them as people who should be avoided at all costs. The scene conjures up scary images images that are fed to us mostly by the media. Think of the endless stream of movies about Zombies and virus-infected monsters who feed upon blonde supermodels in tank tops. Think of Night of the Living Dead, Flesh Freaks, Resident Evil, Automaton Transfusion and 10,000 other films, the titles of which tell you everything you need to know about them. The story of the ten lepers stirs up our deep-seated fear of disease and death, but it contains a joyful message of redemption. The Lord has his eye on the outcast. He hasn t forgotten those 19

20 who suffer in silence. The night-of-the-living-dead will soon come to an end, and a new day will dawn. The second surprise in is the story is the way in which the healing of the lepers took place. Old Testament law outlines an elaborate process for the ritual cleansing of people with skin disorders. It s safe to assume that some or all of the ten lepers had already sought help from the local priests. The priests had administered the treatments prescribed in Leviticus, and nothing had come of it. Imagine the disappointment of the ten, therefore, when Jesus told them to present themselves to the priests. In their minds Jesus was telling them he wouldn t help them. He was passing them off to the same old doctors so they could administer the same old failed remedies. A simple analogy might help us to empathize with those poor lepers. Imagine that you re gathered on a Friday night at one of our candlelight prayer services. In walks a friend of yours who has disease that, from a medical point of view, is terminal. When your friend raises her hand and requests healing prayer, the worship leader says to her: Sorry, you re in the wrong place. You ll need to see a doctor about that. From the perspective of the lepers, that s essentially what Jesus told them. Sorry, guys, leprosy is beyond my pay grade. You d better consult the priests. Thankfully, what sounded like a no from Jesus was actually a yes. As the lepers made their way to the priests, all of the dreadful symptoms of their disease disappeared. The healings demonstrated Christ s compassion on those who suffer. They were a sign of God s power to heal even the walking dead. [SLIDE # 2 Cartoon of girl opening box, quote from Luke] The third surprise in the story is the fact that only one leper returned to thank Jesus. It turns out that he was a Samaritan. This fact made his behavior seem even more remarkable. Samaritans and Jews generally didn t get along. Most Jews thought Samaritans were ritually unclean halfbreeds who didn t belong to God s inner circle. So it was really sort of a scandal that the one person who returned to offer his thanks was a Samaritan. Jesus posed series of rhetorical questions to express his disappointment at the other nine lepers [BIBLE]: Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? - Luke 17:18 Apparently some or perhaps all of the other nine lepers were Jews. They should have known better. As God s chosen ones, they should have interpreted the healing as a gift from God and fallen on their knees in gratitude. But for some reason it never occurred to them to return to Jesus to thank him. 20

21 The story reinforces the message found throughout the Bible that God s Kingdom isn t confined to the nation of Israel. God issues his call to everyone, including those who have been pushed aside by presumed insiders. The final surprise in the story, maybe the biggest one of all, is revealed at the end. While all ten lepers were healed physically, only one received salvation. The grateful Samaritan lay facedown before Jesus, thanking him and praising God. And Jesus said to him [BIBLE}: Rise and go; your faith has made you well. - Luke 17:19 I believe Jesus words have a double meaning. At one level, he s referring to the physical healing that all ten lepers experienced. They looked to Jesus for healing; they followed his instructions when he told them to go to the priests; and Jesus rewarded them by healing their bodies. But Jesus is also speaking in spiritual terms. He s commending the Samaritan for his simple prayer of thanksgiving, and he s telling him that God has adopted him as his very own child. Notice the connection that Jesus makes between faith and gratitude. Faith begins when we reach out to the Lord in desperation, and we confess our need for his healing grace and mercy. Faith grows when we make an effort to be obedient to the Lord, even when there s no obvious reward for doing so. But the final proof of authentic faith is gratitude. Faith that saves us faith that leads to wholeness and new life eventually blossoms into praise. [SLIDE # 3 Pictures of angry man and woman, quote from 1 Chronicles] As the story of the ten lepers reminds us, ingratitude is found at all levels of society. Poor people sometimes have just as hard a time saying thank you as do rich people. Nevertheless, poor people and rich people don t have an equal capacity for thankfulness. Those who have little, materially speaking, seem far more inclined to count their blessings. And those who have a lot, materially speaking, seem far more inclined to whine, complain, worry, feel entitled, and express dissatisfaction with the way their lives are going. Martin Luther said it like this: We exhibit a degree of thanksgiving in reverse proportion to the amount of blessings we have received The greater God s gifts and works, the less they are regarded. A hungry man is more thankful for his stale crust than a rich man is for his steak and potatoes. A lonely kid appreciates being included at the lunch table more than a popular kid appreciates an invitation to a party. A Christian in China is more thankful for his dog-eared Bible than we are for all the Christian literature available to us. [SLIDE # 4 Picture of crying boy, no text] 21