Just a Simple “Thank You” Keith McFarren April 21, 2024 Luke 17: 11-19 One of the most famous speeches ever given came from a man who never really said much.Lou Gehrig, the relatively quiet New York Yankee first baseman, stood in front of a microphone in Yankee stadium on July 4, 1939…suffering from a fatal disease called Amyotrophi Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a disease that not only ruined his baseball career but in a matter of months would take his life. He took the time that day to thank his family, his friends and his fellow players, but he also took the time to thank the “little people” – the vendors and the ticket takers and the stadium workers – people who never received recognition, people who were however very important in Gehrig’s eyes. Maybe the reason we remember those famous words, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” is because they came from a man who had every reason in the world to be bitter.A man who had it all at age 36…and it was soon to all be taken away from him.Yet there he stood in that stadium full of people on that 4th of July day in 1939, a man …full of gratitude. We work hard at living…thinking that our jobs and our money and our possessions will make us happy.Yet, here is a man with just a few months to live who shows us the greatest joy of life. Life, and all that goes with it, is a gift from God.But God also gives us one other gift – and that is the gift of gratitude.Gratitude is what gives us the ability to experience life as a gift from God.Gratitude liberates our hearts from self-preoccupation.It opens us up to the wonders, and delights of the world.It opens us up to humility.Gratitude is what makes our hearts generous. Gratitude is how those who are rich toward God…those who are rich in “being”…play the game of life. Remember the story of the rich fool in the 12th chapter of Luke…the story of the rich farmer who had an overabundance of crops and instead of sharing with others decided to build bigger barns and storage facilities so that he could keep it all for himself.Here was a guy who was “into himself.”Life was all about him. ·“I’ll tear down my barns…and I’ll build bigger ones” ·“I’ll have more room to store everything I own.” ·Then “I’ll sit around and celebrate this life I’ve created for myself.” But the man had his priorities mixed up.You see one of the telling details of the entire story comes at the very beginning – it’s where Jesus says, “The ground of a certain man produced a good crop.” It doesn’t say that “the man” produced a good crop.It says that the ground produced a good crop.What Jesus wants us to see is that this crop and the ground it grew in was nothing more and nothing less than a gift from God. When you listened to the scripture reading that was read this morning, what surprised you more – the fact that only one person came back and shouted for joy at the top of his lungs, all while falling down at Jesus’ feet?Or the fact that nine people didn’t? On his way to Jerusalem, somewhere along the border between Galilee and Samaria, Jesus approached a village where he was greeted by ten lepers, ten men afflicted with the worst possible disease imaginable in Jesus’ day. Leprosy, people thought, was a punishment from God.It was incurable; it was disgusting; it was revolting.Leprosy was considered proof that you were the vilest sinner imaginable.If you had leprosy God was punishing you for doing something really, really, bad.You watched your body rot away.Your fingers and your ears and your nose literally rotted away. You died a slow and painful death, cut off from society and family and the only other friendships you had were with others who looked exactly like you.Ten dying, decaying, stinking lepers met Jesus and cried, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”Can you imagine the tension that must have filled the air as these ten men awaited the healing words or healing actions that they were hoping would come from Jesus “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”He didn’t touch them. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”He didn’t wash them. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”He didn’t even pray for them. “Go show yourselves to the priests” he said. “Go show yourselves to the priests.” Surely, they expected something else from Jesus…something more dramatic, something more along the line of miraculous. But there was something about Jesus that led them to obey him, something that led them to trust him and to do exactly what he told them to do.Something called…faith. “Do you have enough faith in me that you’ll show yourselves to the priests before you’re healed?”“Do you have enough faith in me that you’ll do what I tell you to do.” And as their faith led them toward the priest…it suddenly happened.Their bodies were changed…and they were healed.Every diseased cell in their bodies became healthy and whole again.Their fingers, their nose, their ears, the skin that had literally been scraped raw, suddenly became whole again. They looked at each other.They looked at themselves… and they began to laugh…and they began to cry and tears of joy streamed from their eyes.Elation and joy and happiness overtook them and all they could think about was getting home to their families…families they hadn’t been able to live with since they were afflicted by this terrible disease.And off they went, all caught up in the joy and excitement of the moment. All except one.All except the Samaritan who was overwhelmed with humility and overwhelmed by gratitude as he realized what had happened to him. Maybe the other nine kept on going because they thought they deserved to be healed…after all they were Jews…and if anyone deserved to be healed by Jesus it certainly ought to be them.With that attitude its no wonder it was, “Thanks a lot!I’ll see you later! But the Samaritan…well the Samaritan realized what had happened.He was an outcast, a Gentile, a non-Jew, and he had just received a gift…a gift he didn’t deserve.He had been touched by the love of God.A God who cares not who we are or what we have done.A God who loves us despite all the baggage we carry with us. Only one came back to thank the Giver for the gift…because he was the only one who realized that he had been healed by the grace of God. Ten men had been healed.Ten men were given a new lease on life.And just because the other nine didn’t come back doesn’t mean they were any less healed.The implication here is that they were not very grateful for the gift they had received. In the Civil War movie Shenandoah, Jimmy Stewart plays the husband and father of a large family that lives on a farm.He’s a very strict, stern, proud, self - sufficient man.A man whose world revolves around him and all his accomplishments. At the beginning of the movie, we find him praying a prayer before each meal that goes like this: “Lord, we cleared this land, we plowed it, we planted it, we harvested the crops, and we fixed the food.We worked till we were dog-boned-tired.None of this would be here if it weren’t for us, but thank you anyway. Amen.” But then the war starts and his life suddenly changes. His wife dies.His crops fail. His family is torn apart.Brothers fight against brothers. His daughter dies during child birth and he’s left with a newborn baby granddaughter.One of his sons is killed in the war and the other son, his favorite son, is captured and held prisoner in a prisoner of war camp and Stewart doesn’t know where he’s at or if he’s dead or alive. As the war drags on we once again find what’s left of Stewart’s family gathered around the table for a meal and he starts to pray the prayer that he’s prayed so many times before: “Lord we cleared this land, we plowed it, we planted it, we harvested the crops…” but this time when he got to the part that says, “None of this would be here if it weren’t for us” he couldn’t finish it because all the suffering and loss and death have shattered the illusion of his own self-sufficiency and of his own success. After all that had happened to him, he finally came to realize that all he had and all he accomplished was not due to his own self-sufficiency, but was due to a higher power…the power of God. And as God always does…God shows up, somehow, someway, to affirm his presence in our lives. Toward the end of the story Jimmy Stewart and what’s left of his torn family are shown sitting in church on a Sunday morning.And as they stand and begin to sing the doxology, “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” we see his youngest son, just released from a POW camp, come limping down the isle toward his father. Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.We sing that here as well every Sunday morning. But did you know there is another version of that song?It’s on page 94 of the UMH.It goes like this: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise God, all creatures here below.Praise God, the source of all our gifts!Praise Jesus Christ, whose power uplifts.” The ten lepers went from rags to riches that day.They got it all.A new life…a clean bill of health…and the opportunity to return to family and friends. But only one of them could see the greatness of the gift.Only one could see the magnitude of the gift.Only one could see the blessing of the gift.Only one could see God’s grace. But it’s not just the nine lepers…it’s all of us who fail to thank God “always and for everything,” as Paul writes in Ephesians 5:20.If we have any faith at all we know that God is the giver of all things: every mouthful of food we take, every breath of air we inhale, every note of music we hear, every smile on the face of a friend, a spouse or a child…all that and a million other things are gifts from God…gifts of generosity…gifts of grace. The proper response to God’s grace, is not to presume that it’s something that we deserve but to instead, show our gratitude and praise for that which we have been given. We are called this morning to see beyond our own wants and needs.To see beyond our own self – sufficiency, to see beyond our own arrogance. We are called to recognize all the gifts that we have been given…and that includes life itself, …and we are called to praise the giver for what we have. Jesus calls for us to faithfully look to the giver, to faithfully look to the giver and see all that we have been blessed with…and then be grateful…be grateful for all that he has given us…and be grateful for all that we have. |