October 9, 2022 Stewardship St. Andrew Church Rev. Anne McAnelly
First Lesson: Psalm 111
1 Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
2 Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
3 Full of honor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
4 He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds;
the Lord is gracious and merciful.
5 He provides food for those who fear him;
he is ever mindful of his covenant.
6 He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the heritage of the nations.
7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.
8 They are established forever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
9 He sent redemption to his people;
he has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is his name.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever.
Second Lesson: Luke 17:11-21
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? 18 Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
20 Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
Greg Anderson, in Living Life on Purpose tells a story about a man whose wife had left him. He was completely depressed. He had lost faith in himself, in other people, in God–he found no joy in living. One rainy morning this man went to a small neighborhood restaurant for breakfast. Although several people were at the diner, no one was speaking to anyone else. Our miserable friend hunched over the counter, stirring his coffee with a spoon.
In one of the small booths along the window was a young mother with a little girl. They had just been served their food when the little girl broke the sad silence by almost shouting, “Momma, why don’t we say our prayers here?” The waitress who had just served their breakfast turned around and said, “Sure, honey, we can pray here. Will you say the prayer for us?” And she turned and looked at the rest of the people in the restaurant and said, “Bow your heads.” Surprisingly, one by one, the heads went down. The little girl then bowed her head, folded her hands, and said, “God is great, God is good, and we thank him for our food. Amen.”
That prayer changed the entire atmosphere. People began to talk with one another. The waitress said, “We should do that every morning.”
“All of a sudden,” said our friend, “my whole frame of mind started to improve. From that little girl’s example, I started to thank God for all that I did have and stopped majoring in all that I didn’t have. I started to be grateful” (Sermons.com, Brett Blair).
Gratitude is infectious, buoyant, and healing. It lifts our spirits when we feel like we can go no further. The ten lepers in Jesus’ story were feeling down, trapped by their disease and isolated. They reach out to Jesus asking for mercy. Jesus sends them to a priest. Brett Blair writes, “I can’t begin to explain how it happened. Their numbness began to pass. The wretched sores that scarred their hands and faces began to vanish. Their flagging strength began to return. As they had obeyed the command of Christ their longing for healing had come” (Sermons.com).
All ten were healed, but only one returns. Gratitude is what set the one apart. His joy for receiving the gift of wholeness, thanking the one who restored him to health. I don’t know about you, but the gratitude I feel when I am restored to health is profound! I thank God for the miracle of healing. That is not to say I don’t fall into the trap of complaining during the illness. But being given a new lease on life is such a gift. I felt that after spending 11 days in isolation with Covid. I was so grateful to be able to re-enter society and no longer feel like, well a covid leper. That is when I sang praise to God much like the Psalmist did, “the Lord is gracious and merciful” (4) “holy and awesome” (9). Grateful to God for all that I have, children, a home, a job, my health! Because God is the provider of it all. My heart swells with love. Meda Stamper writes, “Love that springs from gratitude is the essence of faith” (Working Preacher). Jesus says as much declaring to the one, the Samaritan, “your faith has made you well,” made you whole.
But we need to see what God gives us to embody and dance with gratitude. It was true with the one leper, and the man in the diner, and it is true with us. David Lose writes, “faith is not a matter of believing only, but also of seeing. All the lepers were healed; one, however, saw, noticed, let what happened sink in…and it made all the difference.
Because he sees what has happened, the leper recognizes Jesus, his reign and his power.
Because he sees what has happened, the leper has something for which to be thankful…
Because he sees what has happened, the leper changes direction” (Working Preacher).
We always have things to be grateful for. The question is do we see it that way?
Perhaps Daniel Defoe gave us some good advice through his fictitious character Robinson Crusoe. The first thing that Crusoe did when he found himself on a deserted island was to make out a list. On one side of the list, he wrote down all his problems. On the other side of the list, he wrote down all of his blessings. On one side he wrote: I do not have any clothes. On the other side he wrote: But it’s warm and I don’t really need any. On one side he wrote: All of the provisions were lost. On the other side he wrote: But there’s plenty of fresh fruit and water on the island. And on down the list he went. In this fashion he discovered that for every negative aspect about his situation, there was a positive aspect, something to be thankful for. It is easy to find ourselves on an island of despair. Perhaps it is time that we sit down and take an inventory of our blessings (Sermons.com, Brett Blair).
When the Samaritan is healed, he returns and gives thanks and praise. He returns to Jesus and gives thanks and praise. Thanks here is like the thanks Jesus gave to God during the Last Supper; it is where we get the word Eucharist. Praise is like the praise we give every Sunday when we sing the doxology, praising God for all we have. Our very act of worship is a matter of returning and praising God, glorifying God. Jesus’ life is framed by people glorifying God, with the shepherds at his birth (2:20) and the centurion at his death (23:47). Returning, praising and giving thanks to Jesus is how WE are to respond.
Yet only one leper returned and praised Jesus. “Were there not ten?” Jesus asks. Only 10% of those healed returned and gave thanks. Ten percent is another way of saying tithe, the practice of giving God 10% of what you grew, farmed, or earned in a year. Tithing is a Biblical teaching about giving a grateful portion of what we have and returning it, with thanks, to God. Giving is a form of gratitude. Of seeing all that God has done for us and then returning a portion back to God. Return and give thanks. Whether we give 3, 7 or 9%, I know we each have our own comfort of giving. But let us all return, let us all give thanks and praise and let us all give our gifts to our God.
Because we see God’s goodness and mercy, we give to God.
Because we see our abundant blessings, we give to God.
Because we see Jesus’ love for our world and saving of our soul, we give to God.
When we see, we return, and give thanks!
In the book “A Window on the Mountain,” Winston Pierce tells of his high school class reunion. A group of the old classmates were reminiscing about things and persons they were grateful for. One man mentioned that he was particularly thankful for Mrs. Wendt, for she more than anyone had introduced him to Tennyson and the beauty of poetry. Acting on a suggestion, the man wrote a letter of appreciation to Mrs. Wendt and addressed it to the high school. The note was forwarded and eventually found the old teacher. About a month later the man received a response. It was written in a feeble longhand and read as follows: “My dear Willie, I can’t tell you how much your letter meant to me. I am now in my nineties, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely, and like the last leaf of fall lingering behind. You will be interested to know that I taught school for forty years and yours is the first letter of appreciation I ever received. It came on a blue, cold morning and it cheered me as nothing has for years. Willie, you have made my day.” (Sermons.com, Brett Blair)
Returning and giving thanks is a simple, humble way of appreciating all that God has given us.
Tallying up our gratitude list, reminds us of God’s mercy and love.
Seeing our blessings and saying thank you to the one who gave them, is returning and praising our Creator.
Amen!
