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“Returning Thanks”

Sermon by Dr. Anne Ledbetter
on Luke 17:11-19
given October 14, 2007

With our youngest, Mary, off to college this fall, my husband Keith and I are adjusting to an empty nest. Part of my coping technique with this change in life has been to take a yoga class – something I’ve long wanted to try. If there is anything basic to yoga, it is the breathing. What I find most remarkable is how the fundamental postures enable me to take in more air, to become more receptive to the air I need, to inhale more deeply.

This morning’s story from Luke points us to a liberating posture for all of life – the attitude of gratitude.

Luke tells us this morning that while Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem he was beseeched by ten lepers whom he sent to the priest who had the authority to pronounce them clean, and thereby able to return to society.

On the way to the temple the ten are healed, and one of them, glancing down, sees that his lesions are gone, that his skin is smooth, and his heart’s elation practically lifts him off the ground. Notice that his first impulse is to turn around in his tracks, while praising God. Not just a relieved “Praise the Lord” but a guttural full bellied, earth-shattering “Thanks be to God” in his loudest voice amidst tears of laughter and gladness. Gratitude took over his body.

This story reminded me of Lewis Smedes, a former seminary professor and Christian author who upon surviving a very serious illness wrote these words,
“I was seized with a frenzy of gratitude. Possessed! My arms rose straight up by themselves, a hundred-pound weight could not have held them at my side. My hands open, my fingers spread, waving, twisting, while I blessed the Lord above for the almost unbearable goodness of being alive on this good earth in this good body at this present time. …

It was then I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living. It was better than sex, better than winning a lottery, better than watching your daughter graduate from college, better and deeper than any other feeling; it is, perhaps, the genesis of all other really good feelings in the human repertoire. I am sure that nothing in life can ever match the feeling of being held in being by the gracious energy percolating from … the loving heart of God.”

Our story tells us that one of the lepers upon seeing his disease has disappeared makes a u-turn on the road, praising God, and returns to bow at Jesus’ feet and thank him. Then Luke adds a word about this leper. “And he was a Samaritan.” This one who returned to give thanks, was not a law abiding Jew, not one whom they viewed a son of Abraham, but one whose healing could not keep him from still being an outcast. Cleansed of one stigma, he was still wearing another.

Jesus then raises a few questions for pondering, “Were not ten made clean? Where are the other nine? Did none return thanks except this foreigner?”

Where were the other nine? I imagine they were doing what Jesus asked of them – they were high-tailing it to the temple to be pronounced clean by the priest. Maybe they were in line at the temple, waiting for a priest like we wait in a doctor’s office. On the chance that they have been given the green light by the priest to re-enter society, who would doubt but that they are scrambling home to kiss the wife, hug the children, pick up the plow in the field, inspect the sails on their boat, and see about returning to the business of daily living.

Jesus doesn’t condemn the other nine for not returning, but his questions call us to reflect on the remarkable response of this foreigner. What made him follow his heart instead of his instructions? Something makes him wheel around. It was not that Jesus needed “strokes” for doing a miracle, but that the spiral of joy could only be completed by expressing gratitude. The one leper returned giving thanks and praising God and was affirmed in his person and his faith. His gratitude united him with the Giver of all good gifts.

Jesus says to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” The verb translated “made well” is related to the word “salvation.” Some translations read “your faith has made you whole.” How did the man manifest faith? By immediately praising God for his healing, by returning to Jesus who imparted God’s healing grace, and by saying ‘thank you.’

In his book Space for God, writer Don Postema spends several chapters focusing on gratitude as a hallmark of faith. He reminds us how the Psalms are replete with praise and thanksgiving to God. Even the psalms of lament which call out to God in despair, end with a refrain of trust, confidence and praise. Postema also recounts the many passages of Paul who stresses “Give thanks in all circumstances, …Rejoice in the Lord always, …In everything give thanks…Let your hearts overflow with thankfulness.”

What makes gratitude a necessary posture for the life of faith? It grounds us in recognizing God as the Author of all blessings. It schools us in beholding every day, life itself, as a blessed gift. Strangely sometimes it is the outcasts and the outsiders who are most attentive and receptive to God’s amazing grace. How many of us remember reading testimonies of people stricken with HIV/AIDS in the 80’s and 90’s who affirmed, “I thank God for my diagnosis because it has made me appreciate every day as a gift.” Several years ago I visited a church member who fell suddenly ill with cancer and was sent home from the hospital in hospice care. Each time I visited him those last few weeks of his life, I would take his hand and ask, “How are you doing?” And each time this man would look me in the eye, with a light shining from his face, and affirm with emotion, “My cup runneth over.” As his mortal journey ended, his spirit was overflowing with thanks to God.

In his last book Learning to Dance, Michael Mayne, former Dean of Westminster Cathedral, referred to the witness of another person who like himself fought a losing battle with cancer.

“When Donald Nicholl was dying of cancer, he quoted the words of a Russian poet that gratitude (if not the highest) is the purest form of love, for when you are full of gratitude there is no room for anything else – recrimination or desire for revenge or self pity. He began to record his gratitude for all those – individuals and communities – who had nurtured him throughout his life. And through his final diary entries, two words echo like a heartbeat: gratitude and grace.“
Mayne continued,
“I’ll buy that for an epitaph. Or rather, I’ll go on working at it, trusting that one day I may be confident enough to cast away my inhibitions and really learn to dance.”

What is this dance we are invited to share? Lewis Smedes calls it God’s ballet, the dance of grace. The movement is one of returning. Like repentance which causes us to turn back to God, so gratitude turns us toward God and impels us to praise the One from whom all blessings flow.

Gratitude may be built into our days like returning thanks before meals, but when we behold the grace that surrounds us every day – when our ears are awake and our eyes are open – then we live acutely aware of the Divine Spirit who bids us to join God’s glorious ballet of life.

A young man in his first year of seminary went home to West Texas on his semester break. As his mother did the family laundry he regaled her with evidence of his new-found learning. He recounted church history, articulated ancient doctrines, and finally shared various theological definitions for the word grace. He quoted Tillich and Barth, Bonhoeffer and Schliermacher, Bultmann and Moltmann. Eventually he paused, and acknowledging his mother’s presence said, “Mom, what do you think grace is?” And without missing a beat, this old Texas farm woman, who had patiently listened to a lot of theological mumbo jumbo, took the clothespin from her mouth, reached up to pin the sheet to the line, and said, “Son, grace is every breath we breathe, dammit!”

The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, would agree. He wrote, “Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s love, every moment of existence is a grace.” Therefore, gratitude is at the heart of the Christian life. It is the basic step in this dance of life. “Gratitude takes nothing for granted. To be grateful is to recognize the love of God all around us.”

Postema maintains that gratitude entails recognizing God as Giver, receiving God’s grace, and responding with thankfulness. (It strikes me that if we truly practice this posture of gratitude in our daily lives, we would not need a Stewardship Campaign!) Why do we refrain from expressing gratitude, and sometimes find ourselves among the other nine who went on their way? Because to be grateful requires us to acknowledge our dependence on God, or on others. Because we get caught up in living our lives. Because we often see our cup as half empty instead of half full. Because we view life as a given more than a gift, and we focus on all to which we feel entitled – a good education, a steady job, fair wages, a warm home, loyal friends, close family, adequate healthcare.

However, if we can recognize that grace is every breath we breathe, that life is a wondrous gift, and give in to gratitude, then as we turn toward God we too will find ourselves captured by joy, and caught up in God’s glorious ballet, a beautiful spiraling dance. The choreography includes turning and returning, receiving and giving, embracing and forgiving. Will you join in the divine dance? It’s as simple as the first step which repeats frequently. See if you can manage it. The Samaritan has shown us this basic step. Try it. It’s this easy: raise your hands and repeat after me “thanks be to God.” With gusto this time: THANKS BE TO GOD!
Amen.

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