Showing Gratitude - Luke 17

Showing Gratitude

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Sermon based upon Luke 17:11-19, Psalm 66

Opening prayer

In our lives, we get many opportunities handed to us where we are told to be thankful. Like it is a task or something. Yet when something special happens, when life gives us seeming miracles or just grace of a new morning, we forget to lift up and thank those who helped to give us these. We forget to thank the one who gives life.

The question then is: How do we say thank you?  There is an awe when God does something (when we recognize it). There is something amazing when we pray and learn that God fulfills our wish and desire. What do we do then? Then do we pause and take moment to not just thank God? Perhaps in those moments of recognition, we might do something more. We might take an opportunity to worship. 

Then people might come up to you and ask you why you are so happy and praising; you can tell them your witness and your worship.  Then maybe, they can share in that with you.

Also this lesson reminds us to look at the invisible borders we put in our lives. 

Jesus is traveling along in parts of the country with borders between regions. This raises a question for us to consider. Who in our lives do we think Jesus ought to be praying with, healing or just doing work?  What do we expect of and identify with Jesus? What borders do we put on Jesus? What does that say about the arbitrary limits we put on Jesus: of people, places and things Jesus does. 

The lepers are impure, dirty, and forgotten- needing something or someone. Jesus reaches out to them - they who are in need. What about us who have walked through a pandemic full of anxiety and fear against being around our loved ones. Think about that  and you might have an idea of what faces these lepers who cannot hide their disease or condition.  For then, they get outcast and pushed to the fringes We don’t have to think we are so pure when we, who see people on the corner asking for handout, we quickly roll up the window.

What does it mean to live as someone as who is close to death or reminds us as people of mortality?

This is not Jesus vs establishment by telling the healed to go to the priests. Jesus is working to transform the broken system - to show a measure of God’s realm on Earth - to help people find God in many ways and the many people around us. Jesus wants the healed to tell the wonder and work of God to those who need to hear it.

Remember to tell the story for those who never heard it. That is what God wants us to do, and thus, Jesus sends the lepers to the priests. To remind them and all those lepers too are children of God needing grace and to be a part of the life of God. That, my friends, is worth being thankful and full of gratitude. We who suffer through pandemic, death and anxiety are children of God and need that grace more than ever. 

How can we then find gratitude in our worship? The response to God ought to be like the Samaritan -  those in the story who worship - the gratitude to God is important. 

We might not have a lot of models in our world. Yet we, as people of God, have ways and paths to show gratitude that shows strength in our faithfulness and strength in our belief that is more than our broken systems.  We have faith in God who heals and cares for us.  That can give us strength when we need it the most

Our world may want us to just take and take. Our world may even reward us for taking everything and leaving others behind. After all, we deserve it right? Those who have nothing, they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and figure out a way like everyone else who has to stand in line for food and pay. 

This harkens back to our lesson a couple weeks ago that reminded us that our ways of navigating broken systems are not gifts but maybe privileges of which we unintentionally forget, privileges that trample upon those less fortunate or who may be perceived as death, dying , poor, old or useless (much like the lepers in our story).  How selfish does that navigation skill seem without acknowledging those around us that help us? How un-Godlike is that? 

Instead, we should have gratitude for all who are around us, our neighbors (even the ones we disagree), for those who have more than us, extend a thankful heart - help them remember to share, and for those who have less than us, extend welcome and thanks. Extend a sandwich to who is hungry, clothes to ones who need coats, love to those who need compassion.

Think of all the grace you have in life. Or even your own life itself? The fact that you breathe today is a gift - one that we should treasure because it is a gift from above.  Yes our parents were there and we ought thank them for this gift of life, but God brought you into being, to breathe and to witness the spirit that is around us and inside us.  

In our relationships and such, remember to thank your partner, your friend for being there and thank God for bringing you together - for being your friend. Don’t let people around that you love go without knowing that they are loved, and they will in turn show you love as well. As will God.

So yes find a moment and thank your parents, but also thank God.  Know that God will be with you through thick and thin.

Thus, give thanks! Make a joyful noise to God! Remember how awesome God’s deeds and power are! Come and see what God has done and is doing in your life and let the world know how grateful you are!

Thanks Be to God