Thanksgiving Sermon

Please and Thank You, Ma’am: Deut. 8: 7-18; Luke 17: 11-19

            The other day, and with Thanksgiving upon us, I was asked, “So, Will, what are you thankful for?” I stopped and got this kind of far off look. Instantly I could feel my blood pressure rise a bit and that sarcasm well up from deep within. I thought about a few things I could say I’m thankful for, for instance: that I only have a couple of furlough days instead of thirty, that I’ve gotten a lot (and I mean a lot) more time at home, that only three or four of my close friends and church family have died of Covid, cancer or other problems in the past months. Maybe, after all, I’m not all that grateful this year. I feel, instead, a little bitter. 

            Maybe all of us feel a little less than grateful this year. There really are a lot of things going on in our days and lives that make life hard for some and unbearable for others. I think that’s why the parable for today can speak to us. It’s about more than just healing and the return of one healed leper. There’s a depth of meaning and message we need to look at when it comes to how we should be grateful even in our time of trials. 

            We start with Jesus traveling towards Jerusalem in a rather roundabout way. On the road, ten lepers call out to him. They call, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” In those days, leprosy was a horrible disease which slowly destroyed the body and left people in severe pain and physical brokenness. In addition to physical suffering there was also a social suffering as well. Because leprosy could be contagious and was considered, frankly, gross, people who suffered from it were excluded from the city, from life, family, and all of society. They usually ended up alone and as beggars. 

            Perhaps we can relate to being alone and struggling? They were haunted by a horrible disease and forced into isolation as a result. That probably hits us a bit close to home in 2020. In Deuteronomy we also read about the suffering of the Israelite people. We are told they endured the wilderness, death, hunger, thirst, snakes, scorpions. The wilderness is not an easy place, and they wandered in it for decades. 

            Paul, also, was no stranger to suffering and struggle. He was beaten, thrown into jail, run out of places he preached. He had rivals that tried to undo all of his ministry in the churches he established. He even took up a monetary collection to help the saints in Jerusalem who were on hard times. They ended up arresting him when he preached in their temple. Jesus, too, went around preaching love, welcome, peace with one another. They killed him. Truly God’s people are no strangers to suffering. And all of that can make us, well, not very grateful this Thanksgiving. And I believe that ungratefulness is justified. 

            However, look back at that parable again. One out of the ten whom Jesus healed came back to him and gave thanks. He made the effort, trekked back from the Temple and the priests and thanked Jesus for healing him. This man was a Samaritan. This adds a wrinkle. Samaritans and Jews did not get along. Samaritans were considered foreigners, outcasts, and socially beneath the Jewish majority in the area. While all the other nine would likely go back to whatever life they had before, this Samaritan would still likely be socially unaccepted. The one who came back and gave Jesus thanks had less to gain than all the others Jesus healed. So what was different about him? 

            We look back at Deuteronomy and there’s a reminder to the people. Yes, they had to suffer through the misery of the wilderness, but we are told that God led them out of slavery in Egypt; furthermore, in verse 15, “Do not forget that [God] led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry.” Over and over they are reminded God fed them manna, God gave them water from the rock, God helped, God provided, and God met their needs. And the people were ungrateful. They forgot their gratefulness when times were good, and they complained when the circumstances were tough. They were not very grateful people. 

            So, what example do we follow? The Samaritan endured leprosy, social exclusion, and dislike simply because of who he was and where he was born. And yet in all of that he had a heart for gratefulness. Paul suffered so much in his ministry for God to the point that it would make one tear one’s hair out. And yet we read over and over where he talks about being grateful, being joyful, and being content in what God gives us. Maybe one of the best ways to sum it up is to look at the words of a well-known hymn. 

            Horatio Spafford lost the bulk of his family to a devastating fire and a shipwreck. He was left in misery, personal suffering, and mental anguish. His faith, however, was not shaken. Even as he sailed over the spot where his children drowned in the shipwreck, he penned these words, “Whate’er my lot, Thou has taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.” Even as so much had been robbed from him, he was still able to count his blessings and be grateful to God for those blessings. 

            Christ, too, was no stranger to the struggle of life. He left the splendor of heaven to be human, to feel pain, hunger, temptation, and death. Being human was no walk in the park to the One who is holy, but Christ came and died for us, to save us, to set right was broken in the world by the power of sin. His death wasn’t easy, and the knowledge that he would be resurrected probably didn’t make the suffering any easier. You know, we dwell a lot on Christ’s sacrifice, death, and resurrection. I wonder, though, if we ever dare to ask this question: “is Christ grateful?” Do we make Christ grateful for the struggle? 

            I will never forget visiting a friend’s house shortly before Thanksgiving. It was a pre-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, if you will. There were several folks there, and my friends have a cute daughter who was about 3 or 4 at the time. While everything was getting finished, she was sitting at a little desk scribbling furiously on some papers. After dinner she came around to every single guest at the house and gave us a piece of folded paper. It had a picture on the front that she had drawn, and inside was a scrawled phrase, “Please and thank you, Ma’am.” 

            I later learned that she was so happy everyone had come to her house that she had written us all thank you notes. Her grandmother regularly told her to say “please and thank you, ma’am,” so that was the only phrase she could think of to put in the cards. She didn’t cook the meal, message the invites, and only helped a little on the clean-up, but she still wanted everyone to know how grateful she was simply to have them there. 

            Maybe gratefulness isn’t really connected to how good things are around us in this moment and time. Maybe being grateful means that we know we don’t control a pandemic, life and death, or what tomorrow holds. Being grateful might look a lot more like summoning up just enough hope and resolve to say, “It is well with my soul.” Maybe even to be grateful we don’t really have to have a reason at all. It might just be enough that Christ loved us and, I believe, is grateful for us.  

Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/183379843381097