Thanksgiving Day, 11/28/2019

Sermon on Luke 17:11-19, by Richard O. Johnson

Text: Luke 17.11-19

11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, 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 cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” [ESV]

I am one of those pastors who normally doesn’t give titles to his sermons. I know there are some very good arguments about why titles are a good idea; they just haven’t convinced me yet. On the other hand, I am one of those pastors who is always scanning bumper stickers or license plate frames in search of good sermon illustrations. I saw one the other day, and if I were inclined to give a title to my sermon today, it would be what the bumper sticker said: “Have a grateful day!”

“Have a grateful day!” I love that! But to appreciate it, you have to apply it much more broadly than just to Thanksgiving Day. Today, after all, everyone works at being grateful—even those who normally go through life without much of a thought of gratitude. Some years ago a November issue of the New Yorker had a very provocative cartoon. It showed an obviously well-dressed and prosperous family, sitting around a table that was practically collapsing from the abundance of food spread out upon it. The father of the family was saying, rather tentatively, “Shall we say grace?” As if there could be any question! We Lutherans, at least, are supposed to know that “I surely ought to thank and praise, serve and obey him!” But that doesn’t apply only to Thanksgiving Day. We are supposed to have a grateful day every day.

But of course we all know that sometimes that is easier said than done. We sometimes find it tough to be thankful; or perhaps more often, we just forget to be thankful. We get so caught up in the affairs of life that we neglect gratitude. We are very much like the nine lepers in the gospel story this morning—off on our way to do whatever it is we must do. There is no time to stop and say thanks.

But today I want to urge you, with all sincerity: Have a grateful day. I cannot imagine anything more important for us; for at the deepest level, gratitude is healthy, it is life-giving. I love those words in our communion liturgy: “It is indeed right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places offer thanks to you, O Lord.” That word “salutary” means “healthy.” To offer thanks to God is simply healthy, life-giving.

Here’s something to notice in this familiar story of the ten lepers. When the single leper comes back and thanks Jesus, the Lord says to him, “Your faith has made you well.” Now, on the face of it, that doesn’t seem to be right. After all, the leper has already been healed. The other nine, who do not return, who do not seen to show any faith or gratitude, have also been healed. So it seems to me that when Jesus says “Your faith has made you well” to this one, he must be talking about a different kind of wellness—not physical, but spiritual or emotional or psychological—

whatever we want to call it, he is talking about this leper being made well internally. It is his gratitude that has brought this health to him. The others have been healed physically, but without expressing gratitude, they remain somehow not whole, not fully healthy.

Victor Frankl was a brilliant psychiatrist who survived several years in a Nazi concentration camp. His parents and most of his family died there, and he suffered terrible deprivation. Yet out of his loss, he emerged with a kind of spiritual health that grew into a wonderful insight into life. Listen to Frankl’s words: “One day, a few days after the liberation, I walked through the country, past flowering meadows, for miles and miles, toward the market town near the camp. Larks rose to the sky and I could hear their joyous song. There was no one to be seen for miles around; there was nothing but the wide earth and sky and the larks’ jubilation and the freedom of space. I stopped, looked around and up to the sky—and then I went down on my knees. At that moment there was very little I knew of myself or of the world—I had but once sentence in mind—always the same: ‘I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and he answered me in the freedom of space.’ How long I knelt there and repeated this sentence, memory can no longer recall. But I know that on that day, in that hour, my new life started.”

Frankl, filled with pain and grief and bitterness from his long imprisonment, discovered on that day that his door to new life was to be able to look at the world with a sense of gratitude to the Creator. It was that gratitude that enabled him to become a human being once again. I think that is what is happening also with the leper in our story. From a life of isolation and illness and despair, he steps through the door of gratitude and he is made well.

Have a grateful day! Give yourself the gift of healthy living by acknowledging that God created you and all that exists, that he has given and still preserves your body and soul with all their powers. Remember that he has provided you with food and clothing, home and family, daily work, and all you need from day to day. And for all of that, you surely ought to thank and praise, serve and obey him. Have a grateful day.

But there is something else to say about gratitude for all these good things. Let me take a well-worn phrase and turn it on its head: To be truly grateful, I advise you don’t count your blessings. Don’t count your blessings. Blessings are not made to be counted, tallied up, noted in a ledger book. They are made to be shared.

Do you remember the story of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables? By cruelty and inhumanity, he had been turned into a bitter criminal. He had been jailed, and when he was released he had a major chip on his shoulder. He was given lodging by a kindly priest—actually, it turned out, a bishop; Jean promptly helped himself to the bishop’s silver and took off in the middle of the night. He was stopped by the police, and he improbably claimed that the silver had been a gift. Dragged to the bishop’s house by the gendarmes, he was astonished when the good man confirmed to the police his ridiculous story and then chided him for having forgotten to take along the candlesticks. When the police had left, the bishop said to him, “Remember, Jean, life is to give, not to take.” That comment changed Jean’s heart. The rest of his life became a channel of grace, bringing help and hope to all whom he met.

“Life is to give, not to take.” That applies, you see, to all those things of life which the catechism names: food and clothing, home and family, daily work—those blessings are to give, not to take. They have been given to you so that you may share them.

The first lesson this morning is a small portion of God’s words to the Israelites as they are about to enter the promised land. These instructions from God go on for several chapters. A lection in church has to stop somewhere, of course; but in a way, it is too bad that our reading didn’t extend a bit further, to the part where the Lord admonishes the Israelites to care for the widow and the orphan and the stranger. That, he says, is the purpose of all these blessings that God has given. And so I say to you: don’t count your blessings—share them. That’s the way to have a grateful day!

There is perhaps one more thing to be said. Gratitude, like faith, is in itself a gift of God. We do not engender it ourselves, nor do we create it, nor do we control it. Gratitude comes from God. To have a grateful day—not just today, but every day—requires that we ask for the gift of gratitude. “In everything,” Paul says, “by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” That applies even to gratitude. We must ask God for that gift. I think the poet George Herbert puts it most eloquently:

Thou hast given so much to me,

Give one thing more—a grateful heart:

Not thankful when it pleaseth me,

As if thy blessings had spare days,

But such a heart whose Pulse may be

Thy praise.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, have a grateful day—today, to be sure, as you think of God’s gracious providing—but tomorrow as well, and every day. Have a grateful day.

The Rev. Richard O. Johnson
Grass Valley, California, USA
E-Mail: roj@nccn.net

(top)