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A Lesson in Thankfulness From Lepers
Luke 17: 11-19
I don’t know about you but I like
bumper stickers. Let me rephrase that I like to read bumper stickers;
they have always interested me, short little quips that try to explain
some ones beliefs or personality. In 2005 they someone compiled a list
of the top ten bumper stickers seen on the road:
Top Ten Bumper Stickers
Missing: husband and dog. Reward for dog.
Go on. I'll see you at the next traffic light.
I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
Where there's a will, I want to be in it.
Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs.
We have enough youth already. How about a fountain of SMART!
The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.
IRS: We've got what it takes to take what you've got!
Vegetarian: Indian word for lousy hunter.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
Now while I like Bumper Stickers I think that we all realize that they
come from the negative, cynical side of life. This okay for bumper
stickers, but more often than not that isn't where they stay. Negative
attitudes creep into our consciousness and sort of set up housekeeping.
It’s easier to be negative, critical and ungrateful than it is to be
positive, encouraging, and appreciative.
Turn with me to our text today in Luke17, and let’s read our text and
then pray. (Luke 17:11-19)
I really love this time of the year, and I believe that Thanksgiving is
my favorite holiday. Not because of the Turkey, and Cranberry Sauce,
even thought that is a great part of the tradition. He reason that I
love this time of the year so much is that Thanksgiving is one of the
few Holiday’s that has not succumbed to commercialism. Sure it is a big
time of the year for Butterball, but how do you commercialize a holiday
that is centered on being thankful. We get hit with costumes and candy
for Halloween, and then Christmas takes everything else, But
thanksgiving is a holiday when we are given time to reflect and be
grateful. But in a moment of utter honesty I have to admit that I find
myself running with the nine to the priest more often than returning
with the one to Jesus to praise God. I think that's where most of us
are.
Today as we get ready for a time of gratefulness, family, and reflection
I want us to talk about some reasons that I feel we forget to run to
Jesus like we should. And then I want us to look at some ways to combat
that urge.
First, there is an attitude of entitlement in our culture these days.
When we see all of the blessings that God has poured out in our lives it
is too easy to assume that we did something to deserve all this. There
are many that feel like they are entitled to have good things, and we
forget that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”
James 1:17
Do you remember what Mary said when she was visited by the angel? "Who
am I that I should be so blessed?" Now I want you to remember what the
blessing was, it is not the glorious event that movies and fairy tails
are made of. She was going to carry the Savior of the world for nine
months, and during that time she would bear the shame of being an unwed
mother, an offense punishable by death. She endured the gossip, and the
scorn of the more respectable women in town. Jesus would be born in an
animal stall, and she considered all of this a blessing.
All too often our attitude when we receive a blessing is, "It’s about
time that I'm getting what I deserved all along. It has been a long time
coming and finally I get what I deserve!" But somewhere down the line we
will need to eventually realize that every bite of food, every stitch of
clothing, every brick and board in our homes is a gift of God's grace to
undeserving sinners. And until we realize that we're going to have a
hard time being grateful.
Second, we find it hard to be thankful because of a preoccupation with
the gifts.
Now I don’t want to be too hard on the nine lepers who didn’t return
because I believe that this is where they fall in the story. They were
so overwhelmed by being healthy that the only thing they could focus on
was clear skin and functional limbs. Gratitude to the giver was the last
thing they were thinking about because they were preoccupied with the
gift. I mean can you imagine having everything taken from you; family,
job, children, even the ability to worship God, and in one fail swoop it
was returned, you might be a little preoccupied as well.
But sometimes we're like that. I had a friend in college who told about
the first time he went to worship at his fiancée’s home congregation.
Over and over he was told that it was finally good to be able to put a
face with the ring. You see the young lady was so impressed with her
engagement diamond that she showed it to everyone but never got around
to showing them the picture of her fiancée. So her home congregation saw
the gift but didn’t know the giver, and it's hard to think gratefully of
the giver when the gift gets all the attention.
Third, gratitude doesn't come easy because of an "I did it my way"
mentality.
Let’s call this the Sinatra syndrome. Do you remember the story of the
rich fool in Luke 12? There we read Jesus’ parable:
The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself,
‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I
will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there
I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be
merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of
you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the
one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Surveying his possessions and accomplishments the rich fool felt a
profound sense of self-satisfaction, instead of gratitude. He had a
"Look at all I've achieved" attitude. After we've worked hard to make
something of ourselves it is easy to feel proud. Regardless of what you
and I have been told there has never been a self made man or self made
woman. Every success is because of the work of a community.
The Fourth struggle is that upper-middle class isolation gets in the way
of gratitude.
A friend of mine works in a school located in a very affluent section of
Atlanta. She was telling a bunch of us one day about a little girl in
her homeroom who always wore clean clothes, made straight A's, and never
saw the inside of detention hall. She was a true joy, one of those kids
who you are glad to have in class because you never have any struggles
out of them. Well one the girl sat in the back of the class after the
bell and started to cry. My friend went back to see what was wrong and
the young student revealed that she hadn't eaten breakfast that morning
because there was nothing to eat in her house; as a matter of fact she
had only eaten what she could get from friends in school for the last
week. Her dad was juggling two jobs and life as a single parent but was
having a tough time making ends meet.
My friend said, in a school where every 16 year old get a new car and
every graduate gets a Mercedes who would have thought that there would
have been so great a need. I don’t know about you but I need to hear
stories like that.
We get upset when the cable goes out or when the waitress at the
restaurant doesn't get our order right, and there are people living in
our community who know real hunger. They live in a ghetto of poverty,
while we live in a ghetto of abundance and both of us are poor.
Fifth, an not unrelated to the last one, blessing overload gets in the
way of gratitude.
When I was a teenager MTV used to have a slogan, "Too Much Is Never
Enough." Well, it’s not the first thing I have ever disagreed with on
TV. Material things are like drinking sea water. The more of it you
drink, the more of it you want. It only enflames the thirst.
I was talking to my dad last week and we were talking about when he was
a young boy and he said “you know that things that used to be considered
great gifts under the tree are now great stocking stuffers.” As we get
ready for Black Friday I have been pondering that. I believe that he’s
right because of our blessing overload. The more we get the more we
want.
Well these are the things that I believe keep us from being truly
thankful and really feeling the blessings during this season. But I
don’t want to leave it there. As you have the opportunity to reflect
this next week I want to give you some ways to counter these attitudes
and be aware of how much you truly have to be thankful for.
Now I think that the answers are pretty obvious, but sometimes the
obvious needs to be said out loud. To counter an attitude of
entitlement, we need to develop the heart of a servant.
To borrow and idea from JFK. “Ask not what your church can do for you,
but what you can do for your church – and family -- and friends -- and
community.”
Jesus made it crystal clear in more than a dozen passages that being a
Christian is about making others comfortable and cared for. We get way
too hung up on being comfortable and cared for ourselves, but comfort is
not the life that the body has been called to.
In Matthew 20:27 says: and whoever would be first among you must be your
slave.
A life of service that is the life fitting for a Christian. By not only
did Jesus teach the life of a servant he also practiced it. Remember in
John 13 when Jesus girded Himself with a towel and began the lowly task
of washing the disciples feet. At the conclusion of the object lesson
Jesus tells them “So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you
must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What
I’ve done, you do.”
Was Jesus teaching that we need to be foot washers? Maybe, Maybe not; I
think that there is a deeper message there. The apostles had been
fighting over who was the greatest. Their pride had kept them from
realizing the blessing of Jesus’ presence. Jesus simply reminds them,
and us that we were called to serve one another, not rule over one
another.
The next way that we can over come a preoccupation with the gifts
focusing on the giver.
When we worked in Nashville, one of our members sister started the Weigh
Down Workshop. It was a weight loss program where you learned the
biblical principal of fasting while you worked on your relationship with
God. Skip a meal and study the scriptures, pass up a meal and pray. Some
of the kids in the Youth Group and I had an opportunity to go to their
building and watch a few of there videos. The founder, Gwynn Shamblin
said in one of those videos, with a perfect southern accent "It's not
the pie you want, it's God you want." I laughed at that line for months
until it hit me that she had a pretty good point. God gives his gifts
out of his love, and that's what we really want: God's love. God's
presence in our lives. Not just his presents.
During this week of Thanksgiving I want you to take some time and make a
list of all the good things in your life. All of them. The possessions,
the relationships, the results -- everything. Then pray through that
list this way: Father, thank you for the beautiful house you've given,
but I want you more than the house. Thank you for the family you've
given me, but I want you more than the family. That will help you
appreciate the gifts, but focus on the father.
Third, we combat the Sinatra Syndrome, the I did it my way my way
mentality by recognizing the help we have received through the years.
In my office I have a very special letter on my desk. One of the joys
that I have is the time that Dan I get to spend with Harold Henderson.
Even though Harold can’t communicate with words very well, we have a
running joke about the posters on his walls. Dan and I went to see him
one time and took him a poster, we didn’t think much about it we just
wanted to add to the collection. Well about a month or so later I was
having a difficult week when the mail lady brought me a card. And it’s
not just any card but a thank you card signed by Harold himself, and
that card has become a treasure to me.
Thankfulness is reciprocal. Is there a teacher, a parent, an elder, a
preacher from your past you need to remember and thank. If you'll think
about it, you'll realize that you didn't get to where you are by
yourself. Dozens of people helped you.
We forget about the parents who sacrificed, the teachers who cared, the
spouses who took up the slack, the co-workers who made us look good, the
Church friends who prayed for us, the God who made us what we are and
gave us what we've got.
Fourth, we overcome Upper-middle-class isolation by getting out of our
comfort zones and tightly drawn relationship circles.
This is not the first time that I have suggested our need to learn how
to spend time in places and with people who are not like us. I don't
even know who your friends are so don't be offended by what I'm about to
tell you. Do take it personally, though. You need some new friends. You
need to develop some relationships with people who are different than
you are. There are so many opportunities to do that here in our
community.
Even though we live in a small, relatively guarded community, not
everyone is just alike. There are people in our communities who are
lost, and searching and that reveals itself in many different ways.
The teenager with 38 piercings in their right ear and 7 in their eyebrow
needs some one to let them know that they matter.
The guy that works in the building with you and goes to his truck during
every break for a quick fix of alcohol, or worse is trying to find
fulfillment in things that only cause him to die a little more every
day.
The woman on your road that has a different truck parked out front of
her home every night is looking for love in all the wrong places.
Those are the people hat we are called to share the love of Christ with,
and If I don't make an effort to connect with people who are different
than me, I'll end up living in a world of folks just like me and I'll
look down on people who aren't like me. And then God will judge me for
my pride and arrogance.
Your situation may be different .You may end up looking down on or
despising a different set of people -- maybe even people like me. Then
God will judge you. All of us need to overcome the isolation by breaking
out of comfort zones and getting to know folks who live in a different
world. It will make their world and ours only better.
Finally, we overcome blessing overload by giving.
Now we have a very difficult dynamic in this church. We have members who
live from Paycheck to paycheck, and we have members who are financially
set for the rest of their days. And so it’s very tempting for those of
us who struggle to make ends meet to justify hording what we have. But
we have got to get a new perspective on our blessings.
Today if you have a lot, guess what God expects you to give a lot. In
the same vein if you don't have a lot, guess what God still expects you
to give. Remember when Jesus was watching the people put money in the
treasury? He looked at his disciples and criticized the rich who gave
out of their abundance and never missed it, and then in the same breath
he commended the widow who gave everything she had. Regardless of how
much you have, God wants you to give.
If we are truly thankful for blessings then giving is easy to do. You
see usually, we think of blessings as things we keep, but God doesn't
see it that way at all. Blessings, in God's view, are things meant to be
passed on to others. We were never called to be blessing depositories
where lots of neat gifts from God are stored. We are called to be
channels of blessing. God gives to us so that his love will flow through
us to others. The interesting thing is that when you and I pass on the
blessings that have come our way because of God's love that dollar may
be gone, but the love stays behind. And that's what we really want; the
love.
As we take time this Thursday to spend some time with our family and be
thankful if we aren't careful, the story of the ten lepers will be
repeated over and over again. But there is a Funny thing about that
story. Did you notice that though only one of the ten returned to say
thank-you, they were all healed of their leprosy? If you refuse to be
grateful God is not going to take it all away from you. He gave you the
blessings to use.
But did you notice in the text that only one was made whole? The one who
said thank you. Today you can have blessings and still be dead and
hollow inside. But wholeness only comes when we truly understand how
great a blessing God has bestowed in our lives.
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