Dependence Day
This morning we look at dependence on God, and identifying the difference between loving gifts, and loving and worshiping the Giver of All Good Gifts. Our Gospel lesson for this morning is a great lesson, in fact, for Thanksgiving Day services. As we examine it, we can see a nice picture of ourselves, and how we can easily let the things that we pray for, that we request and petition God for, end up distracting us from the very God to whom we were praying.
So, to begin, imagine a group of ten lepers making their way to the city, to present themselves to the priests. For years they had been living together in the uninhabited countryside because lepers were forbidden to interact with society. In fact, if ever they came near human habitation they were expected to ring a bell to alert the people as they would scream, "Unclean! Unclean!"
Leprosy is one of the premier pictures of sin in the Bible. Leprosy causes you to not be able to feel anything by destroying the body’s nervous system. if someone is blind, they can’t see, If they’re deaf...when they have leprosy, they can’t feel. Sometimes, a leper would sleep by a fire, and would roll too close and burn themselves severely. Many would accidentally cut themselves without realizing it.
Because lepers no longer have feelings, it is a great allegory for sin. Sin causes us to lose all spiritual feelings. Sin hardens the heart and destroys the conscience, making it so seared
that sinners perform and witness the most evil acts, and feel nothing.
Back to our ten lepers, their society considered them dead, since leprosy was practically incurable, and very contagious. These ten men, however, made the long journey to the city because earlier they had cried to Jesus, to have pity on them.
This cry, which was actually a cry commonly used to beg for money, was met instead by Jesus miraculously healing them, and telling them to go and show themselves to the priest, who would have to examine them and pronounce whether the disease was gone.
Back then, if the priest judged that the disease was leprosy, the person would be immediately banished from family, friends and society, and condemned to live in lonely caves in the mountainside or in burial places until they died.
However, if a skin disease was misdiagnosed as leprosy, or it healed and got better, before they could return to their families they had to first show themselves again to the priest who would certify their healing, and perform a rite of cleansing over them.
As the ten made their way to the priest, they felt within themselves a surge of new strength and vitality and realized that they had indeed been healed. Now what do they do? "Hey, let's go back to Jesus," suggests the Samaritan. "No," said another, "We’ve already been healed, why bother him. But we still have to be pronounced as healed. We can’t meet people until the priest certifies us clean."
The one, however, turns back; jumping and praising God as he goes back to Jesus. And we know what happened when he got to Jesus. He threw himself at his feet and Eucharisto’d him.
Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
Now what is the point here? Are the nine who did not turn back to give thanks going to be denied their healing because they failed to practice good manners and express their appreciation to the one who had blessed them with such an extraordinary gift?
That’s not what the Scriptures teach. The blessing of healing didn't depend upon their appreciative response. It’s an amazing picture of our salvation in that respect. God’s Grace to mankind is not dependent on us, and how we act and react, whether that freely given grace brings us our salvation, or just our every day necessities. God is very gracious to us daily in ways that we don’t even begin to consider.
The nine Jewish lepers looked to their own interest, their healing and the vision of their re-integration back into society, with their family and friends that they may not have seen for years. They valued first and foremost the gift that they had been given.
And yes every giver does love it when his gift is appreciated!
But one instead valued, and gave thanks, to God,
who gave him the gift, and on whom he depended for his life.
Today I want to talk about dependence. Dependence on someone else is a very hard thing. People do not like to depend on other people or objects to help them do something that they want to do.
Kids show this by demanding that they can “do it by myself” and don’t need our help. My mom, for instance loves to remind me of a story of my refusal to let her help me walk. I was over a year old before I would walk by myself, because I apparently wanted to perfect it by myself before I would do it publically.
She would spy on me, watching me practice my steps in my playpen, until I saw her, and I would instantly drop down on my backside. I could make a nice tangent on it being a proof of original sin in a child under one having pride issues, but that’s another sermon.
Our culture teaches us to be prideful, to strive to become Self-sufficient, lest our Self-esteem or Self-image become bruised. We are a society that looks to the individual, and strives for independence from God, his Word, and other people in our living, and our morals.
In Deuteronomy 8, we see Israel as the people are escaping their slavery. They are a group of complainers who took forty years to walk an expanse less than two hundred miles. They are far from Independence still, though, and Moses tells us a concern that God has about our attitudes towards independence.
From Deuteronomy 8
Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
The Lord's intention in bringing them through the desert in the way in which he did was NOT to give them some sort of political independence from Egypt,
but so that they would learn dependence upon Him.
The Lord took away food from them, and then gave them manna. The people's reaction to having only manna to eat was rebellion, not because of its taste, so much as its source.
The people were utterly dependent upon God to supply all of their needs, and they hated it! They were used to growing their own crops in Egypt, and fetching their own water from their own wells and springs.
They did not like having to rely on God, or Moses every time they were thirsty, to ask in order to get something to drink. They justified it in their own minds, saying, “Oh, I don’t want to hassle him.”
But in reality, they did not like the fact that they were dependent upon God for their next meal. But the Lord looked beyond what they wanted, and gave them what they needed.
So, why does God do this? Well, the Lord intended to bring them through the desert to enter a land of milk and honey. It was a land of beauty and wealth. And he knew that if he brought them there as they were, they would forget their Creator and worship creation instead.
Moses says later in the passage Deut 8:10-12,17
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 17 you may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me."
The Lord knew that when the Israelites reached the Promised Land, when they entered the land of milk and honey, when they received it, they would quickly begin to think of themselves as owners and not stewards.
They would see their spoils of conquest as their personal treasures, and not see God’s hand over all. God warns them here not to take the things that he has given them stewardship over, and treat them as their personal possessions. The Scriptures show us time and time again that, just as most people react to testing and dependence with grumbling, Our reaction to triumph and prosperity is vanity, it’s pride.
It’s attributing to ourselves the things which God has done.
Our sinful nature focuses our attention on what we want, and what we think we deserve to get to make up for all our struggles. Our Gospel today tells us another story, of God as our Loving Shepherd, giving us what we need, and to whom we should joyfully give thanks.
Closing Prayer
