“What is it about Giving Thanks?”
Luke 17:11-19
Every holiday season comes with high expectations for a cozy and festive time of year and that’s awesome.
However, for many this time of year is tinged with sadness, anxiety, or depression.
Certainly, someone with major depression or a severe anxiety disorder
should get professional help.
But what about those who just feel lost or overwhelmed or down this time of year?
Research suggests that one aspect of the Thanksgiving season can actually lift our spirits, and it’s built right into the holiday itself—being grateful.
The word gratitude come from the Latin word gratia, which means grace, graciousness or gratefulness depending on the context.
Gratitude is being grateful for what we receive, whether it’s something we can touch or not.
With gratitude, we acknowledge the goodness in our lives—some say it means acknowledging that there is good in the world—period.
And in the process, people usually recognize the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves.
As a result, being grateful also helps us connect with something larger than ourselves as individuals—whether that connection is to other people, nature or ultimately God!
Researchers are finding more and more data that shows that gratitude makes us happier, improves our mental well-being, improves our physical health, and increases our self-esteem.
I don’t know about you, but I want to learn to be more grateful.
I want to become more intentional in being thankful for the good in life and not focus so much on the negative.
(pause)
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning Jesus and His followers are walking to Jerusalem “along the border between Samaria and Galilee.”
The word “Samaria” is a red flag itself.
Good Jews didn’t go anywhere near Samaria or Samaritans.
They were a despised group of people, inferior in every way…at least that is how they were viewed.
And what a horrible way to think of any group of people, human beings whom God loves and we are to love ourselves.
Thankfully, Jesus came and showed us that all people are equal in God’s eyes.
If only we could get that through our heads.
Anyway, on the way to Jerusalem, near Samaria, Jesus and His disciples come across ten men with leprosy.
And it is impossible to over-emphasize how socially alienated, marginalized, hated, feared, shut off and isolated these guys were.
They were thrown out of their homes, disowned by their families, and from their synagogues.
People were even afraid to walk across the shadow of a leper.
Let’s stop and think for a moment about how it might have felt to be a leper.
Would you not be stripped of every ounce of human dignity?
Would it be hard to love yourself?
Would you think God doesn’t love you?
Would you feel less than other people?
Would you want to die?
(pause)
Somehow, these guys have heard about Jesus.
Perhaps, they have heard about Him from other lepers.
Maybe they have heard that He is not like other people.
He treats them with love and dignity.
He doesn’t judge them.
He’s not afraid of them.
He doesn’t cast them out.
And He can heal them.
And so, they see Him coming their way and they get really excited.
This is their big chance.
Here is the One they have heard about.
And so, they called out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When Jesus saw them, “he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests,’ and as they went they were cleansed.”
Showing themselves to the priests was their opportunity to be accepted back into their religious communities, their families, their old lives.
There were 10 former lepers, 9 kept on running or skipping and jumping to the priests but one stopped in his tracks.
When he saw he was healed, [he] bypassed the priests and his old life and instead turned around and went back to Jesus, praising God and throwing himself at Jesus’ feet thanking Him!!!
Then Jesus says a very interesting thing, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
What does that mean?
Was there something about this guy that was more well, healthier, than the other nine that didn’t return to thank Jesus?
I mean, they were all healed of leprosy were they not?
Notice in verse 15 how it says that “when he saw he was healed, [he] came back…”
The word used to describe “came back” means to “turn around” and it’s filled with deep theological meaning.
I means to make a decision, to make a choice.
The guy could have gone, shown himself to the priests and then returned to what his life had been like before he had been healed of leprosy…
…but instead, he chose a completely NEW LIFE altogether.
He chose to worship Jesus.
He chose to give himself wholly to the One Who had accepted him, loved him, healed him.
He chose to be a new person, not just on the outside, but on the inside as well.
When I gave my life to Jesus Christ, when I chose to believe—not just in a nodding of the head, casual sort of way—but in a choosing to worship Jesus over the world sort of way—my entire life changed.
I learned for the first time, what true worship is…
…what true gratitude is…
I experienced healing of my heart, mind and soul.
And I have been thanking God ever since.
Have you experienced this?
Have you given your life wholly over to Jesus Christ as your Savior and your Lord?
Has it changed your life?
Jesus says to the man, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
In saying “rise” Jesus is saying, “Be Resurrected,” which is what happens to us when we fall at Jesus’ feet in praise and thanksgiving—when we give ourselves completely over to Him.
Paul tells us that if we die with Christ we rise with Him to new life.
Meaning dying to our old life and being raised to life in Christ.
And this is what happened to the former leper who turned around and came to Jesus.
Not only was he healed physically, he was healed spiritually.
He was a new creation; all things had become new.
Jesus said, “your faith has made you well,” another way to interpret this is “your faith has made you whole” or it can be most accurately translated as “Your faith as saved you.”
The other guys were healed physically, the one who returned to give thanks was healed, not only physically, but even more importantly—he was healed spiritually as well as physically.
(pause)
Notice again, the man turned around, went back to Jesus, “praising God,” and “thanked him.”
Now was this guy just really polite while the other nine guys who didn’t return to thank Jesus were just rude…they hadn’t been taught their manners?
Or is something else going on?
It seems that the Samaritan isn’t thanking Jesus because it’s his duty; he’s grateful because of his faith in and experience with Jesus, because Jesus, his New Master had mercy on him and he has found the answer to life.
And he wants this life.
It’s been said that our human response of thanksgiving to God is not only appropriate, it’s also the most joyful thing we can do.
It’s not so much that God needs us to thank Him—it’s that WE need to thank Him.
Faith and gratitude are closely related.
And it could be said that faith without gratitude is not faith at all.
Jesus knew exactly what He was talking about when He said, “your faith has made you well.”
Most of us are probably familiar with feelings of dissatisfaction—when we feel that our lives are incomplete and lacking something we crave.
And when we feel this way, it’s easy for us to compare ourselves to the idyllic-seeming lives of others and judge ourselves to be less than.
But the simple act of thanksgiving, of gratitude to God for being with us through the good and the bad can change all that.
So, the point in our Gospel lesson for this Sunday before the Thanksgiving holiday isn’t so much about Jesus physically healing ten lepers, it’s about the gratitude of the one who returned.
All were healed, only the one who returned discovered a new relationship with God.
“Your faith has made you well,” Jesus tells him.
Do we allow our faith to make us well by expressing our gratitude to God?
You know, when I complain or walk around angry and bitter—I am really expressing my lack of faith, my lack of gratitude.
If only I could remember, and keep remembering what Jesus has done for me, is doing for me and will always do for me.
If only I could live every moment head over heals in grateful love with God.
You know, when I am grateful, I have very little room for complaining.
How about you?
But it’s easy, especially in 21st Century America, I think, to live with a feeing of entitlement.
Like, I am entitled to having a good job and a happy family.
I am entitled to have all kinds of freedoms.
I am entitled to be treated with respect.
I am entitled to this and that and this and that!
But when I live with that attitude, I rob myself of gratitude.
I am loved without condition by God, not because I have earned that love, it is a gift from God Himself—Who has given His life for a sinner such as me—it’s not something I am entitled to.
That is one reason why regular daily and weekly worship is so important.
It is what makes us well.
And yet, so many of us take it for granted.
Worship attendance is waning.
No wonder so many of us are not feeling well.
Writer Anne Lamott says that her two favorite prayers are, in the morning, “Help me, help me, help me,” and at bedtime, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The natural Christian response to God is thanks and praise.
It is what keeps us healthy in body, mind and soul.
It is something we NEED.
It’s a gift from God for our well-being.
Giving thanks to God puts everything else into perspective.
When we give thanks to God for everything we receive…whether it be good or bad…
…other things fall into place!
Possessions lose their luster.
Problems don’t seem so big.
For our spiritual and physical health we need to be intentional about giving thanks to God in all things.
But sometimes it’s hard to be thankful, especially if we have gotten into the habit of complaining.
Have you ever found it difficult to be around a complainer for too long a period of time?
Complainers are often energy zappers and motivation killers.
The Hebrew people grumbled constantly during their forty-year wilderness sojourn after Moses led them out of Egypt.
And their constant complaining is the main reason they had such an awful time getting to the Promised Land.
As a matter of fact—the complainers never did make it at all.
Let’s think about this: Does complaining and demanding bring you joy and peace or does it disrupt your happiness and your walk with God?
Alex Haley, the author of Roots had an unusual picture hanging on his office wall.
It was a picture of a turtle on top of a fence post.
When asked, “Why is it there?”…
…Alex Haley answered, “Every time I write something significant, every time I read my words and think they are wonderful and begin to feel proud of myself I look down at the turtle on top of the fence post and remember that he didn’t get there on his own.
He had help.”
Where does his help come from?
Where would you be…where would I be without the help…the love and grace of the Lord?
I would be a complete mess—so lost, so unhappy, so self-absorbed.
In her classic autobiography “The Hiding Place” Corrie Ten Boom tells of a time when she and her sister were forced to take off their clothes during Nazi inspections at a death camp.
Corrie stood in line feeling forsaken and defiled.
Suddenly she remembered that Jesus had hung naked on the Cross.
Struck with wonder and worship during that seemingly forsaken moment, Corrie leaned forward and whispered to her sister: “Betsie, they took His clothes too.”
Betsie gasped and said, “Oh Corrie, and I never thanked Him.”
Thanksgiving doesn’t require bounty—just gratitude for what our Savior has done for us.
Let’s not be complainers; let’s be thankers.
Remember who you were and what you were before God’s intervention?
Remember how it was and what future lay ahead for you had God not intervened?
When we surrender our very selves in order to follow the One Who loves us the burden of life is lifted and suddenly we realize that God has been so good to us…
…that God loves us so much…
…we can’t keep it inside any longer…
…and so we return to Him, throwing ourselves at His feet and thank Him.
This is how we are made whole.
And this is why we give thanks.
Let Us Pray: Lord, You said, “Your faith has made you well.”
We thank You for the gift of faith, which makes us capable of facing life with all its suffering and contradictions.
We ask that You strengthen our faith.
Let us never take You for granted.
Only You can make us whole.
Jesus, help us to give You thanks and honor.
In Jesus’ name we pray.
Amen.
