Thanksgiving Sermon

My Thanksgiving sermon at my teaching parish:

Luke 17:11-19, Psalm 65

The lepers in this text asked Jesus for healing and Jesus granted it to them. There really were no strings attached to this gift that Jesus gave them. He did tell them to go show themselves to the priests. This was because it was priests that certified that people were healed. However, Jesus did not tell them “I will heal you only if you change your habits,” or “I will heal you only if you change your attitude.” Jesus gave the gift of healing to them unconditionally when the lepers asked him to have mercy on them. It was a gift that was given with no strings attached.

One of the commentaries that I read on this particular text posed the question: why rebuke the lepers for not returning when they were commanded to go and in that obedience the lepers were healed?

I can not help but wonder if Jesus felt disappointed that the other 9 did not take the time to come and say thank you.

In the first season of the television show “Desperate Housewives”, Bree Van De Kamp and her husband Rex are in marriage counseling together. Bree is a really good housewife, but her husband is accusing her of using housework as a means to not communicate her feelings more. Later, she goes and sees the counselor by herself. She gets into a conversation about Freud with her counselor. In this conversation, she says that Freud’s mother “had to do everything by hand, just back breaking work from sun up to sun down” in addition to making sacrifices. She poses the question to her counselor, “he saw how hard she worked. He saw what she did for him. Did he ever even think to say thank you? I doubt it.” Later, when she and her husband Rex are in counseling together the counselor looks at her husband and says “I am curious do you ever acknowledge the benefits of living with Bree? By your own admission, your home is always clean your clothes are always freshly pressed, she sounds like a wonderful cook, despite her flaws, do you ever remember to say thank you?”

At this, Bree smiles because that is what she wanted: to have someone say thank you for all the work that she is doing. She wondered if she was acknowledged by her husband for the work that she did for him. While she never demanded a thank you, a thank you would have been something that would have went a long way for her in acknowledging what she did do for her husband.

This may have been similar to what Jesus thought about the nine people who did not come back to thank him in this text. He probably was having that same sense of wondering if the other lepers acknowledged what he had just done for them with the gift of healing. A thank you was not mandatory however Jesus had just given these 10 lepers an amazing gift: the gift of healing.

Have you ever felt like Bree in thinking that the people you live with do not acknowledge the things you do for them? Have you ever given someone a gift that did not get a thank you? Have you ever spent time listening to someone or doing something for someone that you felt was not acknowledged? Perhaps this is how Jesus may have felt about the nine people that did not thank him for the healing. In any relationship, taking the other person for granted can weaken the relationship as the feeling of not being acknowledged can be painful. While taking time to thank the other person for what they do for us can help deepen the relationship. Jesus wanted more of a relationship with the other 9 lepers, and wants more of a relationship with us.

However one person came back to him and thanked him in our gospel story today. It was the Samaritan in the group that came back to thank him. The other 9 were more than likely Jews. The Samaritan was considered a foreigner. The fact that it was the Samaritan who came back to say thank you was not insignificant. The Samaritan was showing evidence of being grateful to what he was able to receive where he was living. The Samaritan made that extra step to show gratitude to Jesus. The psalm for today says, “Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing glory of his name; give to him glorious praise. Say to God, How awesome are your deeds.” This is probably what the Samaritan did when he was at Jesus’ feet. This was significant for him and he felt the need to praise Jesus for this gift of healing. It was in his gratefulness that he was able to develop more of a relationship with Jesus as well. It is because he acknowledged Jesus and the wonderful powers Jesus had blessed him with. He was living out what the psalmist was feeling as well, “blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer.” His prayer and request were granted to him and he was glorifying Jesus. The other nine are the contrast to him because they took this gift that Jesus had given to them for granted.

At the time of Thanksgiving, we all are aware of the things in our lives that we are thankful for. As Christians, we take this a step further. We are not just thankful for things in our lives and looking for a special celebration. As Christians, we are thankful to God as well for being our creator and giving us the things in our lives. We do this because God desires to have a relationship with us, and this is one of the ways we strengthen our relationship with God: by giving thanks.

Yet Thanksgiving may not an easy time of year either. Holidays are difficult when poverty is in our own home. The current state of our economy may be leaving us wondering when poverty might hit us if it hasn’t hit us already which may make a holiday feel less festive than usual. Holidays can be a difficult time when we have experienced a family member’s death or separation or divorce from a significant other. It may be a painful time of year, so being asked to be thankful in the midst of a hurtful situation may be difficult.

But there is something that never changes that we can always be thankful for. God has given the gift of the son, Jesus Christ who died for the sake of our sins. This never changes, even if other things in our lives have changed. One of the ways that we are reminded of this gift is through the sacrament of baptism. We were lucky to be able to witness this was through Samantha’s baptism on Sunday, as we are able to think of God washing away our own sins as well. Thanking God for the gift of salvation through Jesus is showing gratitude for the ultimate gift of forgiveness which God has given us. It’s something we can always be thankful for even when its difficult to be thankful for other things.

God is also our creator. God made us and gave us the gift of life. This gift of creation is something else that we can be thankful for. God made this earth and everything in it. This includes flowers, trees, bodies of water and mountains, and countless other beautiful things. Acknowledging this gift of creation of our lives and the beauty of the earth is a way to show God how grateful that we are for what God has made.

God still gives other blessings in our lives as well. Today, I know that I am thankful to have family here today, to be a part of this Resurrection community, and that gas prices are going down. Take a moment and consider what you are thankful to God for today?

Try not let this attitude of thanking God for the blessings in your life be relegated to only one day. This may be challenging. Yet it can be simple as well. We can be thankful for our daily bread that we pray for in the Lord’s prayer. When Martin Luther answers what daily bread is he responds with a long list: “Everything that in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, farm, fields, livestock, money, property, a house, a spouse, children, faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors and the like.” The daily bread of our lives are things that we can be continuously thankful for. It is through these gifts that we are able to live our lives. Acknowledging God for these basic gifts is a way to express our gratitude for the basic gift of life.
We say these words of thanks for the gift of God’s creation as a way to grow in our relationship with God. We say these words of thanks for the gifts of life as a way to deepen our friendship with God. Just as the leper who came back to say thank you for Jesus for this gift of healing had more of a chance to really have a relationship with God, we have more of a chance to continue to grow in our relationship with God when we say thank you. Thanking God for the ultimate gift of salvation through God’s son Jesus is the chance to thank God for the ultimate thing that God has done in our lives.

Having a sense of thanks is not only something that can be expressed in words, it can also be expressed in actions. When someone gives us a present that we are truly thankful for, we do not put it in the back of the closet where no one will see it. We take it out, and put it in the center of our lives for other people to see it. We do the same thing with the gifts that God has given us. We can extend this thankfulness we have to God to the way that we deal with the resources that God has given us. Pledging money in the commitment drive for our church this week or helping to put some food in the baskets for the hungry in our community are some ways that we show thanks to God. It can also be in our gift of our time as well, whether we are singing in the choir or participating in the local organizing committee or doing anything else that contributes to the life of this church or to the well being of the Oakland community that we are showing our thanks to god as well. This is a way that the gifts that God has given us is put to good use instead of keeping it to ourselves where other people may not be able to benefit from them. The using of these gifts is a way to express gratitude to God in our lives.

We can thank God in many ways in our words, in our actions. We thank God because God has given us the gifts that we do have in our lives. We thank God so that we might grow in our relationship with God. God is not only our creator but also our friend. How could we not be thankful to God for all of