Luke
17:11-19
October
13, 2013
First
Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
Christina
Berry
This Sunday, we begin our season
of Stewardship. I’m always a little ambivalent about that term, “Stewardship
Season,” because it somehow implies that stewardship is something we only pay
attention to during the fall, something that needs to be taken care of before
Advent and Christmas. That makes it seem that Stewardship, in spite of our
protests to the contrary, is really only about the church’s annual pledge
drive. And let’s be honest – we choose this time of year for the annual pledge
drive, because it is important that we have that work done before Christmas.
But Stewardship, as you well know, is about far more than Pledge Commitment
Sunday, and about far more than simply money. Stewardship concerns all of life
– how we use all of our resources – not just money, but time and talent, and
how we as human beings care for the resources we have in our shared life community,
nature, the oceans, air, water, food, and all of creation. We ourselves are
resources, in fact, and we are called to be good stewards of ourselves, as well
– stewards of our bodies, our health and well-being, and our hearts and souls.
The stewardship of self and of soul is every bit as important as the
stewardship of our checkbooks.
This year, our preaching and
worship for stewardship will center on certain words – words about commitment
to the Christian life, and about what those words mean for us in our daily
lives, as stewards of our selves, and of the community we create with one
another. The first of those words – the word for this week – is gratitude.
Thankfulness.
Our scripture reading is a short
story of healing and gratitude. Let’s consider the context of this brief story.
We are in the 17th of 24 chapters of the Gospel of Luke. Way back in
chapter 9, Jesus has set his face to go toward Jerusalem. By chapter 22, he is
on his way to the cross. But for now, Jesus is on the
road, and the route to Jerusalem that most of his people take would very
deliberately stay away from Samaria. The Samaritans were different, foreign. They believed that their faith
and their way of worship were superior. So a Galilean like Jesus would normally
have detoured around Samaria, even though it was a much shorter journey to pass
through that land. Now, here Jesus is, going through Samaria.
Imagine, if you will, that you
want to go to Galena today, but you absolutely refuse to pass through Carroll
County. Your choice then, is to go back to the East, then go north, and back to
the west; or you can head west, cross the Mississippi, then cross back over to
Galena from Dubuque. That’s the kind of detour people would take to avoid going
through Samaria. And they traveled on foot. Nobody wanted to be near Samaria or
Samaritans.And certainly, nobody wanted to
be anywhere near any lepers. Nobody but Jesus, that is.
11On the way to
Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As
he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they
called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14When
he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they
went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them,
when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud
voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.
And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked,
“Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was
none of them found to return and give praise to God except this
foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way;
your faith has made you well.”
The whole story was so strange,
he could hardly believe it himself. They had heard about this Jesus of
Nazareth, heard about his teachings, and the way he healed people. They’d heard
he was passing through, so they were watching for him. Jesus was certainly a
different sort of healer. He was always touching unclean people, talking to
unchaperoned women, sticking his fingers in people’s ears, rubbing his spit in
their eyes, talking to dead people and telling them to get up. He touched people,
lifted them to their feet. There were stories of some remote healing – for the
official’s son, and for the woman’s daughter who had an evil spirit. But most
of the time, he was pretty hands-on.
But this time it was different.
Jesus did not even touch these lepers. They were walking along, near the border
of Samaria, at the edge of the road where the dust faded into weeds. When they saw him enter this
village, they called out to him. They hadn’t really discussed it among
themselves – they weren’t friends, really, just thrown together by
circumstance. Their skin conditions were
different – some looked more like a rash, others like eczema or psoriasis, some
might have actually had leprosy. It didn’t matter – they were outcasts, not
allowed to enter town, no longer welcome in their own homes, forced to beg for
scraps and handouts, just to survive.
It didn’t matter either, not
really, who first called out to Jesus: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on
us!” But once one of them did, the other nine joined the chorus. Instead
of shouting the warning cry of lepers, “Unclean! Unclean!” they cried out for
mercy: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”
It was hard to tell at first, and
at that distance, whether Jesus was actually paying any attention. He was
walking along in an intense discussion with his disciples. But then, he looked
up, looked directly at them, and told them to go show themselves to the priest.
They didn’t really understand, but they did what he said, because it would
indicate that they were going for verification that they were healed. But he
didn’t say that, nor did he touch them or say they were made well.
And as they went they were made clean. They were walking along, hopeful
but not at all certain, going in hopes of a bill of clean health from the
priests. As they headed away, they looked down at themselves, and looked at
each other… they saw that… they were cured. Whatever skin condition they
suffered from…gone. The isolation…ended. Their condition as outcasts…over.
They could go home. They could
hug their wives. Embrace their mothers. They could tuck their children into bed
at night, and get up and go to their work in the morning. They could go to
worship and weddings and funerals, spend time with friends. They would no
longer have to shout out the warning “UNCLEAN” as they approached someone on
the road. Through his mercy and grace, Jesus restored their lives to them!
Certainly, every one of the ten
of them recognized this. Certainly, every one of the ten of them realized what
had happened. But only one came back. Only one turned around and ran back
toward Jesus, praising God with a loud voice. Only one returned to throw
himself at Jesus’ feet. Only one said thank you – thank you for the gift of his
life restored. And he was a Samaritan— an excluded, disdained, looked down on,
rejected Samaritan. But he understood gratitude. He would spend the rest of his
life remembering that day, that moment. He would spend the rest of his life
saying thanks be to God.
For about the last ten years or
so, researchers have been trying to understand gratitude.
There’s a professor at the
University of California who does little else. He says gratitude has two key
components: “First, it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are
good thing in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received. This doesn’t mean
that life is perfect; it doesn’t ignore complaints, burdens, and hassles. But
when we look at life as a whole, gratitude encourages us to identify some
amount of goodness in our life. The second part of gratitude is figuring out
where that goodness comes from. We recognize the sources of this goodness as
being outside of ourselves. …true gratitude involves a humble dependence on
others: We acknowledge that other people— or even higher powers, if you’re of a
spiritual mindset—gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the
goodness in our lives.” The research shows that the daily, conscious practice
of gratitude has great benefits for people, people of all ages. People who
practice gratitude enjoy benefits that are physical, psychological, and social.
Physical:
·
Stronger
immune systems
·
Less
bothered by aches and pains
·
Lower blood
pressure
·
Exercise
more and take better care of their health
·
Sleep longer
and feel more refreshed upon waking.
Psychological:
·
Higher
levels of positive emotions
·
More alert,
alive, and awake
·
More joy and
pleasure
·
More
optimism and happiness
Social:
·
More
helpful, generous, and compassionate
·
More
forgiving
·
More
outgoing
·
Feel less
lonely and isolated. [1]
The research indicated that all
it takes to cultivate thankfulness are a few simple routines, like counting
your blessings every day, or keeping a
list of things you are thankful for in a gratitude journal, or, as was
suggested in the weekly devotionals in our church newsletter, make a gratitude
jar, and keep adding items to it. Interestingly, people of faith are more
grateful, and the more grateful a person becomes, the more likely they are to
embrace faith. People who are both faithful and
grateful are happier.
Another group of researchers in
Pennsylvania tested a variety of practices to see if they made depressed people
any happier, and if that effect lasted at all. One of the most effective
practices, they found, was for people to “write and then deliver a letter of
gratitude in person to someone who had been especially kind to them but had never
been properly thanked.” This seemingly small act not only had a huge impact on
happiness, it lasted for a whole month![2]
Long before Martin Seligman at
the University of Pennsylvania, or Robert Emmons at UC Davis – this Samaritan, a
leper healed by Jesus got it, without a Ph.D or a tenured faculty position, or
any research at all. The experience of being healed moved one man, one out of
ten, to come back and say thank you. And Jesus didn’t just say, “You’re
welcome.” He knew there was more to it than that. “Your faith has made you
well,” he said.
The grateful man was cured, and
now he was healed, not only able to return to community, but made whole,
restored. That’s what research is catching up to: the practice of gratitude
restores us. The word for the week is gratitude, a central characteristic of
our faith. We are stewards of thankfulness. Jesus might just as well have said: “Get up and go on your way; your gratitude
has made you well.”
Thankfulness gives us a way of
seeing the world that changes everything –how we live, the choices we make, the
way we treat others. It makes us more generous, more contented, less envious. It
makes us more faithful. It makes us well.
Through Jesus Christ, it heals us
and makes us whole.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
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