A Season of Thanks
Luke 17:11-19
The New Testament in a Year sermon series
Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA
December 4th, 2011
We are continuing our series of messages going through the NT in a year, and I invite you to turn to Luke 17:11-19 this morning. We’re going to read the passage right off the bat today, and then dive into what it means for us in the 21st Century. So, follow along in your Bibles or on the screen as we read Luke 17:11-19:
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then 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.’
Unless you live in a cave, you know that society has turned Christmas into being all about stuff. The biggest shopping days of the year are between the day after Thanksgiving – and even starting on Thanksgiving Day now – through December 24th; Maybe even continuing through the end of December, actually. Sales beginning on Black Friday (actually, Thanksgiving Day) and continuing through the following Sunday were a record $52.4 billion in the U.S. this year.1 That’s up 16% from the same days last year. A record 226 million people2 went shopping in person or on-line between Thanksgiving Day and the Sunday after. That’s 2 in 3 Americans. Take a look at the people on either side of you….If you didn’t go shopping in those four days, then they did. Imagine what it would have been like if we weren’t in the midst of a recession, and with high unemployment!
Now, I get it that products are discounted, and we’re all trying to save a buck. Maybe we Americans just want to be good stewards of the money God has blessed us with, so we can stretch things further and give more back to God. For a few, that might actually be the motivation. It would be nice if that was everyone’s motivation, though clearly, it’s not. Rather, most Americans have bought into the idea that Christmas is about stuff; “The more stuff we have, the merrier our Christmas will be” goes the thinking. In fact, we’ve bought into the notion that life is about stuff, and acquiring more of it has become the American Dream. As the slogan says: “The one who dies with the most toys wins.”
But for the Christian…for those of us who have been touched by the grace of God, experienced deep forgiveness, and have a walk with Jesus Christ: the posture of Christmas is one of thanks. Isn’t that what your mom and dad taught you to say when someone gives you a gift? And: The real gift of Christmas is Jesus Christ. He’s the one who embodies grace, forgiveness, truth, love and has transformed countless lives including yours and mine. And so we say, “Thank you” to God for his generous gift.
So we see that there are two ways to go through life, and they are both demonstrated in this morning’s passage. We can go through life with an attitude of gratitude, with thankful hearts, like the man who came back to thank Jesus…or we can go through life without being thankful to God for much of anything. Let’s be honest: if the other 9 weren’t going to thank Jesus for healing them, then they weren’t going to thank him for anything else either, and that’s just how they’re going to go through life.
You may have heard the story of the man who was betrayed by a friend. He went to his friend and said, “How could you do this to me? Who picked you up out of the gutter? Who gave you your first job? Who lent you money and bailed you out of jail? And now you betray me like this?” The reply was, “You did help me out in all those situations, that’s true. But what have you done for me lately?”3 That is not a thankful person. Nine of the formerly leprous guys were kind of like that. And we could be that way, too.
On the other hand, we can go through life with a deep sense of thankfulness – thankfulness for people, and thankfulness for God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We can be more like the man who was an immigrant shopkeeper whose son came in to see him one day. His son said to him, “Dad, I don’t understand how you run this store. You keep your accounts payable in a cigar box. Your accounts receivable are on a spindle. All your cash is in the register. You never know what your profits are.” “Son, let me tell you something,” answered his dad. “When I arrived in this land all I owned was the pants I was wearing. Now your sister is an art teacher. Your brother is a doctor. You are a CPA. Your mother and I own a house and a car and this little store. Add that all up and subtract the pants and there is your profit.” 4 That’s a picture of a person who is truly thankful for what they have, and it’s how we can live, too.
And in the healing of the 10 guys, the difference between the one and the nine is that one lived like that shopkeeper, while the other nine had no desire to express their gratitude. The result is that the one comes back to say, “thanks” and to praise God. He is so grateful for what Jesus has done in his life that he can’t help but offer his praise.
And it’s not as though all his troubles in life are over. This is a guy who had leprosy. For as long as he had it, that means he was removed from society – lived in a leper colony, no friends besides the other in the colony with him such as the nine who were also healed, no contact with his family, no job, no house that’s his own, no contact with the general population, and so forth. Now that he’s healed, he can’t go back to the leper colony. “The old is gone, and the new has come” as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17. He can’t go back to where he came from, because he’s a changed man. He has to move forward, which means he has to re-engage with community, starting from scratch. By the way, that’s why they were to go to the priests, which was the standard thing to do. The priests would pronounce them healed so that they could re-enter society. So he’s healed, and he can re-enter normal life, but there are a lot of problems yet to overcome as he does that. But does that keep him from praising God? No. In spite of the myriad of obstacles he has to overcome, he returns to Jesus, praising God and offering his thanks.
It’s the same for you and me. If our praise is simply based on whether or not God has recently acted in our lives in the way that we want him to, or if we wait to praise God until all of life’s problems are washed away…then we’re living with a “what have you done for me lately?” attitude.
Second service: Last week we sang the song “Blessed Be Your Name.” It has the lines, “Blessed be your name, when the sun’s shining down on me, when the world’s all as it should be, blessed be your name….Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering, though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be your name.” That’s giving thanks to God regardless of our circumstances, and I pray we mean it when we sing it.
So let’s praise God at all times and all places because of what he’s done – whether it was yesterday or last year – and simply because of who he is.
Lastly, notice what Jesus says about the one who came back: “Arise, go your way, your faith has made you well.” All of them were healed on their way to the priest, but only this one is truly made “well.” The Greek word for “well” here is “sozo”. Mostly in the New Testament, it’s translated as “save.” For instance Matthew 1:21: “For he shall save (“sozo”) people from their sins.” Or John 10:9, “I am the door, whoever enters in through me shall be (“sozoed”) saved.”
So the returning to Jesus to give thanks, the expression of faith that is shown in this action, makes this man safe, or well.
And as we get close to Christmas, and we remember that the real gift at Christmas is the gift of Jesus, how good and right it is for us to come to him ourselves, praising God, offering our thanks. This isn’t a season of stuff, but a season of thanks. And as we do that, as an expression of thanks and faith, we are made well. It’s a step beyond being healed, and it’s a good place to be.
So a couple of things come out of this that we can take from this for Advent and Christmas that are very applicable to our lives. First, we can praise God no matter the circumstances. Helen Keller has said, “I thank God for my handicaps. Through them I found myself, my work, and my God” (Helen Keller). Even in the face of various challenges – marital, economic, parenting, grand-parenting, loneliness, health challenges, the loss of loved ones, and so forth – we can acknowledge that God has blessed us in a myriad of ways, and we can acknowledge that God is bigger than the problem. In fact, if you’re willing, say these words after me: “God has blessed me…God is bigger than my problems.” That is true for you right now. God has forgiven us of our sin, we have roofs over our heads, we have a fantastic church community, we have seen miracles in our lives and in the lives of others. And for all of that, and so much more, we can be thankful and praise God, showing it by returning to Jesus to praise him in our worship, our service, our giving of financial resources, our time, and our talents. And we can do that no matter the obstacles yet to overcome, because God is bigger than those obstacles. We know he’s conquered the biggest obstacles for us – sin and death – and he is bigger than the others we face, too.
Secondly, there’s an opportunity to invite others to join with us in thanking and praising God. Not everyone lives in this place of gratitude. We know this from experience, and we see it in this morning’s Bible passage. 10 guys were healed. One came back to Jesus, praising God, and said, “Thank you.” That’s not a very high percentage, is it? Researchers say that on any given Sunday, about 20% of Americans are in church on Sunday?5 It’s not that 20% say they follow Jesus, it’s that 20%, on any given Sunday, take the time to return to Jesus – at least in a church setting – and praise and thank God. The good news is that that’s twice as many people as came back to thank Jesus in this morning’s passage. The bad news is that the number of people who didn’t return to give thanks isn’t much better – from 90% to 80%.
There’s an opportunity for us to reach out to people and invite them to express “thanks” to God and to praise Him in church. A few weeks ago I encouraged all of us to invite someone to church this December. Just like this guy knew 9 people who didn’t return, so do we know people who we could invite to join us in thanking and praising God for his goodness. That’s an opportunity we have this December and throughout this year.
So, we are in the midst of a season of thanks – not a season of stuff. A lot of the world doesn’t realize it, but it’s true. Don’t let your “thanks” be obscured by all the stuff this Christmas. Don’t let your “thanks” be drowned out by the challenges yet to be overcome. Don’t get swallowed up with larger crowd that doesn’t return to thank Jesus. Instead, no matter our circumstances, let’s give thanks and praise to God this Christmas for Jesus Christ, and invite others to do the same, because He’s the only gift that really matters. Let’s pray…Amen.
