As Luke tells it, one day Jesus is walking in the direction of Jerusalem with his disciples. They come near a village and pass by a leper colony on the outskirts, which is where the colonies were forced to locate. Ten lepers, their gray skin hanging from their bodies, scuttle out, calling to Jesus. They stop at a safe distance and shout to Jesus for mercy. They are hoping for a miracle. He does not disappoint them.
That is the first lesson of this Gospel story: Jesus does not disappoint. Ask, and you shall receive-certainly good stewardship advice if ever there were!
Jesus tells the ten lepers to go see the priest, which is necessary before they can return to the community. On their way to the priest, they suddenly discover their leprosy is gone! Only one of the healed lepers, a Samaritan, returns to Jesus to thank him. He comes back and throws himself on the ground before Jesus in gratefulness. Jesus is stunned. "Were not ten lepers cleansed?" he asks. "Where are the rest?" (Luke 17:17)
Good question! Where are they? Better yet, who are they, those nine who showed no gratitude at all? Jesus offers a hint when he says, "Was only this foreigner able to return and give thanks to God for his healing?" (Luke 17:18) Here the Bible gives us a new twist on an old story; it is the Good Samaritan redux, only this time the Samaritan is the one getting the help by the side of the road.
Moreover, the Samaritan comes back to Jesus grateful. The outsider, the unwanted, the alien, the one who is doubly despised as a foreigner and a leper, returns to give thanks. Is he really the only one of the ten who knows and appreciates the value of what he has been given? What about the others? Do you suppose they were locals who took their cleansing for granted?
Maybe they felt entitled to what they received.
Entitlement is the enemy of gratitude, and our culture is awash in entitlement. We live in this nation as if we had it all coming to us, as if we believed our own advertising. That attitude infects the church as well-perhaps especially we Presbyterians who have had it so good for such a long time. Privilege and prerogative and power seldom yield to thankfulness, which presupposes humility.
We cannot say simultaneously, "Thank you" and "I had it coming to me," unless we talk out of both sides of our mouths. If we assume we have nothing for which to be thankful, and no one to whom we should be grateful, giving thanks is superfluous, unnecessary, and certainly uncalled-for. The result is life without gratitude, which is life where joy has gone missing. In fact, writes Andre Comte-Sponville, "those who are incapable of gratitude live in vain; they can never be satisfied, never be fulfilled, never be happy they do not live, they get ready to live." (p. 137, Virtues)
It is often those who have the least -like the leper in the Gospel story-who show the most gratitude.
Here at Westminster our congregation includes more than 100 immigrants. They are like the Samaritans of our era, especially in these days of government-sponsored suspicion and xenophobia. These Westminster members come mostly from West Africa, but also from every continent on the globe, except, perhaps, Antarctica! Some are here illegally, many are now permanent residents, and a few are citizens. We know of at least five Westminster members that are refugees and have applied for asylum in this country, in order to remain here permanently. They fear political and religious persecution back home.
One of our West African members has been in the U.S. legally for 17 years-nearly half his life. For most of that time he has been an active part of our church, and is currently moderator of a key committee. He has had a hospital job for most of that time, is married and has three young children who are U.S. citizens. He has been in jail for three months, awaiting deportation. He has appealed the decision, but Attorney General Ashcroft recently changed the rules; he wants imprisonment during the appeal process, whereas before one could wait for the decision in freedom.
I received a long letter from our jailed church member last week, telling me how difficult his confinement is. He describes the rough conditions of life behind bars and writes sweetly in his letter: "Life in jail is not something I would wish for anyone, not even my enemy."
At the end of the letter, he writes this sentence: "Come what may, I still have to give thanks to the Almighty for all he has done for me and my family." In the midst of an unending, miserable experience, his gratitude to God is intact. I am not sure I could be so magnanimous toward God were I in his place.
Paradoxically, thanksgiving becomes a way of life most easily for those who appear to have the least for which to be thankful.
I have been making frequent calls on a 96-year-old church member who is moving toward death. Her mind and body are giving out, but not her gratitude! When I visit her these days almost all she can talk about is how grateful she is. Lying there, or sitting propped up, with her oxygen tether and medicines and memory loss and weakness- she wants to express her gratitude! She is thankful in the morning, thankful in the evening, thankful all the day long-thankful all her life long. Sounds like a Hebrew psalmist to me!
Like the Samaritan leper who comes back to Jesus, those who have the least, tend to show the most gratitude. The rest of us, who have so much, have work to do, to recover the lost biblical virtue of gratitude.
The problem with gratitude, though, is that it gets in the way of greed. It is bothersome that way! Gratitude naturally creates a desire to give. It subverts and even reverses our insatiable consumer appetite, and leads in the direction of relinquishment, which can be especially dangerous to those who cling to their money and material things. We show our gratefulness by "giving" thanks, and such giving can lead to all kinds of other wonderful generosities.
For those who follow Jesus, gratitude is directed at God, and the giving that accompanies that gratitude results in financial support of the church and its mission, as we well know. It may be old-fashioned, but it bears repeating: Christian stewardship rests upon gratitude to God. We simply cannot be grateful, in the biblical fashion, and not be generous. When we are genuinely grateful, we cannot help but give ourselves away for the sheer joy of saying "thank you" to God.
What happened to those other nine lepers? They need to come to their senses and re-order their lives in the direction of gratitude to God. Then they will really begin to live and find what it means to be made whole. I can say that because in my affluent, North American, straight-white male self, I am among them. I have what I need, and even most of what I want, and I am not going back.
If the church is to move out of its present despair and malaise-not to mention its funding challenges-the recovery of gratitude, biblical gratitude, must become a high priority. That means having to give some things up and take some risks.
My first pastorate was at Old First Church, an urban congregation of about 200 members in downtown San Francisco. Like many historic city churches, the building was old and in need of repair. We had no room for expansion, no parking, no endowment. The neighborhood was overrun with homeless, addicted or mentally ill men. It was tough going. Nevertheless, we made the decision to launch a capital campaign, in order to renew the building to make it a place of beauty and hospitality and welcome in that neighborhood. We stunned ourselves by raising over one million dollars!
One day not too long after the campaign, a call came into the church from our building committee chair, saying he had heard quietly that the adjacent property -a large, two-story garage that would be perfect for our parking-was about to go on the market. Even though I knew the price would be sky-high, I was so excited when I hung up that I invited two church members who happened to be in the church office, to take a look out the window with me.
I dramatically pulled open the blinds and pointed to the building. "That is the future of this church!" I said, breathlessly.
Then I told them about the news we had just received. After a few minutes of wistful thinking, they left the room, but one of them turned around, closed the door, and said to me, "I want to make it happen."
"What do you mean?" I said.
"I want to make a gift," came the reply.
"That building will go for more than two million dollars!" I said in the typical style of a pastor, hoping to talk someone out of making a gift. Why do we always feel so obliged to protect people from their own generosity?
"I want to give at least $500,000," came the reply, much to my astonishment. I had no idea that was possible.
Over the next few days, the asking price became clear: $2.5 million. I thought we were sunk, because we had just completed the capital campaign and had no other resources to make up the difference from the proposed gift.
Within a week, that spontaneous commitment had grown substantially. The gift finally came in at $2.5 million, and the building was ours. To this day, only four of us know the identity of the donor; no one would have suspected who it was.
When I asked about motivation for the gift, the answer was simple: "I want to make a difference somewhere," came the reply, "because the church has made such a difference in my life." That could have been said by any one of those nine healed lepers, if only they had come back to Jesus giving thanks.
I am convinced that a recovery of gratitude is in order in the church today, not only for the sake of improving our stewardship, but also and primarily for the renewal of the church. "Get up and go on your way;" Jesus says, "Your faith has made you well."(Luke 17:19)
Gratitude led to wholeness for that one returning leper; it can do the same for you and for me, and for the church we love and serve, if we turn around, and come back, giving thanks to God for all God has done for us.
Thanks be to God. Amen. |
