Thankfulness

Boy & Orange Story

A small boy was given an orange, which he took willingly. His mother said “What do you say?”. The boy looked at the orange and though for a moment, then said “Peel it.”

That wasn't what his mother wanted or expected. When Jesus healed the lepers he didn't get what he wanted or expected either. Maybe you can easily forgive a child, but with adults you expect a better understanding.

I will be Concentrating on Gratitude this morning. I hope we can get a better understanding of what it means to be thankful.

Background to passage

First though we must take a look at the scene we are presented with and understand what is happening here.

Verse 11 says that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. We are approaching passover, but there is a long journey yet, and lots of teaching to get through before we arrive. He would be travelling roughly southbound, from Galilee to Jerusalem, but Sameria is between the two. Jesus was going around the region of Sameria, instead of through it. Jews and Samaritans have a common ancestry, but separated after the Babylonian exile. Both sides believed they held the truth about God. Under normal circumstances they do not mix, but leprosy is a special case.

As he was entering a village some lepers called out to him. They had to call, they were not allowed to get too close. They had been excluded from their villages and were not allowed to make contact or come within a certain distance of the healthy population. That meant they were not allowed in the Temple or any other place of worship. It meant they were not allowed at a place or work. All they could do was beg. It was a sensible public health measure. Leprosy was (and still is) a horrible disease, and only since the 1930's we have had a cure. The description of Leprosy in the Bible covers many different types of skin disease – but you couldn't be too careful.

The rules for determining what is and is not a skin disease that makes someone 'unclean' are set out in Leviticus 13.

They asked Jesus to take pity on them. Leprosy was seen in Jesus' time as a punishment from God. They believed that God's mercy would make them clean again.

Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests. Jews and Samaritans had similar rules and systems for determining if someone had recovered. It was the priests job to examine the person and determine if he was well. As they obeyed Jesus they all realised that they were cured. Their skin became normal.

One of them, just one, turned back to thank Jesus for the miracle. It turns out that he was a Samaritan.

What of the other nine? Why didn't they come back? Here's one preachers ideas:

• One waited to see if the cure was real.
• One waited to see if it would last.
• One said he would see Jesus later.
• One decided that he had never had leprosy.
• One said he would have gotten well anyway.
• One gave the glory to the priests.
• One said, "O, well, Jesus didn’t really do anything."
• One said, "Any rabbi could have done it."
• One said, "I was already much improved."

May be. May be they did think like that. It's almost impossible for us to know how we would have reacted. All I can say is that, for me, I think I would have been so excited about being able to go back to my family, back to my community, to live my normal life that I may well not have thought about my duty of thanks. Of course I would be thankful, but would not have expressed it to the very person that I should have expressed it.

Parallels to our situation

The social effects of Leprosy has parallels with the effects of sin. As Leprosy separates people from their community so sin separates us from God. It puts us outside the community that we would prefer to be inside. It breaks our contact, and leaves us in a position where we can only beg for mercy.

Gratitude

So we have a lot to be thankful for. Jesus has already answered our call for mercy. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Before any of us had any concept of our need Christ had already died for us, so that we may not be separated from God.

What do we have to be thankful for?

There's much more than that to be thankful for though.

Rudyard Kipling

“Rudyard Kipling lived from 1865 to 1936. He was English, yet born in Bombay, India. He wrote poetry and is the author of books like Captain Courageous, How the Leopard Got His Spots, and The Jungle Books.

Kipling’s writings not only made him famous but also brought him a fortune. A newspaper reporter came up to him once and said, "Mr. Kipling, I just read that somebody calculated that the money you make from your writings amounts to over one hundred dollars a word.”

The reporter reached into his pocket and pulled out a one hundred-dollar bill and gave it to Kipling and said, “Here’s a one hundred dollar bill, Mr. Kipling. Now you give me one of your hundred dollar words.”

Rudyard Kipling looked at the money, put it in his pocket and said, "Thanks!"

Some things to be thankful for.

I'd certainly say “Thanks” for £50, and I bet most of you would too.

Here are some other things that you might be thankful for:

-If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.

-If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish somewhere, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.

-If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week

-If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

-If you can attend church meetings without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion in the world.

-If your parents are still alive and still married, you are fairly rare.

[What else might we be thankful for?]

A different perspective

Perhaps we just need to change our perspective to see what we can be really thankful for.

Jewish Story – (of the goat)

There is an old Jewish story that illustrates this point. There is a man who goes to the rabbi and complains, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?" The rabbi answers, "Take your goat into the room with you." The man in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. "Do as I say and come back in a week." A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. "We cannot stand it," he tells the rabbi. "The goat is filthy." The rabbi then tells him, "Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week." A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, "Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat -- only the nine of us."

The situation was the same as at first, but now his perception had changed. He realized that he was blessed to begin with.

Why be grateful?

Does that help to make you think of the things you can be thankful for?

Sometime though, it takes a doctor or an expert to tell us what to do, before we will change our habits.

because it's good for you!

Here's and extract from a book called “Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier”

 By Robert A. Emmons

"We discovered scientific proof that when people regularly engage in the systematic cultivation of gratitude, they experience a variety of measurable benefits: psychological, physical, and interpersonal. The evidence on gratitude contradicts the widely held view that people have a "set-point" of happiness that cannot be reset by any known means: in some cases, people have reported that gratitude led to transformative life changes. And, even more important, the family, friends, partners, and others that surround them consistently report that people who practice gratitude seem measurably happier and are more pleasant to be around."

Now Robert is saying that you actually have to do 'being thankful', not just think about what you might be thankful for. He's saying that the act of thanking changes your life.

That is surprisingly exactly what the Bible says.

Philippians. 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

Colossians 2:6-7 "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving."

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Part of living with Christ, of being a Christian is that we practice thankfulness.

Farmer and Pig Story

An old farmer once had an ungodly relative visit him. After the farmer had bowed his head and thanked God for the food they were about to eat, the relative rudely said, "What did you do that for? There's no God. We live in an age of enlightenment." The old farmer smiled and said, "There is one on the farm who doesn't thank God before he eats." The relative sat up and said, "Who is this enlightened one?" To which the farmer quietly replied, “My pig.”

Let's end with a prayer

"Thank you, dear God
For all You have given me,
For all You have taken away from me,
For all You have left me."
(unknown)

Time for a Celebration - Luke 15:1-32 @St John the Divine

Lost

[Act Lost Credit Cards]

Oh, the last time I did that was on the morning we were to go on holiday. What a panic! I looked everywhere for hours and hours. Eventually I gave up and phoned all the companies to cancel the cards. When you have joint credit cards they cancel both of them, so even Jo's were no good. It's horrible being on holiday and having nothing spend. When we got home from holiday the cards were waiting for me on the dining table. I had dropped them in my son's car while moving it off the drive the night before!

When you loose something, especially something important a horrible panic sets in and you search wildly trying to find it. When its a person – a friend or relative the sense of anxiety is much stronger and in some cases searching will do you no good at all.
While we're talking about loosing people, do you remember being lost as a child. Try to remember the panic and fear of it for a moment. We will come back to that later.

Nature of God

We are created in the image of God, so its no surprise that God also keenly feels the sense of having lost someone. You wouldn't expect God to panic, but you would expect him to search. We can see from the stories that Jesus told in our reading today that God does search.

God searches urgently: The shepherd leaves his sheep to search for the one that is lost.

Would you? Would you leave 99 healthy sheep out in the wilderness, where wolves and bears could easily find them? Would you leave 99 sheep out in the wilderness where any number of them could wander off? Just to find only one that was missing?

We may answer 'Yes' quickly to this question, that's because you know the passage, but it's likely that Jesus hearers would not have been quite so positive. Jesus is showing us that God exceeds human expectations.

God searches diligently: A peasants house would have had a low door and no windows, so the woman who lost her coin would have needed a lamp to have any chance of seeing a coin on the floor. Her best chance, even with the lamp lit was to sweep the earth floor carefully until she spotted something move that was not dust. The coin may have been part of her dowry and would have been very valuable.

God waits patiently: Just like the father waiting for his son to return home God waits for his lost people to return to him. When someone has left of their own accord there is not much point in searching, they probably don't want to be found and would just go further away if you did find them. It is better to wait patiently, always on the lookout for the person to return. Just like the father is our passage today.

The Ungrateful Scorpion (found on http://desperatepreacher.com/bodyii.htm)

This is the story of an old man who used to meditate each day by the River. One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man, he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again. The stings made his hand swell up and gave him much pain. Another man passing by saw what was happening and said to the Old Man, "What's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could be killed trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?"
From desparatepreacher.com

The old man calmly replied, "My friend, just because it is in the scorpion's nature to sting, does not change my nature to save."

It is God's nature to save. We are his treasures – He does not want to loose us. Despite all our best efforts to get ourselves lost God is always there ready to save us.

Urgently looking for an opportunity to rescue us. Diligently searching for a way to make us turn to him.

Patiently waiting for us to respond.

Celebration

When we do there is a celebration. Did you notice that each of the three stories ends with a celebration – a party to mark the occasion.

I heard on the TV the other day that the average wedding costs £17,000. It scared me a little as Karen is talking about getting married. It's an important day in anyone's life. What you do on that day changes you life, so it's worth making an occasion of it.

I've heard that some Jewish families preparing for a Bar Mitzvah have the whole house redecorated and then have a huge party. It must cost a fortune, but marking you son's move from childhood to adulthood is important. His life will change from that point onwards.

There's even a huge party after a christening – when we thank God for the arrival of a new life and commit to bringing the child up in the Christian faith.

What do we do when someone who we've been praying for for absolutely ages becomes a Christian? How do we mark the day when their life changes, indeed when their life really begins?

Our Response

That's all very well, you say, but I've been a Christian for ages, and I didn't get a party! Well if you are thinking like that, let me remind you of the lost son's brother. He is usually condemned for his churlish attitude.

The real question you should be asking is what these stories mean for us as Christians. How should we respond to Gods searching for the lost people in our world?

We are supposed to be God's agents on the earth, so we should join in with his efforts. I'm really assuming that you know that and already have relationships with non-Christians and are praying for them.

Take a moment to remind yourself who they are.

[pause]

The first thing to do is to make sure that no-one else gets lost. I was in a meeting with Warner the other day when someone said they hadn't seen one of our parishioners for a couple of months. Other said the same. He wrote the name in his diary and said he would give them a call to see how they were.

Is there someone who you haven't seen in a while? - Give them a call when you get home and tell them they're missed.

So the first response we can have is to keep in touch.

Remember that feeling of being lost as a child. People are lost in the big wide world. They may never have known anything else. So often people are looking for something more in their lives and don't even realise that it is available. Until they meet someone who has that something. Perhaps someone like my daughter Liz, who some of you may know. When she was at University the people she was living with refused to play games of chance with her. She kept winning and they believed that God was on her side, so they didn't stand a chance. They could only make this assumption because Liz was very open about her faith and didn't compartmentalize it. She talked quite naturally about her relationship with Jesus.

So the second thing we can do is be natural. Peter calls it being prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15).

Think carefully about those you are in touch with. What would make them more interested in God. What can you DO to show them who God is and how much He loves them. Be sure it's something that will help them, and not just you.

So the third thing we can do is work diligently at showing people who God is.

A guy’s car was stalled at a green-light. Cars behind him would honk and honk. Out of frustration, the guy got out of his car, tapped on the window of the person behind him and said,"My car will not start, would not mind trying to start it, while I will sit back here and honk your horn for you"

(http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/finding-lost-passion-for-lost-people-ryan-johnson-sermon-on-evangelism-how-to-43916.asp)

I've been told that the average time taken from first interest to full conversion is three years. That is certainly true for me. I also know that a number of people were praying for me long before I showed any interest.

So the fourth thing we can do is be patient. Don't try to hurry people, trust that God is more concerned about their salvation than you are.

Finally, when they have accepted Christ, make a thing of it, hold some sort of celebration. Make the occasion important for them and for you. Something to remember to mark the start of a new life. You'll just be mirroring what's happening in the heavenly realms.