Gratitude

Readings:
2 Kings 5:14-17
2 Timothy 2:8-13
Luke 17:11-19

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our message for this week is about gratitude. Have you ever heard that saying “Have an attitude of gratitude”? I have. I think it’s a good one. It’s easy to remember, rolls off the tongue. That is the focus of our message this week. As I prepared this message, I was thinking about something that’s become kind of a family joke for us. One time, I was driving somewhere with the children, and my oldest son, Jack, wanted me to get him a snack, which is a pretty common occurrence. We were driving by someplace where he wanted me to stop and get him a snack, and I was not as concerned about his snack as he was, and so I kept driving on down the road. And Jack said, “Dad, you are missing an opportunity to get me a snack.” We still joke about that. Poor Jack, he’s a good sport.

This underscores how much we take for granted. We do. We take many things for granted. We go along, we have so much in our lives that’s wonderful and we take it for granted. Sometimes, in my teaching, I have occasion to tell my students that there was once a world in which there were no cell phones, and there was no Internet. We didn’t even have copy machines to print off tests, I explained, the pages had this weird purple print on it and the paper smelled funny. My students just looked at me like I was from another planet. They take all that stuff for granted, because that’s all they’ve ever known. We get used to things, right? And then we take them for granted.

Gratitude is important in our faith. When we’re grateful, we’re humble, because we realize all of the gifts that we have in our lives. When we’re humble, we see those gifts, and we see God’s role in our lives. We see our relationship with God. When we see this relationship, we experience our faith in a very real and tangible way. So gratitude is a great instrument to help us see God in our lives. Our readings today illustrate this idea.

Our Old Testament reading today was from 2 Kings, chapter 5. Here you have a Syrian general, Naaman. He’s a pagan, not an Israelite, and he came down with leprosy. As an interesting historical point, when you hear about leprosy in Scripture, it could mean leprosy like we know it, Hansen’s Disease, but also could mean some noticeable skin condition, such as psoriasis, or something like that. People didn’t really understand what things like that were, and they took it to be a sign of uncleanness. And, of course, they didn’t want to catch a disease, so they would stay away from him. So this is a catastrophe for Naaman, the general, to come down with this. So he goes into the Jordan, because Elisha says so, and he goes into the Jordan seven times. When he comes out, his flesh is clean. He’s been healed of this disease. And now, Naaman is very grateful and he wants to give thanks to God. This is a conversion moment for Naaman, because he realizes, that the God of Israel has saved him, a foreigner, a pagan. He says – and this is a strange looking thing to us, but it is an interesting point – he says, “let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth, for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other God except to the Lord.” He wants to take some of the dirt from Israel back home with him, so that he has some of Israel there. This is the God of Israel, so he wants to be in that place, Israel, when he gives thanks to God. This underscores his gratitude to the God of Israel for healing him. He was thankful to God for what God had done for him.

Our Epistle today is from 2 Timothy, chapter 8. This is a follow-up from last week. We saw, last week, Paul is in prison. He knows his days are numbered and he views Timothy as his successor, so he’s advising Timothy about what to do in leading the early church. He’s telling him to be steadfast in the face of challenges; that he’s going to have them. He says, look at me, I’m imprisoned, faced all kinds of challenges in my life. And indeed, Paul had a very adventurous, challenging, and in many ways very painful life. He’s in prison, Paul says, but he willingly accepts suffering, and he does this for the sake of those who will hear and accept the Gospel. He’s willing to undergo all these challenges and suffering because this is a mission he’s been given from God – to preach the Gospel to all the nations. And Paul says to Timothy: “this saying is trustworthy: if we have died with Him we shall also live with Him.” This is the promise of Christ to us: we know, even when we’re undergoing hardships and challenges and pain, that Christ is with us. We can be grateful for the presence of God in our lives, even in the midst of suffering and fear. We still have hope in Jesus Christ.

Our Gospel message for today is from Luke, chapter 17. This is something that happened. It has the look of a parable, but it’s not. This is an event that occurred in the ministry of Jesus. There are 10 lepers that He encountered while He’s traveling through Samaria and Galilee. The 10 lepers are there and they ask Jesus to heal them. “Have pity on us!” they say. Jesus says, “go show yourselves to the priests.” As they’re going along, they realize they’ve been healed. Jesus has healed them. And so, nine of them just go on their merry way. They’ve been healed, this is great. One of them, though, returns to Jesus and gives thanks to Jesus for healing him. Jesus notes, this one is a Samaritan. Remember, the Samaritans were looked down upon by the Israelites, they viewed them as less than. But this Samaritan, he was the one who came back to give thanks to God. This is what Jesus says to him: “has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Then he said to him, “stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” This Samaritan, the one who is looked upon as less than by everybody else there, the one who has leprosy, the one who is ill, this one has been saved by his faith in God. And he demonstrates this by his thankfulness to Christ for saving him.

So, as I began, ‘have an attitude of gratitude’. It’s not always easy to do. When we don’t feel well, or encounter struggles and challenges, when we’re in pain, it can be really tough to have gratitude. But think about it this way, if you have that attitude of gratitude, you will be a happier person for it. You will see God around you and you will experience your faith in a very real and tangible way.

Amen.