Grace, Hope, and Gratitude: Foundations for Stewardship
Grace, Hope, and Gratitude In This Challenging Time: Foundations for Stewardship Luke 17:11-19
November 10, 2024
Rev. Cynthia Cochran Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael
It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men, all lepers, met him. They kept their distance but raised their voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Taking a good look at them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests."
Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. He couldn't thank him enough - and he was a Samaritan. Jesus said, "Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?" Then he said to him, "Get up. On your way. Your faith has made you well.
The Message Luke 17:11-19
Somewhere between Samaria and Galilee, ten people were cured of a skin disease. They kept the Hebrew law by keeping their distance. They recognized Jesus was the Master, the Source of mercy. They did what he told them to do: “Go to the priest, just as the religious law says, and show him that you have already been cured.”
As they go to do this, they discover they are already cured. Only one of them comes back to say “thank you.” What a strange little detail!
Like Jesus, anybody can ask, “Where are the nine?” What I want to know is this: what was going on in the one?
Luke says he was a Samaritan. That is a second strange detail. Back then, everybody hated the Samaritans, which is precisely why Jesus made one of those Samaritans the hero of some of his stories, So sorry to hear you’ve been sick hope you start feeling better thanks for touching base in this bill Do you want to contact Dinah so she can send that out or do you want me to do that story that asks, “Who is my neighbor?” Jews and Samaritans were like oil and water; they did not mix. The Jewish people considered the Samaritans their enemy. And you can do it right now
And yet Jesus healed this one. He was one of the ten lepers. Jesus did not discriminate in his healing, especially when the illness itself had a discriminating effect. The Jewish Law was clear: if white spots develop on your skin, you are required to withdraw from society, from your village, your community, If anybody comes near you, you were required to yell, “Unclean! Unclean!” to keep them away.
Here was this man, a leper. No family, no contact. His only community is with nine other people with the same disease, all of them Jews. Normally they would have maintained their racial boundaries, but the only remaining humanity they shared was in their illness.
The ten lepers call out for help. When all of them are miraculously healed, it sounds like the old dividing lines return. Nine of them take off, presumably to go see a priest in Jerusalem, to have the healing certified and to be restored to their families. But the Samaritan doesn’t have a priest; all he has is Jesus.
He turns back to say thanks. Jesus says, “Where are the nine?” Was he disappointed that they didn’t come back? Was he bewildered that they didn’t appreciate the gift of getting their lives back? We don’t know.
What we do know is that gratitude is a spiritual problem. But maybe it is hard to feel grateful after this past week when many of us were hoping for a very different result in the presidential election.
It has been a very hard week. It seems like our world has gone out of joint. Mean-spiritedness prevails. Ignorance is lauded while knowledge is demeaned. Vitriolic and incendiary speech is praised.” Scapegoating has become commonplace. As a culture we are increasingly insensitive to the violence and cruelty that pervade our common life, while at the same time we turn a deaf ear to cries of injustice arising from the abused and marginalized. The politics of hate and fear and resentment stir up deep passions even as democratic governance is made more and more difficult.
In the face of “anarchy,” despair is a reasonable response. Things seem to be getting only worse. Perhaps we should simply “eat, drink, and be merry,” live in the moment, let tomorrow’s problems be for tomorrow.
Or, we remember we are invited to grieve, reflect, feel and re-engage the teachings of our faith - love and kindness and justice for all people and all creation, follow the ways of Jesus, being people of compassion. We Experience the gift Of Grace, of being part of a community where we are connected can serve and grow and deepen our awareness of the Holy.
John Calvin, one of the founders of Presbyterian church, taught that the appropriate and necessary response to God’s grace is gratitude; that gratitude provides the fertile soil for generosity; and that generosity impels the faithful to acts and attitudes of thanksgiving. Gratitude is the antidote to the self-concern which is poisoning our life together. When one is grateful, one is turned away from the need to earn or deserve, and instead turned toward the source of unmerited good. We receive blessing upon blessing not because we are good, but because God is good. Grace is bestowed upon us not because of some inherent quality in us, but rather because God is love.
The fruit of gratitude is the virtue of generosity; it is the capacity to give as God gives: freely, without regard for the merits of the recipient, because we have something material or spiritual to give – a word of encouragement, a helping hand, a hot meal, a prayer. Like any virtue, generosity must be cultivated and practiced and encouraged. The church provides opportunities so that acts of generosity become opportunities for celebration; when we give generously of time, interests, money, we rejoice in the giver of all good gifts and praise the God who empowers us to do good deeds in the world.
It seems to me that the virtues of the Christian life are far more subtle than we realize. John Calvin said the chief characteristic of being Christian is not love, or humility, or joy. The chief virtue of the Christian life is gratitude. Calvin said gratitude is even more important than love. Gratitude is the fountain of all service and generosity. Gratitude knows given a new start by the redeeming grace of God in Jesus Christ. This is the knowledge of the heart..
For Calvin, Christian life is lived in this ongoing cycle of gratitude, generosity, and thanksgiving which takes us outside ourselves to God and the needs of the world. This is a bold refusal to be co-opted by the corruption and chaos of this time, a steadfast commitment to being God’s people in the midst of this challenging time.
Eucharist is the Greek verb for giving thanks. The root of the word is “charis,” which is the word for grace. Not only that, the prefix “eu” signifies “good.” I think I would like to translate “eucharist” as “grace made good.” Giving thanks is the spiritual response for any gift of God.
One way we express our gratitude to God for our life and our church is to give generously. We are invited to prayerfully consider our financial pledges for the coming year. Are you able to pledge this year for the first time? Are you able to increase your pledge this year? Jeffrey and I prayerfully consider each year what we will pledge to churches we serve. We are grateful and we want to express that gratitude through our financial giving. FPC is a community of faith that provides rich opportunities for spiritual growth and serving others.
Through our music, through our programs, through our groups, friendships, through our spiritual growth opportunities, through serving our community, this is a community of hope. Think of some of the reasons you are grateful for this church. How do you show your gratitude to God? Are you becoming more grateful, more able to express and live with a sense of gratitude? God made the world good. Goodness is all around us, even in the midst of what’s bad, and gratitude invites us to notice. To rejoice in the good doesn't deny the evil or the brokenness, it doesn’t ignore struggle or suffering. Giving thanks acknowledges the goodness that is also, always here, because in God is always here. Gratitude stills and quiets us to pay attention with wonder and reverence, and then points that awe right to its source.
A PRACTICE OF GRATITUDE - You are invited to be present here, and be willing to notice.
In this moment, in this place, with these people,
I am thankful for…
When I think of the people I call mine, I am thankful for…
When I consider the connections I have in the world, friends, neighbors, coworkers,
people in our church I am thankful for…
When I think of my body, I am thankful for…
When I reflect on my life in the past few months, I am thankful for…
When I think of things this year that have been painful or challenging, I am thankful for…
When I think of this world, I am thankful for…
When I think of God, Divine mystery, I am thankful for…
When the Samaritan leper was healed, he began with gratitude and then began to imagine a new life, a new reality, rooted in this gift of hope.
As a church of hope, we gather yet again to affirm the realities and truth of abundance, hospitality, forgiveness, and peace-making - reality of God. We meet to embrace as our ethical commitment and practice to a way in the world marked exactly by
• abundance that has no fear of scarcity;
• gratitude for this abundance and recognizes life as a gift and a task;
• hospitality that is not in any way seduced by hostility;
• forgiveness and grace that resists any notion of vengeance;
• peace-making that intends to override the force of violence.
We do this in worship - in our singing, our praying, in our serving that this is the real world that God has given us. That other world view of fear, scarcity, hostility, vengeance, and violence, to the contrary, is a counterfeit world to which we give no credence. This world of abundance, gratitude, hospitality, forgiveness, and peace-making is the real world that we are invited both to embrace and practice today, tomorrow and always. AMEN.
https://billcartersermons.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-grateful-leper.html
https://churchanew.org/brueggemann/calling-a-different-world-into-being
https://www.jkpcmarietta.org/gratitude-generosity-thanksgiving
