Gratitude – Sermon for Ascension Lutheran Church, October 13, 2019

I had the joyful privilege this weekend of officiating Erika & Sean Garrigan’s wedding at my home congregation, Ascension Lutheran Church in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Since I was already there on Saturday for the wedding, I was able to also preach on Sunday so Pastor Jeff (Erika’s dad) could take some time with his family. We also had a baby shower on Sunday afternoon while we were in Fond du Lac. Busy weekend!

Here’s my sermon on gratitude preached at Ascension on Sunday, October 13, 2019. The texts for this Sunday include 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c and Luke 15:11-19, the story of the grateful leper. The ending idea of this sermon comes from this 2016 column by David Lose. See also his columns from 2013 and 2010, this sermon by Martin Luther himself, and this week’s Sermon Brainwave podcast.

Because this sermon was preached at Ascension, it was recorded for their podcast. Here’s the audio if you prefer to listen rather than read!

Grace and peace from the One who was, who is, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

I want to start with a confession. This is the kind of confession that might embarrass my parents, so I figure it’s perfect for the one time this year they hear me preach!

Here’s my confession: I am terrible at writing thank you cards. In my office at home, I have a list of the gifts I received at my ordination and the thank you notes I planned to send.

I don’t know the exact ordination thank you note etiquette, but I imagine you’re supposed to send them sometime within the first three years. So, if you gave me an ordination gift, let me say “Thank you,” and also don’t hold your breath for a note.

I should be clear that this failing is not my parents’ fault. I remember as a kid every birthday and Christmas having to sit down and write thank you notes the same day.

I was taught you were supposed to say what you’re going to do with the gift, so people know you appreciate it. I still struggle sometimes to write notes that say more than, “Dear Grandma, thank you for the book. I am excited to read it. Thanks again, Daniel.”

When I started as pastor at St. Peter, I heard somewhere that gratitude was a good daily practice, so I bought a box of 100 custom thank you cards for the church with the goal of starting each day by writing one – sending five a week. After three years, I’m please to report I’m down to fewer than 20 left. I’m getting there.

Gratitude is not something that always comes naturally to me, as much as I wish it would. Maybe you’re like that too. I think that’s why I like this story of the grateful leper so much.

At the start of the story, these ten lepers do not have much to be grateful for. Because they have leprosy, they’re considered unclean, and they’re excluded from society. They live outside the villages, and according to the law, they have to announce that they’re unclean whenever other people are around.

These guys are living on the edges, the outskirts of society in several senses, not only because of the leprosy. Luke says Jesus encounters them while going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. That’s interesting, because if you look at a map, there isn’t really a region between Samaria and Galilee. They border one another. These lepers are living in an in-between space, not really included in either Samaria or Galilee.

And it’s not a very happy border area. There’s a long history between Samaria versus Galilee and the rest of Israel. It goes way back in Israel’s history, to when the Syrians and then the Babylonians came and conquered Israel and Judah. We got a little of that in the first lesson today, with the Jewish servant girl who’d been captured by Naaman, the Syrian commander.

All the elite people were taken away into exile. They worked hard in exile to maintain their Jewish identity. Many of the Old Testament prophets encouraged the exiles to repent and return to God. Isaiah promised God would eventually restore them to their homeland. And sure enough, after 70 years of exile, the people return home.

But remember, not everyone had been taken into exile. Some people, mostly poor people, had been left behind. So these faithful Jews who had endured the horrors of exile return home, and they find there are already people there. They’re still worshiping God, but they haven’t had the same experiences of exile, so the returners are suspicious of them. Who knows what they’ve been doing while we’ve been gone? Who knows how corrupted they might have become? In fact, they’re not even worshiping God in Jerusalem – they have their own holy place.

Those people who remained during the exile are the Samaritans, and the Jewish people don’t trust them or get along with them. That’s part of why the story Jesus tells of the Good Samaritan is so shocking, because everyone knows Samaritans aren’t to be trusted. No one on the Jewish side expects them to be good or faithful.

That’s the space these 10 lepers are living in. They’re in-between, rejected by everyone. We probably shouldn’t be surprised Jesus enters into that space.




And when they see Jesus pass by, they call out to him for mercy. Jesus follows the law and sends them to the priests who are responsible for certifying who is ritually clean, and on their way, they’re healed.

Nine of them keep going, but one of them comes back to praise Jesus. I wonder if it’s because as a Samaritan, he’s so used to being an outsider.

Luke doesn’t explicitly say, but we assume the other nine are Jewish. These ten are only together because they’re living in this in-between space rejected by everyone else. This Samaritan, this foreigner, he has more to gain. He is not only cleansed from his leprosy; Jesus accepts him as an outsider. That’s good news for all of us, who are outsiders. The healing and wholeness Jesus brings are for both Jews and Gentiles like us.

This guy understands what Jesus has done for him. He throws himself at Jesus’ feet and thanks him. He’s overwhelmed with gratitude.

This sort of gratitude is both what builds faith and the natural result of faith. In fact, I don’t think you can have faith in God without gratitude. Faith comes from recognizing what God has done for you in Jesus Christ, and when you truly understand Jesus’ love for you, you can’t help but be grateful.

Martin Luther was once asked what the definition of “true worship” was, and he responded, “The 10th leper.” This is why we gather as Christians. This is the example we’re following when we worship.

We make the mistake sometimes of judging the quality of a worship service by whether we get something out of it. I think part of why I’m a pastor is because it’s really easy for me to slip into critiquing worship and noticing what I would do differently.

Don’t misunderstand: It is good to do worship with excellence. And I do hope you get something out of this sermon. But whatever we get out of worship is secondary. The primary purpose of worship is to give thanks to God, to come before God as people and acknowledge who God is, acknowledge the truth that God is God and we are not.

One of the things we ought to get out of worship is the regular reminder to be grateful. We hear what God has done throughout history, and we are grateful.

We hear what God has done for others in our own community, and we are grateful.

We recognize what God is doing in our own lives, and we are grateful.

At the beginning of worship we confess our sins, our shortcomings, our need for Jesus. And then we hear the promise of forgiveness, so we can be grateful for God’s grace. We sing songs and make a joyful noise to praise God. Sometimes those songs get stuck in your head and you keep singing them all day, praising God whether you like it or not!

We read from God’s word to hear stories of God at work. Our prayers include asking God to work in various situations, and at the same time we give thanks for where we have noticed God working.

When we come to the Lord’s table, we remind each other to give thanks. It’s part of the liturgy called the “Great Thanksgiving.” Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give him thanks and praise. It is indeed right and salutary to praise God, not just in church, but all the time.

All of this of course is practice for our eternal purpose of praising God, but it also shapes how we see the world now.

Gratitude is the natural response to understanding what God has done, but it’s also something that takes practice. Gratitude requires noticing the world around us, noticing God’s activity, noticing the blessings God has given us.

Do you think the other nine who didn’t come back were ungrateful?

Perhaps, but I doubt it. I suspect they were just as grateful, but they didn’t do anything about it. Actually, I have some sympathy for them. Imagine how they felt when their Samaritan friend came back later and said, “So, I went back to see Jesus and thank him, and he was pretty disappointed none of you guys came back.” Probably a pretty awkward conversation!

Luke doesn’t tell us exactly what motivated him to go back. All he says is, “One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.”

He saw that he was healed. All 10 of them were healed of their leprosy, but only one of them, Luke says, saw that he was healed, and for him, it was more than just physical healing. Jesus says to him, “Your faith has made you well.” He receives the blessing of physical healing, but he also is made whole by naming the blessing he’s received. He’s the only one who truly grasps what Jesus had done for him.

The other nine don’t do anything wrong, but all they receive is the physical healing. They are not made well in the same way because they don’t stop to fully see what’s happened to them.

The seeing is the key, and that’s something we can practice. We can practice seeing the world around us through a lens of gratitude. One of my friends in college would regularly pause in the middle of a walk or conversation to say, “Stop! Appreciate.”

It takes effort to see through a lens of gratitude. It’s a lot easier to see the problems around us, right? Fear and conflict are what sells ad views and commercials.

Looking for things to be grateful for is countercultural, but if you spend the effort to look, there are always blessings for which you can give thanks. It’s the famous quote from Mr. Rogers, “Look for the helpers.”

Even in the midst of trouble, you can see blessings. I told my mom I was preaching on gratitude this weekend, and she mentioned that even though a horse broke her nose this week, she’s grateful to have not also been trampled. That’s perhaps a bit extreme of an example, but you get the idea.

Things are not always good. There are very real, serious problems around us in this broken world. We need to care about those problems. We are called to work for justice and peace in the world.

But at the same time, there are also blessings all around us, for which we can choose to give thanks.

Jesus’ final instruction for the grateful leper is to get up and go on his way. Giving thanks leads back to action, to an active faith. But our action as Christians is always in response to God’s action for us. Our love comes out of gratitude for God’s love. First and foremost we are grateful because we have been redeemed by God.

Pastor David Lose writes, “Giving voice to gratitude is a choice with consequences, for as we express our gratitude, we affect those around us, even shape the reality in which we live.” He talks about a friend he has who always answers the question, “How are you?” with “I’m grateful.”

I like that, and I’m going to try it this week. “How are you?” “I’m grateful.”

I assume it will startle people, and that’s ok. (I also think the response to “Bless you” after a sneeze should be “You too” so maybe I just like giving unexpected responses.)

But perhaps it will give people a moment to pause and notice what God is doing around them. And noticing leads to gratitude, which leads to faith. I invite you to try it. Let’s practice.

How are you?
I’m grateful.

How are you?
I’m grateful.

Go on your way, your faith has made you well.