Thursday November 27 2008
Thanksgiving Day
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving services, or in this case, Thanksgiving-eve services have kind of a strange feel. This year, as often happens in the past, Thanksgiving comes in-between Christ the King Sunday and the First Sunday in Advent, meaning that it comes in-between the last Sunday of one church year and the first Sunday of the next church year. But what has always seemed a little strange to me about Thanksgiving services is the reality that, let’s be honest, Thanksgiving is, or at least it has become primarily a civil holiday.
I mean, I don’t think it was ever actually considered a church holiday, but the pilgrims were good God-fearing Puritans. I am sure if we went back to those first few Thanksgiving celebrations, they would have looked quite a bit different from Thanksgiving as it is celebrated today. I am sure there would have been a strong element of thanks and praise to our Lord. My guess when they weren’t eating or preparing the Thanksgiving feast they were probably giving thanks and praise to God. And those were grim and bitter times the likes of which we couldn’t even imagine. But still, it was important that they take time to give thanks.
And now hundreds of years later when we are living in luxury and splendor the likes of which the pilgrims couldn’t have imagined we have turned this day intended to be spent in thanks and praise to our Lord into a celebration of indulgence and excess. What was intended to be a day of honoring the sacred as praise to God has become really a day of chasing idols. We have turned it into a day of focusing on, and consuming the gift, while completely losing sight of the Giver. And inevitably, like with so many gifts of God, we have convinced ourselves that the gifts of God are not so much gifts as they are rights.
We have become like the nine lepers in the Gospel lesson who were healed of their leprosy by Jesus but really didn’t even appear to so much as give a thought to thanking and praising God. These ten lepers were suffering from a crippling and debilitating disease. In addition to that, as if that weren’t bad enough, this disease would have made them outcasts from society. They would have all been in desperate need. And so they cry out to Jesus in their despair. They cry out to Him and He responds.
He sees that they are in need and He responds by simply telling them to go and show themselves to the priest. He tells them to go to the priest because the priest has to confirm someone being cleansed of their leprosy. This is from Leviticus 14 where it says that the leprous person at the time of their cleansing, is to go to the priest and the priest shall make an examination. And so we can see that Jesus was not just addressing the leprosy, but also the social isolation that went with the leprosy.
But then, the ten who were once united in the misery of their leprosy, scatter and disband once they have been healed, and only one of them thinks to come back and thank and praise God for healing him. And what made him go back and give thanks was that he saw that he had been healed. He saw that he had been healed and so he turned back, Luke writes, praising God with a loud voice, and he sat at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him.
Seeing is a big part of this story. The lepers saw Jesus and cried out to Him. Jesus saw the lepers need and responded to it. The one leper saw that he had been healed and gave thanks. But I don’t think the difference between the one leper and the other nine was that he saw that he had been healed and the others didn’t see that they had been healed. I am sure the others saw that they had been healed, but the grateful leper saw his healing for what it was; a gift. And I think with the other nine, perhaps there was a short period of time where they were grateful but then maybe lost sight of the reality that the healing they had received was a gift, as opposed to something they deserved or were entitled to, a right if you will.
And so that brings us back to us. We have lost sight of the reality that everything we have is a gift and a blessing from God. We convince ourselves that the gifts that we receive from God are actually well-deserved rewards for our good works and piety as we seek to live our best life now. We lose sight of the giver, while the gift becomes our god and our taskmaster.
But in John 6 Jesus tells us not to work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life which the Son of Man gives you. For it is on the Son of Man that God the Father has set His seal. When we have perishable idols we are perishable. The nine lepers who walked away give us a sobering reminder of the danger of what we have turned Thanksgiving into; a day of having, desiring, and consuming what is less than God.
But the good news is that the Giver remains present among His despisers. For that is what we see through the whole life, death and resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus entered the village He was doing so knowing that He would soon be among some of His despisers. The nine lepers who lost sight of the reality that the healing they had received was a gift, revealed themselves to be among Jesus’ despisers.
But in the midst of that we see Jesus doing what He does, giving people new life, freeing people from bondage, making them well. For when the Samaritan comes back and gives thanks, Jesus declares unto him that his faith has made him well. That is where we see saving faith, not in the ten who cried out to Jesus in need, but in the one who came back and gave thanks and praise, not because he felt obligated to but because he couldn’t help it. He understood that in his encounter with Jesus, that Jesus was not just some guy who happened to be able to heal leprosy. Heck the fact that there was a precedent for priests confirming people being healed of leprosy way back in Leviticus tells us that there were people being healed of leprosy long before Jesus came around.
No he understood that in Jesus, he had seen much more than a healer. In Jesus he had an encounter with the living God. In Jesus he had an encounter with the One who comes to us in the waters of baptism and claims us as His own and marks us with the cross of Christ. In Jesus he saw the One who saves us not simply from disease and social isolation but from sin, death, and the devil. In Jesus he saw the One who would lay down His life for us and take upon Himself our sin and death and in exchange give us His righteousness and eternal life.
How can we possibly not be grateful for that? As Paul says in the lesson from 2nd Corinthians God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work. In Christ Jesus we are given so much that the very privilege of being able to share the great riches of God’s grace and forgiveness in Christ Jesus is a gift in itself.
Every time I preach on this passage, I always wonder about what happened to the nine lepers who did not come back. Most commentaries that I read in preparing for this sermon, which would be one, seem to assume that they never came back. But I don’t think we can assume that, especially in light of the fact that just two chapters before this Luke gives us the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the prodigal son, all of which are rich in imagery of Jesus as the shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep.
I think the grateful leper went out after the other nine. I think he went out after them seeking to open their eyes to the gift of Whom they had encountered in Christ Jesus. And I think in that we see our calling to our neighbor; to reach out to them in Word and deed, to meet their needs, to feed them when they are hungry, to clothe them when they are naked, but always looking to reveal to them to greatest gift we have been given, the gift for which we are to always be giving thanks and praise for, the gift of our Savior Christ Jesus.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thanksgiving services, or in this case, Thanksgiving-eve services have kind of a strange feel. This year, as often happens in the past, Thanksgiving comes in-between Christ the King Sunday and the First Sunday in Advent, meaning that it comes in-between the last Sunday of one church year and the first Sunday of the next church year. But what has always seemed a little strange to me about Thanksgiving services is the reality that, let’s be honest, Thanksgiving is, or at least it has become primarily a civil holiday.
I mean, I don’t think it was ever actually considered a church holiday, but the pilgrims were good God-fearing Puritans. I am sure if we went back to those first few Thanksgiving celebrations, they would have looked quite a bit different from Thanksgiving as it is celebrated today. I am sure there would have been a strong element of thanks and praise to our Lord. My guess when they weren’t eating or preparing the Thanksgiving feast they were probably giving thanks and praise to God. And those were grim and bitter times the likes of which we couldn’t even imagine. But still, it was important that they take time to give thanks.
And now hundreds of years later when we are living in luxury and splendor the likes of which the pilgrims couldn’t have imagined we have turned this day intended to be spent in thanks and praise to our Lord into a celebration of indulgence and excess. What was intended to be a day of honoring the sacred as praise to God has become really a day of chasing idols. We have turned it into a day of focusing on, and consuming the gift, while completely losing sight of the Giver. And inevitably, like with so many gifts of God, we have convinced ourselves that the gifts of God are not so much gifts as they are rights.
We have become like the nine lepers in the Gospel lesson who were healed of their leprosy by Jesus but really didn’t even appear to so much as give a thought to thanking and praising God. These ten lepers were suffering from a crippling and debilitating disease. In addition to that, as if that weren’t bad enough, this disease would have made them outcasts from society. They would have all been in desperate need. And so they cry out to Jesus in their despair. They cry out to Him and He responds.
He sees that they are in need and He responds by simply telling them to go and show themselves to the priest. He tells them to go to the priest because the priest has to confirm someone being cleansed of their leprosy. This is from Leviticus 14 where it says that the leprous person at the time of their cleansing, is to go to the priest and the priest shall make an examination. And so we can see that Jesus was not just addressing the leprosy, but also the social isolation that went with the leprosy.
But then, the ten who were once united in the misery of their leprosy, scatter and disband once they have been healed, and only one of them thinks to come back and thank and praise God for healing him. And what made him go back and give thanks was that he saw that he had been healed. He saw that he had been healed and so he turned back, Luke writes, praising God with a loud voice, and he sat at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him.
Seeing is a big part of this story. The lepers saw Jesus and cried out to Him. Jesus saw the lepers need and responded to it. The one leper saw that he had been healed and gave thanks. But I don’t think the difference between the one leper and the other nine was that he saw that he had been healed and the others didn’t see that they had been healed. I am sure the others saw that they had been healed, but the grateful leper saw his healing for what it was; a gift. And I think with the other nine, perhaps there was a short period of time where they were grateful but then maybe lost sight of the reality that the healing they had received was a gift, as opposed to something they deserved or were entitled to, a right if you will.
And so that brings us back to us. We have lost sight of the reality that everything we have is a gift and a blessing from God. We convince ourselves that the gifts that we receive from God are actually well-deserved rewards for our good works and piety as we seek to live our best life now. We lose sight of the giver, while the gift becomes our god and our taskmaster.
But in John 6 Jesus tells us not to work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life which the Son of Man gives you. For it is on the Son of Man that God the Father has set His seal. When we have perishable idols we are perishable. The nine lepers who walked away give us a sobering reminder of the danger of what we have turned Thanksgiving into; a day of having, desiring, and consuming what is less than God.
But the good news is that the Giver remains present among His despisers. For that is what we see through the whole life, death and resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus entered the village He was doing so knowing that He would soon be among some of His despisers. The nine lepers who lost sight of the reality that the healing they had received was a gift, revealed themselves to be among Jesus’ despisers.
But in the midst of that we see Jesus doing what He does, giving people new life, freeing people from bondage, making them well. For when the Samaritan comes back and gives thanks, Jesus declares unto him that his faith has made him well. That is where we see saving faith, not in the ten who cried out to Jesus in need, but in the one who came back and gave thanks and praise, not because he felt obligated to but because he couldn’t help it. He understood that in his encounter with Jesus, that Jesus was not just some guy who happened to be able to heal leprosy. Heck the fact that there was a precedent for priests confirming people being healed of leprosy way back in Leviticus tells us that there were people being healed of leprosy long before Jesus came around.
No he understood that in Jesus, he had seen much more than a healer. In Jesus he had an encounter with the living God. In Jesus he had an encounter with the One who comes to us in the waters of baptism and claims us as His own and marks us with the cross of Christ. In Jesus he saw the One who saves us not simply from disease and social isolation but from sin, death, and the devil. In Jesus he saw the One who would lay down His life for us and take upon Himself our sin and death and in exchange give us His righteousness and eternal life.
How can we possibly not be grateful for that? As Paul says in the lesson from 2nd Corinthians God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work. In Christ Jesus we are given so much that the very privilege of being able to share the great riches of God’s grace and forgiveness in Christ Jesus is a gift in itself.
Every time I preach on this passage, I always wonder about what happened to the nine lepers who did not come back. Most commentaries that I read in preparing for this sermon, which would be one, seem to assume that they never came back. But I don’t think we can assume that, especially in light of the fact that just two chapters before this Luke gives us the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the prodigal son, all of which are rich in imagery of Jesus as the shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep.
I think the grateful leper went out after the other nine. I think he went out after them seeking to open their eyes to the gift of Whom they had encountered in Christ Jesus. And I think in that we see our calling to our neighbor; to reach out to them in Word and deed, to meet their needs, to feed them when they are hungry, to clothe them when they are naked, but always looking to reveal to them to greatest gift we have been given, the gift for which we are to always be giving thanks and praise for, the gift of our Savior Christ Jesus.
Amen
posted by Steve at 6:48 PM
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