A Gratitude Adjustment

A 4-year-old boy was asked to say grace before Thanksgiving dinner. His family bowed their heads in expectation. He began his prayer, thanking God for all his friends, naming them one by one. Then he thanked God for Mommy, Daddy, brother, sister, Grandma, Grandpa, and all his aunts and uncles. Then he began to thank God for the food. He gave thanks for the turkey, the dressing, the mashed potatoes, the cranberry sauce, and the pies. Then he paused, and everyone waited – and waited. After a long silence, the young fellow looked up at his mother and asked, “If I thank God for the broccoli, won’t he know that I’m lying?”

I guess we all have our limits. How grateful are we today?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. His journey carried him along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into one village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

When he saw them, he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan.

Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to the man, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Looks like the other nine needed a gratitude adjustment.

Mark Molldrem of Emphasis magazine made a Top Ten list in the vein of David Letterman of the responses that the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus might have said after Jesus healed them:

Leper 10. Bummer, now my acne will be more apparent.

9. Will I have to file a medical insurance report for this?

8. It’s no fair, now I’ll have to work for a living instead of begging off others.

7. Does this mean I can go to Planet Hollywood this weekend?

6. Great! I can get back into the dating scene again.

5. Now what excuse will I use to get out of going to the in-laws for Thanksgiving?

4. I wonder if Jesus would also do something for my allergies.

3. All right! Now I can buy a new wardrobe.

2. Why didn’t this happen sooner?

And number 1: Thank you, Jesus! You are my Lord and Master.

Only one of the ten returned with this kind of response. But that one gave us some important lessons.

For one thing, we can see that faith and gratitude go hand in hand. If you trust God, you cannot help but have a profound sense of gratitude about what God has done in your life. Conversely, if you are a person without a sense of gratitude for what God has done in your life, you ought to examine your heart to see if God really does dwell there. Faith and gratitude go hand in hand.

The real puzzle is why you and I aren’t bubbling over with gratitude. God has blessed most of us in so many ways. Oh, from time to time all of us experience heartaches. That’s what it means to live in a fallen world, East of Eden. But on balance, our lives are very, very good. Why on earth don’t we come into this church just bubbling over with praise and thanksgiving? Why are there so few of us here this morning?

If we have ever really thanked God for all God has done for us, our lives would be transformed. We would have a sense of joy. We would have a sense of trust. I mean, God is with us. God has been with us. God will always be with us. How can we walk around with so much uncertainty and doubt? How can we have such gloom written upon our faces? God has done wondrous things for us. The real puzzle of life is why you and I don’t express our gratitude in our daily lives.

Notice how this story ends. Jesus says to the man, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” Jesus doesn’t praise the man for coming back and giving thanks. He doesn’t have to. He knows the man’s heart. This man is in tune with God’s will for his life. This man knows God loves him. His life is a study in thankfulness. Jesus simply affirms that this man is a man of faith, and that is all that is necessary for this man to live a whole and complete life.

There is healing in an attitude of faith and thanksgiving. I am convinced we would have far fewer people suffering from both emotional and physical pain if they incorporated faith and a sense of gratitude into their lives.

Barbara Sholis wrote an article for Christian Century in which she talked about her own experience of being healed. Having faced the specter of cancer, Barbara said she could identify with these ten lepers and their disease. This is a passage she lives close to. “When chemotherapy causes your hair to fall out, robs you of your energy and fills your mouth with canker sores, you begin to develop empathy with the lepers. There is no hiding the fact that you are diseased. Your cancer walks into the room before you do and people who know better still flinch as they did before the lepers, who were made to live outside the community, who had to beg for survival.”

Now that she is well, Barbara identifies closely with the tenth leper, the one who returned with gratitude. “Like the tenth leper,” she writes, “I never want to lose sight of the miracle of God’s grace. Being grateful as I awaken to the gift of each day is the key.” She has come to believe that gratitude is “the purest measure of one’s character and spiritual condition.”

Barbara’s right. Gratitude is the purest measure of one’s character and spiritual condition. And there’s healing in such gratitude. I believe it is the answer to stress. It’s the answer to heartbreak and loss. I believe that all of us would have healthier minds and bodies if we could have such faith and gratitude, even for the smallest of things.

Have you remembered to thank God for:

• a good night’s sleep
• a day of blue sky and sunshine that gets you outside
• a day of gray skies and drizzle that keeps you inside
• the unexpected voice of a distant friend on the telephone
• the comfort of the Psalms
• the beauty of John 1
• Mozart
• chocolate
• laughter
• Ibuprofen
• your dog
• your cat
• your spouse
• your children
• your grandchildren

A little boy asked his mother what was for lunch. “Chicken soup,” she answered.

“My favorite – thank you, God!”

“Why are you thanking God?” his mother wanted to know. “I made the chicken soup.”

“Yeah,” said the boy, “but God made the chicken.”

And he made the turkey as well.  Have a happy and grateful Thanksgiving.