A Pledge for Grateful Living
Luke 17:11-19

Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins

November 24, 2024

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then 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 him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

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Kid’s say the darndest things, don’t they? Take this thank you letter, written by a young boy to a guest speaker who came to his class:

Dear Mr. Ramon,

Thank you for coming to our school and teaching us about weather.

Some day when I become supreme ultra-lord of the universe, I will not make you a slave. You will live in my 200-story castle where unicorn servants will feed you doughnuts off their horns.

I will personally make you a throne that is half platinum and half solid gold and jewel encrusted.

Thank you again for teaching us about meteorology; you’re more awesome than a monkey wearing a tuxedo made out of bacon riding a cyborg unicorn with a light saber for the horn on the tip of a space shuttle closing in on Mars while engulfed in flames. And in case you didn’t know, that’s pretty dang sweet.

Sincerely,

Flint

Now that kid knows how to write a thank you note! Today in our scripture lesson, we meet someone Jesus encountered who, like this kid, knows how to express appropriate thanks.

In the story, Jesus and friends are traveling. As they enter into a village, ten lepers approach Jesus. Now, a leper might be anyone with a suspicious flesh wound, but for understandable self-preservation reasons in the days before antibiotics, the rule of the day is to quarantine anyone with a suspicious sore. These isolated individuals often sit outside of the city or village near the gate to beg from passers-by. That’s likely the scene Jesus encounters upon entering this village.

The ten lepers, from a distance, call out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t call them to come closer, but tells them to go present themselves to the priest. Why? The priest is the one who can declare them clean and fit to resume their place in society. Jesus doesn’t heal them in that moment, but they were healed as they made their way to the synagogue. Healed! Cleansed from leprosy! Freed from the isolation, freed from the loneliness, freed from the scourge keeping them from the touch of family and friends.

That’s all we know about nine of the lepers. But it was the one leper that made this story worth writing. One leper, one out of ten, turned around. While the other nine kept looking ahead, presumably went to the synagogue, received their stamp of approval from the priest, and went on to resume a more normal life, one stopped, turned around to go back, and gave thanks to Jesus, who made it all possible.

How did Jesus respond? “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” We’re not privy to Jesus’ emotional state when he asked these questions. Was he sad? Angry? Disappointed? Frustrated? Flabbergasted? We don’t know. Maybe a little of all of these things.

Have you ever been disappointed or frustrated when you did something really nice for someone and they didn’t express appropriate thanks? Or spun the other way, have you ever been the offender? Have you ever forgotten to send a thank you note? I need to catch up on a couple of thank you notes myself this week!

When I was in college, there was a popular song in certain Christian circles called “Thank You” by Ray Boltz. The song tells about a dream in which the singer and a friend end up in heaven, and a string of people come up to the friend saying, “Thank You.” I was in a little group that performed dramatic sign language to the song—it went like this:

Thank you for giving to the Lord.

I am a life that was changed.

Thank you for giving to the Lord.

I am so glad you gave.

I thought I was so cool! Ha!

And then one day a preacher started talking about the song, and how sad it was that those people never expressed their thanks on earth—that the lyrics of the song were just a dream—we don’t know for sure that we’ll be able to say “Thank You” in heaven, so we should be more intentional about saying “Thank You” here while we know for sure we have the chance.

Remember what happens next in the story of Jesus and the ten lepers? To the one—the Samaritan leper—he said this, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Now, the man had already be cleansed of his leprosy, which is why he turned around and gave thanks in the first place. Then Jesus says to him, “Your faith has made you well.” What can this mean other than a healing beyond the physical? A more complete healing. More wholeness, more health was given to this man simply because he turned around to give thanks while the others pressed ahead without acknowledging the source of their healing.

Which kind of leper are you? Do you fall into the majority, failing to give thanks and praise to God for the miracles, small and large, that present themselves every day? Or are you like the one who stops, turns around, recognizing the unmerited gifts of grace that comprise this thing called life.

I’d say most of us have room to grow when it comes to gratitude. So how do we grow in grateful thinking and living?

Brother David Steindl-Rast identifies three steps in the process of grateful living:[1]

Step One: Wake Up
We never start to be grateful unless we wake up. Wake up to what? To surprise. As long as nothing surprises us, we walk through life in a daze. We need to practice waking up to surprise. I suggest using this simple question as a kind of alarm clock: “Isn’t this surprising?” “Yes, indeed!” will be the correct answer, no matter when and where and under what circumstances you ask this question. After all, isn’t it surprising that there is anything at all, rather than nothing? Ask yourself at least twice a day, “Isn’t this surprising?” and you will soon be more awake to the surprising world in which we live. Surprise may provide a jolt, enough to wake us up and to stop taking everything for granted. But we may not at all like that surprise. “How can I be grateful for something like this?” we may howl in the midst of a sudden calamity. And why? Because we are not aware of the real gift in this given situation: opportunity.

Step Two: Be Aware of Opportunities 
There is a simple question that helps me to practice the second step of gratitude: “What’s my opportunity here?” You will find that most of the time, the opportunity that a given moment offers you is an opportunity to enjoy—to enjoy sounds, smells, tastes, texture, colors, and, with still deeper joy, friendliness, kindness, patience, faithfulness, honesty, and all those gifts that soften the soil of our heart like warm spring rain. The more we practice awareness of the countless opportunities to simply enjoy, the easier it becomes to recognize difficult or painful experiences as opportunities, as gifts. But while awareness of opportunities inherent in life events and circumstances is the core of gratefulness, awareness alone is not enough. What good is it to be aware of an opportunity, unless we avail ourselves of it? How grateful we are shows itself by the alertness with which we respond to the opportunity.

Step Three: Respond Alertly
Once we are in practice for being awake to surprise and being aware of the opportunity at hand, we will spontaneously be alert in our response, especially when we are offered an opportunity to enjoy something. When a sudden rain shower is no longer just an inconvenience but a surprise gift, you will spontaneously rise to the opportunity for enjoyment. You will enjoy it as much as you did in your kindergarten days, even if you are no longer trying to catch raindrops in your wide-open mouth. Only when the opportunity demands more from you than spontaneous enjoyment will you have to give yourself a bit of an extra push as part of Step Three.

Recap: wake up, be aware of opportunities, and respond alertly. Awake. Aware. Alert. This is the three-step process for grateful living.

Nine lepers went on in their daze. One stopped, woke up, became aware of the opportunity, and responded with amazing alertness. In so doing, his faith made him “well.” May we learn to do the same, and thus, we too may be “made well.”

Bro. David Steindl-Rast also penned “A Pledge for Grateful Living.” I close with an invitation for you to join me in reading it together, and if you are so inclined, even adopting it as a personal rule of life:

[1] David Steindl-Rast, “Awake, Aware, and Alert: Three steps in the process of living a life of gratefulness,” https://www.beliefnet.com/wellness/2001/06/awake-aware-and-alert.aspx, accessed 10/9/19.

A Pledge for Grateful Living. Luke 17:11-19. 11/24/24.