Matthew 6:25-33 (C)

Thanksgiving DayLuke 17:11-19 (L)

In the small town of Mapleville, the ecumenical Thanksgiving Eve service was poorly attended. Once it was a popular event for the whole town, gathering people from a variety of denominations and faiths. In recent years, attendance had faded to a faithful few. Most of those who came in any given year were members of the host congregation. What began as a spirited occasion that brought together a variety of clergy, choirs, and congregations had shrunk in numbers and dwindled in enthusiasm.

One minister was particularly frustrated by the meager turnout. When the Mapleville clergy association asked him to preach one year, he nailed together a sermon on the story of Jesus and the ten lepers. Climbing into the pulpit, he retold the story of how the ten approached Jesus and begged for mercy. The Lord commanded them to show themselves to the priests. On their way in obedience, the lepers were made clean. Only one of them turned around, returned to Jesus, and offered thanks.

"As I look out over this sparse congregation," the preacher said, "I ask myself: where are the nine? Why aren't they here, giving thanks? Aren't they grateful enough to come to church?"

One by one, folks in the congregation began to nod their heads in smug recognition. They smiled as the minister said, "Think of all those people who will sit before a fat table of turkey and stuffing, yet who did not come tonight to thank the founder of their feast." One by one, the people began to glow with satisfaction as the minister said, "Nine lepers ignored the One who gave them the gift of healing. Yet one was grateful enough to say thanks."

Unfortunately, it never occurred to anybody present how they were being compared to a leper who was also a hated Samaritan. What's more, nobody (including the preacher) realized the deep irony of how much of that year's Thanksgiving service was spent chastising those who were not thankful, and how little energy was spent in generating genuine gratitude.1

The story of Jesus and the ten lepers recognizes gratitude as a theological problem. Thankfulness comes and goes like every other human emotion. There's no telling why the tenth leper turned back in gratitude while the others did not. He had every reason to press on to see the priests, for that would hasten his return to society and his reunion with loved ones.2

Why did he turn back? Luke says the man was singing from the top of his lungs; maybe the other nine wanted some peace and quiet, and asked him to leave. Since all ten lepers were healed, perhaps the ugly divisions returned between Jews and Samaritans when they were no longer bound together by a common illness. Perhaps, as a foreigner, the tenth leper discovered on the road he did not have a priest like the others. Where else could he go, but back to Jesus? Whatever the reason, the text offers no explanation why he returned to offer thanks and others did not. While nine former companions moved ahead to claim their future, he paused, turned back, and said, "Thank you!" There is no obvious reason for his return. No one prompted him to do it. Neither did anyone urge him to say thanks. All we know is this man, more than anybody else, knew how to receive a gift.

Is there any trait more admirable or any virtue more noble than this? It is a rare person who can regularly open grateful hands to receive a gift. Sometimes it takes an entire lifetime to learn how to do it well.

A man had mixed memories of Christmas. As a child, he began planning for the holiday in February. He scribbled out a wish list for the following December 25 before the winter snow melted off the ground. Each year he listed a full page of toys which he wanted more than anything else. Then he waited impatiently for Christmas. His annual anticipation was tempered by the presence of his mother, who insisted on thank-you notes for every gift received.

Every present under our Christmas tree was just the visible tip of an iceberg of obligation. My mother tracked each package as meticulously as a U.P.S. driver, and her master list haunted my siblings and me for the rest of winter vacation. Bells would be ringing, snow would be falling, our friends would be sliding down our street on brand-new Flexible Flyers -- and my sister, my brother, and I would be bent over tear-spattered sheets of stationery, whimpering.3

There is no assurance that a gift received will prompt the person who receives it to say, "Thank you." Sometimes a parent hovers over a child to enforce gratitude, thus killing it. Other times, gifts are given with strings attached, making it virtually impossible for the recipient to offer thanks.

In Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters reports the epitaphs of the people of Spoon River, Illinois. From the grave, the townspeople tell the truth about their lives. One woman, Constance Hately, reveals why two adopted nieces grew up to despise her.

You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River,In rearing Irene and Mary,Orphans of my older sister!And you censure Irene and MaryFor their contempt for me!But praise not my self-sacrifice,And censure not their contempt;I reared them, I cared for them, true enough! -- But I poisoned my benefactions With constant reminders of their dependence.4

All through their lives, under the guise of generosity, Constance said, "Girls, I took you in when your mother died, and I never want you to forget it." As long as they lived beneath her roof, as long as they sat at her table, they were reminded how their very lives depended on their long-suffering aunt. In time, they grew to detest her.

There may be no moment more beautiful or damaging than the giving of a gift. How we handle such a moment will reveal what we are made of. More than that, it will reveal what God is doing within our hearts. In the New Testament, the occasion is so profound that the same word is used for both the giving and the receiving of the gift. The word is charis, which is translated "grace." As one scholar has written, "The word may refer to a favor shown or a favor received. (It) may define an act of giving or an act of receiving: if giving, the word means 'gift or unearned favor'; if receiving, then the word is best translated 'gratitude.' Since the same term represents both sides of the act, it is natural to expect that grace as gift would be met with grace as gratitude."5

Gratitude is a genuine miracle of God. Like the apostle Paul, most of us would ascribe to Jesus the saying, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).6 Good Christian people have often given themselves to selfless charity, and remained reticent to welcome any gift. As a result, churches are full of people who are experts at giving. They spend hours with needy children. They volunteer to serve on a hundred different committees. They sign up for payroll deductions for United Way. They stay awake until 2:00 a.m. to listen to somebody with a broken heart. They always have time for everybody and everything. They give constantly. Yet if you observe such people in a rare quiet moment, you may notice they know a lot about giving, and practically nothing about receiving.

Why is it so difficult to receive? I don't know. But when it comes to the Christian faith, we cannot fully believe unless we know how to receive.

The Geneva Catechism asked the question, "Should we not be grateful to other people when they perform some service for us?" The answer: "Of course we should, precisely because God honors them by channelling through their hands the good things that flow to us from the inexhaustible fountain of his generosity. In this way he puts us in their debt, and he wants us to acknowledge it. Anyone, therefore, who does not show gratitude to other people betrays ingratitude to God as well."7

One goal for the entire Christian life is to affirm God's generous dealings with people like us. It begins by understanding the Bible as a story of how God has given gifts to his people.

When God's children were slaves in Egypt, God brought them out of slavery with an outstretched arm and a mighty hand. God said, "You're free! It's a gift."

When God's children stumbled in their freedom and did not know how to live their lives, God gave them the Law as a lamp for their feet and a light for their path. It was a gift.

When God's children grew worn-down, burned-out, and exhausted, God said, "You can't keep going without a break. There are limits. Take a day to relax and meditate. One day in seven you shall clear the calendar to the glory of God. It's a gift."

When God's children tired of wandering in the wilderness, they needed a place to put down roots. So God said, "When you cross the river Jordan, you're going to come to a land of milk and honey. It's all yours. It's a gift." When the people needed rulers, God gave them judges and then kings. When the people needed a place to worship, God gave them a temple. When the people needed forgiveness, God gave them a day of atonement. When the people forgot everything God had done for them, God gave them prophets.

Then, one day, God gave them Jesus Christ, who in turn gave his very life as a gift.

We cannot understand the Bible unless we know what it means to receive. We cannot know the faith of the church until we know how to open our hands in gratitude. It is the very nature of God to give generously, even "to the ungrateful and the wicked" (Luke 6:35). Blessed is the one who can say, "Thank you."

We have heard it said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." But today we also affirm, "It is blessed to receive." Every one of us has received something. We don't have anything to give, except as we have received. Every breath of life, every heartbeat, every conscious thought is a gift. Every person we meet, every friend we make, every relationship that warms the heart and challenges the soul is a gift. Every opportunity to work, every meaningful task, every dollar earned is a gift. Our lifelong task is learning how to receive the gifts of God with gratitude and graciousness.

During summer vacations from seminary, I worked for a county highway department. While other students worked for the kingdom as summer camp leaders and youth group interns, I filled potholes and scooped up roadkill. A graduate school degree was unimportant to my supervisors, so I quickly found myself at the bottom of the pecking order doing tasks no one else would do. The only person lower than me was a man in his sixties named Elvin. By most standards, his life was pathetic. He never got beyond the third grade. His wife ran off with another man. His daughter was a teenage runaway. Elvin couldn't read or write. He was the butt of all the jokes at the highway department.

He was a tragic human being, except in one regard. Every day Elvin opened his lunch box and pulled out a bologna sandwich. Shutting his eyes, he prayed, "I thank you, O Lord, for this good bounty from your good earth." Elvin didn't have much to make him grateful. He had a meager job and some co-workers who constantly poked fun behind his back. He had a set of work clothes, a place to sleep, and an old crusty sandwich. It wasn't very much. But every noon, he spoke a few fragile words revealing a heart full of gratitude.

We have a God who is generous in all seasons, giving us gifts that we do not expect, inclining toward us with a grace we do not deserve. God keeps giving, for it is God's very nature to give. And the final work of God is not merely to fill our lives with good things, but to teach us to receive them with thanks. The road to gratitude is a lifelong journey, but as far as I'm concerned it is the only trip worth taking.

The place to begin is with a prayer once written by the poet George Herbert. He prayed, "Thou that hast given so much to me, Give one thing more: a grateful heart."8

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1. The idea for this story comes from Fred B. Craddock, in "Preaching About Giving Thanks: Giving God Thanks and Praise," Preaching In and Out of Season, Thomas G. Long and Neely Dixon McCarter, editors (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 120.

2. See Leviticus 13 and 14 for a description of the process by which lepers were restored to community life.

3. David Owen, "No Thanks," The New Yorker 18 December 1995: p. 128.

4. Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology (New York: Signet Classic, 1992), p. 10.

5. Craddock, 121.

6. Curiously, this saying does not appear in the four gospels, causing some scholars to doubt its authenticity.

7. As quoted by B. A. Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 45.

8. George Herbert, "Gratefulnesse," The English Poems of George Herbert (Totowa, NJ: Dent, Rowman, and Littlefield, 1978), pp. 135-6.