Proper 23C

October 13, 2019

Luke 17:11-19

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

 

This morning’s reading from St. Luke’s version of the story of the ten lepers and their encounter with Jesus leaves me wanting to talk about the obvious theme of gratitude.  Only, hopefully I can talk about gratitude in not such obvious ways.

One leper went back to thank Jesus and he was the only foreigner. Were the others lepers failures, examples of what not to be because they weren’t grateful? Or, was the Samaritan, like that other Samaritan parable, an example of what to be? Or, even more provoking is the thought that this one grateful leper benefited doubly in his gratitude. He was healed physically by Jesus and then, because he was grateful he was healed spiritually. His faith made him well.

Years ago, I was on a ministry team that was struggling to get along with each other. In one pivotal moment in our efforts to turn this around, one of my peers, Keith said that he realized that he needed an “attitude adjustment.” He claimed this for himself and the rest of us learned from him about how to adjust our own attitudes. It made all the difference.

Keith shared with us that he had learned this from one of his coaches in high school. He said that each individual on the team was encouraged to regularly check themselves and self regulate their need for an “attitude adjustment.” This simply meant turning the negative around. Shaking off discouragement. Choosing to stop the inevitable pull to blame others. And figuring out on your own how to be a positive team player.

Believe it or not, I played basketball in high school. I am really too short for basketball but I loved the game and I worked hard in middle school to learn to handle the ball and freshman year I went out for point guard. We only had one small girls team at the time and I guess there wasn’t much competition so I made the team.

Then I sat the bench for four years.

But though I didn’t get to play much, I am, to this day, very grateful for what I learned when I was on that team. We all learned about mutual respect across race and social status lines. We all learned about the benefits of exercise. We all learned about leadership and saying yes to the coach even when we didn’t see her vision at first.

These are some of the great values which school athletics have had for young people for the past century or more.

But I think sports have a dark side too.

Now, don’t think I’m saying anything against the Hokies or whatever your team may be, but from the Super Bowl down to little league, overly competitive parents and fans can get out of hand. I think this is true of team owners and coaches and fans alike. I’m not sure it is true of the athletes who seem to work hard and concentrate on being their best in spite of being treated like pawns on some grand chess board.

There is a theory among social scientists that extreme sports fans suffer from misplaced religion. The swell of pride and belonging that come from cheering on the winning team is intoxicating and can be addictive. What was once a game, a place to practice life skills of camaraderie and sportsmanship becomes an agonizing and miserable obsession when this line is crossed.

Don’t get me wrong. I get the joy of the home team win. I have enjoyed being a part of huge stands of cheering fans. Once in a college basket ball game which was tied with 3 seconds left on the clock I found myself jumping and screaming with an entire arena of people so worked up and excited that it seemed we had outdone the saints-on-fire at the first Pentecost. The quiet of the car on the drive home from that particular win was deafening and caused me to think about the comparison.

We tend to think of the moral of this story of the ten lepers as being a reminder of what to do and what not to do. We think that the point of Jesus asking who thanked him and didn’t thank him for this healing was a criticism of us not being thankful enough. We think this means that we should always be thankful and write our thank you notes. (I’m sure Kathleen Harshberger’s new book could help us with the etiquette of thank you notes.)We think this means we should never be ungrateful like those other nine lepers. Well, maybe.

But gratitude is not a chore on our to-do list. It is not a behavior that gets us in to heaven or off of some hook. Gratitude is an “attitude adjustment” and a daily practice. Gratitude, when practiced in this way is transforming. Those who are able to truly live a life of gratitude are not caught up in competition, pettiness, blaming others, manipulations and all sorts of other defenses we tend to use but which keep us sick.

In the 1930s, Bill Wilson and his friend Bob Smith figured out the power of the daily practice of gratitude as life saving. Among other values like honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love (from the Oxford Group), these two struggling alcoholics figured out a way to stay sober. The most important value they learned was sharing this path to healing with others, and Alcoholics Anonymous was born. Millions have benefitted from the simple wisdom of their 12-step program.

Including me. Because, though I may not have an addiction problem, learning the values of the 12 Steps, especially that of daily gratitude has changed my life for the better.

Yesterday, I watched an old Sixty Minutes interview with the great rock guitarist, Eric Clapton who told his story of recovering from severe addictive disease. At the end of the interview, Ed Bradley asked Clapton, based on all his losses and struggles, “How have you come through all of this and managed to remain sane and remain whole?” Clapton’s answer was simple: “I think the process of letting it go, of acknowledging that I’m not the master. And it ain’t about what I want. It’s about what I can give.” (Like his development of the Crossroads Center.)
          Eric Clapton, like anyone who has been transformed has come to understand that daily gratitude and giving back is a way of life which is life giving, healthy living, and redemptive. This change in perspective moves from self obsession to freedom by focusing on others.

But this sort of transformation, like surrendering to Christ, takes vulnerability.

“When you live fully inside your vulnerability, feeling grateful for the gift of life, you’re much less likely to say and do the things - or not say and do the things - that will lead you to regret,” says Kristi Nelson a guru on gratitude. “When we embrace the poignancy and vulnerability that come with gratefulness, we’re reminded that time is limited and experiences are fleeting, so we had better treasure deeply what we have now and live more fully into what we know really matters.” Kristi Nelson

And the best way to treasure deeply what we have now is to give it away for the betterment of others. For the betterment of ourselves.

As we approach our annual time of talking, thinking and praying about our stewardship drive this Fall, I want you to consider this important perspective.

We do not give to the church, we are the church.

The church has for decades, for all of our lives I might say, considered pledging our financial gifts to the church as if it were club dues. Friends, this is not a club. The Rotary Club has dues. The Lion’s Club has dues. We are different from these organizations in one very significant way. True, we, like civic clubs and service clubs care about the larger community and want to support the needs we see around us like feeding, clothing and supporting people in need. So we give funds to such ministries (and sometimes hands on volunteer hours). True, we are a community of people with shared values. True, we enjoy socializing, fellowshipping and connecting personally with each other and we tend to get together weekly. It may even also be true that we network our businesses and other organizational memberships with each other. That’s all fine and good.

But we are the church. We are not a club.

This changes our understanding of giving significantly. In just this one way. We give not to some organization outside of ourselves. We give to ourselves. We give because of all that we receive. We receive not material things or even friendships but we receive spiritual things.

One of my priest friends sent a scathing letter to his parish yesterday in the form of a Youtube video. Oh that I were so brave! But Stuart wanted to step back from what he calls “clever ideas and gimmicks” when it comes to their stewardship drive.

“The church still struggles with this perception that people give to the church, that members give to the church as if the church is a separate thing from themselves. . . . The church is not some separate thing. The church is you, the church is us, the church is me, the church is our family and the church is each and every person who participates in the life of it as Christ’s body on earth. . . . We should come at stewardship with honesty and transparency and sincerity and say that the work that we are called to do, to share in, to share in God’s mission, should be taken seriously and we should be honest about what it costs us. It costs each of us. We are all called to participate in that, with our time and with our talent and with our financial resources. There should be no shame or embarrassment in talking about money. Rather, we should see it as energy, to be blunt, to see it as a way that we each can contribute to our common life as the body of Christ on Earth.

“Part of the challenge the church must face is this movement from a certain perspective that sees the church as a club which has members. This membership mentality and superficial club identity - we must move beyond that and we must move into a space that sees the church as a spiritual community marked by a heightened consciousness of our identity in and with each other in Christ. As Thomas Keating says, “the greatest thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separate from God,” and also the thought that we are separate from each other. And the church is an institution, a body, whose focus is to raise our level of awareness of God’s presence in our lives so that together, empowered by the Spirit, we can bring hope into the world and remind those around us that hope is possible that hope is present to them.” -  Stuart Higginbotham

So friends. Let us begin to move toward this understanding of what it means to be the church, to be Grace Church. We are not members here. We are not consumers here. We are a community of believers. This simple perspective changes everything. Please consider this difference as we seek true stewardship of our gifts and of ourselves.

Then we will find living lives of daily gratitude so much easier. Because the gifts that we give, we give to ourselves. Not as members but as a community caught up in the love of the Holy Spirit. And coming to this table, this rail to receive the body of Christ becomes a sacrament of being the body of Christ and the Eucharist will then truly mean Thanksgiving.

Amen.

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