John 6:25-35

When they found [Jesus] on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

As many of you know, things are tougher than usual in Haiti these days. Our friends in Fondwa – up in the mountains – are safe, as far as I know, from the political unrest and from the gangs who seem to have overrun so much of life in the neighborhoods in and around the capital of Port au Prince.

But our friends in Fondwa are heavy on my mind these days – and this week, in particular – as it revolves so much around food and abundance and counting our blessings. In the last couple of months there has been a food crisis, even up in the mountains of Fondwa. Even though they’re physically safe from and don’t have to interact with the gangs and the protests and the unrest in the city, all of that has impacted their ability to transport food and supplies and other necessities up the mountain. (Ships haven’t been able to port, gas stations haven’t been able to get or sell gas, people can’t get into or out of the city to move goods and supplies from one place to the next.)

Because of that, Zanmi Fondwa has been trying to raise money – not just for houses, lately – but to help with the resulting food crisis. When Luckner, our Director of Operations in Fondwa, who is also one of the most positive, optimistic, hopeful, humble, faithful people I’ve known says that it’s as bad as he’s seen it, it gets your attention.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days about the fact that our Haitian friends have told us $40.00 is enough money to buy a household in Fondwa enough rice and oil – and maybe some beans – to feed them for a month. And, if you’ve been to Fondwa, you know that “household” is a nebulous term. It could mean anywhere from 4 to 6 or 8 to 10 or more family members, in many cases. $40.00. Rice and oil. For a month.

The fact that we also chose $40.00 as the price point for our Food Pantry Thanksgiving Meal ministry isn’t lost on me. We gave families who signed up – also regardless of their size – a turkey, a pie, cans of corn, beans, gravy, rolls, potatoes, stuffing, and more. Like my Thanksgiving meal and yours, the quality and calories of that single meal is more than my Haitian friends will consume in weeks.

I’m not poo-pooing any of it. Both are beautiful expressions of generosity and provision. It’s all relative and meaningful. It’s just a healthy, holy, faithful dose of perspective for me as I prepare to eat my fair-share of gratitude on Thursday and to count my blessings in the days to come. And tonight – and this week – and every day that we can manage it, is about taking none of that for granted.

Because the practice of giving thanks from a Christian, faithful kind of perspective isn’t so much about national pride or patriotism. The practice of giving thanks, of counting our blessings, even in the face of sadness and struggle – of acknowledging God’s abundance even in the face of what can feel like scarcity for us or for others – is an act of faith, pure and simple. Gratitude is a Christian discipline that points to God’s power – and our desire to trust that power – whether we’re feeling blessed or burdened at any given moment.

And, while having enough to eat isn’t a struggle for most of us, you and I might feel more blessed by God’s provision or more burdened by its lack, depending on the day. Just in the last couple of days, I’ve prayed to God and had conversations with some of you about successful surgeries and about sad and scary diagnoses; about new, blossoming relationships and about relationships that are struggling; about new life being born and about lives being lost too soon. There are joys and sorrows, challenges and celebrations,¬¬¬ everywhere you look.

And, in tonight’s Gospel, what Jesus seems to be inviting those people to – the ones who were chasing him down all around Galilee – is a holy kind of perspective about life and faith in the middle of it all. He reminds them about how the Israelites – lost and wandering around in the wilderness – were fed with the manna that came down from heaven. And he wants them to know that, in the same way, he has come to feed the world – lost and wandering in our own kind of wilderness, still – with a different kind of bread.

It’s bread that fills us, literally, like so much rice for our friends in Haiti. And it’s a different kind of bread that fills them – and us, too – with the promise of forgiveness and redemption and hope, in spite of whatever sins and sadness and struggle any of us faces from day to day.

It’s no small thing that Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed – to be crucified, killed and buried – “took bread, blessed it and broke it, GAVE THANKS, and gave it to his disciples.” And he did the same thing with the cup – GAVE THANKS, I mean – before sharing the new covenant in his own blood, that was about to be poured out for the sake of the world. Even as he looked ahead to the way they would betray and deny him. Even as he looked ahead to his own crucifixion, Jesus had faith enough to give thanks.

Which is how we’re called to be today, on Thursday, and every day, as God’s people on the planet – find ways to be grateful in the face of whatever comes our way, which is something I’ve learned from the people of Fondwa over the years:

- To give thanks, not just for what we have, but for the Truth that God has us, always.

- To give thanks, not just that God meets our needs, but that God is our only need, really.

- To give thanks, not just that we have been blessed in some way, but that God uses us to be a blessing in return.

- To give thanks, not because all is right with our world, but that God is bigger than whatever is wrong.

- To give thanks, not because we are better off than so many others who have it worse, but to give thanks that whatever and wherever we are in the grand scheme of things can be “enough” – by God’s grace – if we will allow it to be.

- And to give thanks because the discipline of it changes our perspective and it softens our hearts. It turns darkness to light, scarcity into abundance, sorrow into joy, despair into hope, fear into faith – and more – because of God’s deep love for us all.

Amen

Luke 17:11-19

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.”

I wonder if you’ve ever seen one of those videos that makes its way around the internet – there are probably hundreds of them – where someone gives a person on the street who is poor or homeless or begging and in need, a bunch of money… or a large pizza… or a bag of cheeseburgers… and then watches as they do something kind and generous with what they’ve been given. (Have you seen that before?) Sometimes, whoever’s filming the video – usually undercover from across the street – even facilitates the generosity, as a test of some kind, by having someone else ask the newly enriched person for some money or for something to eat.

And when the person who was poor and begging returns the favor – when he shares his pizza or gives some of his new-found money away – the internet swoons with surprise and awe and “likes” and “shares” and all the rest.

I’d show you one of those videos – like I said, there are probably hundreds of them – but something always rubs me wrong about that kind of thing. For one thing, it feels uncomfortable to me when someone uses another person – especially someone in need – as an unwitting object lesson for the amusement of the masses. I also think our initial response – our shock and awe and admiration – toward such generosity and kindness says something less than great about us and about our impressions and opinions of people who are poor.

So, this morning, instead of merely lifting up and looking at and patronizing the faithful Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel as some similar, simple sort of object lesson, I feel like we’re called to lift up and look in the mirror, instead, and to see what we can learn from ourselves and each other, as those who, more often than not, if we’re honest, have more in common with the other nine lepers on the road in this morning’s story.

Remember, ten lepers were healed, in all, but nine of them kept on walking and didn’t turn around to thank Jesus for the gift he’d given them; for the love he’d shown them; for the generosity he’d shared with each of them that day.

See, we may not find ourselves begging on the sidewalk, but we’ve been given a gift, have we not? We may not be as desperate as the down-and-out in those videos, but that’s kind of the point, if you ask me. Why don’t we turn around, more often? Why do we just keep walking so much of the time? Why don’t we say “thank you” – or mean it – as often as we should – by returning the favor? And why are we so surprised when another child of God responds in the way every one of us is called to live?

The list is long and the reasons are legion, I believe.

Maybe we don’t make time for gratitude and generosity because we’re just too wrapped up in ourselves and in the joy of our blessings to take the time out for praise and thanksgiving. (I can cut the other nine lepers some slack imagining they were just so overjoyed they couldn’t wait to get back into town and back to their families to show them they were healed – to be loved again, touched again, welcomed back again, to the homes from which they’d been banished.)

Maybe we don’t say thanks more often or more generously because we’ve convinced ourselves we deserve or that we have earned what’s ours and so gratitude isn’t a ready, regular response. (I’m sure those other nine lepers didn’t think it fair that they were sick in the first place, and that they had some healing coming to them, after all. And none of them was a Samaritan, like that other guy. He had more to be grateful for – as a foreigner, doubly unclean, if you will, thanks to the polity and politics and prejudices of his day. Likewise, it’s easy to presume that we’re very different from the needy beggar on the street corner, because we work hard to make our livings don’t we; to have what we have? We forget that even the ability to work and do anything for ourselves is evidence of God’s gracious provision in our lives. And we forget that at the expense of our gratitude.)

Saddest of all perhaps, maybe we don’t give thanks by way of our generosity because – in our unconsciously privileged, self-absorbed way – we just can’t find anything for which to be thankful. (Wars rage, wild fires destroy, diseases happen, loved ones die, jobs get lost, relationships crumble… None of us has to look very far to find plenty of things not to be thankful for, do we?)

But, the Samaritan and Jesus know otherwise. There’s a process of giving and receiving – of grace and gratitude – that takes place between the two of them: Jesus gives… the Samaritan receives and is healed… he notices what has happened for him… and he returns to give thanks. The giving of thanks is an important and essential part of that equation. He’s not merely being polite or practicing good manners. He’s practicing faith.

And that’s our call, just the same – to practice our faith by way of turning, every once in a while; to receive God’s goodness, take notice of its abundance, and return the favor – return the faith – in some meaningful way.

And if worship and service are ways we practice our faith and offer thanks to God, how does what we do here turn us around and express our thankfulness and praise? Aren’t we blessed to sing and ring a choir or read Scripture or serve in the nursery or do our part to clean up the church? These are all ways we say “thank you” to God for the gifts we’ve been given; and ways we are blessed in return when we do.

And if giving back is giving thanks – which it is – aren’t we blessed by the good things our money can do here at Cross of Grace or through our work in Haiti or by way of the food pantry or in the hygiene items we’ll collect this month for our Mission Sunday? Giving our offering and sharing our resources are just more of the ways we say “thank you” and turn and return to God what has first been given to us.

And the holy trick of it all is that when it comes to Jesus, the things we do to say “thank you” just continue to bless us beyond measure. Beyond being polite and practicing good manners, Jesus’ call to give thanks is just another way of loving us. Jesus knows that we will only be better for the thanks we bring. Jesus knows giving thanks, in and of itself, can turn us around and change our lives – just as surely as the Samaritan was turned around in this morning’s Gospel.

So let’s stop being surprised when we see another child of God, in one of those viral videos, giving generously from what was first shared with them. Why wouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t they? How could they not? Instead, let’s be surprised that we don’t do the same, more often and more generously, with what has first been shared with us – our time, our talent our treasure; our provision, our power, and our privilege, too.

Let’s allow God’s abundance in our own lives to be all the inspiration and invitation we need to turn us around, earnestly and often, to practice our faith by giving thanks in as many ways as we can manage because we will see our faith – and God’s kingdom – alive and well and living among us when we do.

Amen

Joy, Discipline and Perspective of Gratitude

Faithful, Grateful Turning