Gratitude

Lord, you are gracious and compassionate, loving and just in all your ways. We give you praise for all that you are. Holy and awesome, wise and good – our God forever. We worship you today and always. Amen

Faithful God, we carry within us forgetful hearts. So often we neglect to reflect on your goodness to us, but gratitude is a form of remembering and remembering is a form of gratitude. Where we have forgotten to remember, where we have forsaken love for hate, mercy for revenge, thoughtfulness for selfishness – turn us around once more, O God. Remind us of who you are and who we are called to be. We repent and turn away from the things that reek of forgetting you, the things that dishonour the identity we have been given in you. We ask your Spirit to lead us into a new day, full of remembering grace. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Assurance of forgiveness

The Holy Spirit has the power and the willingness to clean our hearts and minds today, ridding us from the things that hinder us. Thank you, O God, for your Spirit’s cleansing presence, and that we can be renewed, daily, with assurance of your forgiveness and grace. Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Hymn 556: Just as I am without one plea

READING

Janet

2 Kings 5: 1-3 and 7-15

5 Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.[a]

2 Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

7 As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be cleansed.”

11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So, he turned and went off in a rage.

13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

15 Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”

PAT

Luke 17:11–19 ESV

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, 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 cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Hymn 566: Now thank we all our God

SERMON

Several years ago, a dog became stranded in the water at the bottom of a canal in Romania. A passer-by saw the dog crying and trying to climb the wall to safety. The passer-by scaled the wall, jumped into the water, and carried the dog to dry land. The dog ran away and shook itself, but then it quickly returned, ran to its rescuer, and showered the man with lots of nuzzles and licks.

We can learn a lot from the dog.

This morning in our second reading Jesus is approached by 10 men with leprosy who ask for mercy. Jesus sends them to the priests, and, on the way, they are healed. In this week’s Old Testament reading, Naaman was almost too arrogant to allow God to heal him – he thought he was too important to do what Elisha asked of him. As a commander, Naaman must have hidden his disease from all but his family and closest staff. He was seen as a leader not an outcast – controlling his identity saved him.

Unlike Naaman the 10 lepers in the Gospel story, were deemed outcast, both they and Naaman had the same disease but Naaman’s situation in life allowed him to conceal his malady allowed him to maintain his position, he no doubt felt superior because of this status,

When we look at the two stories the question is, how would we react to the 10 leapers? And would this be different in our reaction to Naaman? we need to ask ourselves do we allow others to break free of the labels we give them?

Jesus does not set labels and in this story of the 10 lepers, it is set apart from all the other healing stories of the New Testament, for of all those Jesus healed and raised from the dead, only this leper came back to say thank you. He serves as an example for how we ought to live each day in gratitude for God’s redeeming love. There are two things I want us to think about this morning gratitude and attitude.

First, let’s look more closely at our new testament story. As we all know, leprosy was a dreaded disease in Jesus’ day, mostly because it was not really understood.

When they spoke to Jesus, he told the lepers to go show themselves to the priests. He told them to go back to the temple. That is a challenge to our Churches today. Who has the Church cast out or ignored? Who are those considered “unclean” to us? They may be refugees, prisoners, ex-convicts and so on.

One Sunday morning at a rather large Church, as the congregation was going up the steps to the Church there sat a tramp, as people walked past, some ignored him some acknowledged him, someone actually dropped him a few coins.

As the service began, he came to the front of the Church and sat down, someone came quickly and told him to move to the back if he wanted to stay.

Then the minister stood and said they were to welcome the new minister who would give the sermon this morning and asked him to come forward.

The tramp walked to the front removed his old coat and hat, and revealed he was the new minister bet you can’t guess what his sermon was on.

Often first impressions can be misleading.

In this instance the ten lepers were not asking Jesus to heal them. They were looking for pity or a handout. But when they obeyed Jesus’ instructions, He gave them much more than they asked for. When God tells us to do something small, all we need to do is obey Him! When we obey Him, He may surprise us by giving us more than we would have ever dared ask of Him.

We may well ask what was a Samaritan (a foreigner) doing among nine Jews? Leprosy made misery their common denominator, and they joined together in a community of sadness. But out of all those who had been healed, the one knowing the least about Jesus returned to thank Him. The most religious people are not always the ones who see life’s graces or think to say thanks. The lepers were Jesus’ fellow Israelites. They knew that He has been healing those in need and they showed Him due respect. The Samaritan-who worshipped God differently enough to be a non-Jewish the outsider knew that Jesus’ power was of God and that to thank Jesus was to glorify God.

The Samaritan saw Jesus for who He really is and turned back to throw himself at Jesus’ feet while praising God. In doing so, he showed that Jesus had come for everyone especially those who are on the margins of society those who are most likely to see God working through Jesus. The insiders often miss this, preferring to work within the confines of the established institution.

Why didn’t the other nine return? Were they ungrateful, or did they just not think to return and say “thanks”? Were they carried away in the joy to show their newly healed skin to those they were separated from by this disease? Were they distracted by the celebration with one another? Were they ungrateful, or were they swept up in the possibility of their new lives given in healing? Did they simply forget?

Jesus’ words in verses 17-19 reveal a note of sadness and surprise. 17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” The nine Jewish lepers who had been healed went away, taking their blessings with them. Only the Samaritan returned, and Jesus rewarded him with a healing beyond the physical. The power of God cleansed him inwardly from his sins.

One of the most prevalent sins today is ingratitude. God does so much for us, but we rarely (if ever) offer thanks for what He has done. In fact, many Christians fail to offer thanks over their meals, much less offer thanks over all that God does for them in their lives. They are like the little boy who was given an orange by a man. The boy’s mother asked, “What do you say to the nice man?” The little boy thought, handed the orange back to the man and said, “Peel it.”

Nothing pleases God more than faith, and faith is always expressed and made real through action. If we need a miracle or answer from God (just like the Samaritan leper), we need to do more than just believe that God can do it. We have to respond to our belief with gratitude. As the old saying goes, actions do speak louder than words.

The Samaritan leper praised God, but he still had problems. He had been living as an outcast he may well now have no family, he would have no job, probably no home and no village. Despite his situation, he still praised God. In the same way, each of us have issues. We can however focus on our belief that God is bigger than all of our problems and that He is present in the midst of all our problems.

Being cured of leprosy meant a release from isolation, a return to ‘normality’ akin to recovery from Covid-19, perhaps? The healing of skin, however, may not have led automatically to acceptance. Communities have good memories; or perhaps that should be ‘persistent’ memories that do not always work for good. Who are those on the edges of our communities finding it hard to be seen by others (including us?) as God sees them?

Have you ever been asked for one word to describe yourself? It is not an easy thing to do. A sentence or two might cover the main points; but one word? But is the same true when we speak about others? Is it sometimes easier to make a quick judgement and sum up someone based on just one observed characteristic, one word?

To ask, ‘What really matters?’ is to ask about our priorities, about what is important. Our priorities say a lot about the sort of people we are. We might, for example, think about priorities in terms of how we spend our money and why we spend more on some things rather than others – those that touch on our values and ‘who we are’

We are inevitably influenced by appearances. In The Shack (by William P Young), Mack the protagonist expresses surprise when he meets Jesus saying why is he not more handsome. Jesus replies, ‘Once you really get to know me, it won’t matter to you.’ When Jesus meets the 10 lepers – having taken a detour to get to that area – he does not see their diseased skin or their living conditions. He sees people created in God’s image who have the potential to live a full life, even though they are and have been hampered in that for some time. Does he see that in us too, as he looks deeper into us than the self we present to the world? What might be holding us back?

Where are we in this story? Would we be among those who consider some to be outcasts (by our actions, or lack of them, if not by our words)? Who are the outcasts for us – and what can we do about it? Do we need to amend? Are we people whose first thought is to give thanks to God for what we have received? Are we part of the community or family waiting to receive back those previously cast out? And, if so, is our welcome full and open-armed, or do we have some reservations? We do well to remember that we too are labelled by those we meet.

And we are also known and healed by Jesus.

This morning’s story helps us explore the nature and importance of thankfulness in our lives, not just what God has done for us in the past but as something that matters for us today. We all have memories that are important for the sense of who we are, and when God has intervened in our lives.

Has Jesus done great things for us? Have we returned to give Him thanks? God loves to shower us with blessings, but He is not immune from the pain our lack of gratitude It’s easy to spend our lives worrying and obsessing over the problems of life. It’s also easy to overlook a blessing in times of need or forget to be thankful when troubled times have been put to rest. We must make certain that we don’t become one of the nine lepers who were so happy to be cured that they forgot who cured them.

This passage shows faithfulness in two ways. First, the Samaritan recognizes that mercy has come from Jesus, and returning to thank Jesus is a form of faithfulness to the mercy of God that has been shown. Second, the Samaritan’s thankfulness for his physical healing is a sign of deeper, spiritual healing-and that is our true salvation.

One of the simplest and most powerful ways we can show God’s love for others is by treating them with dignity, no matter who they are or what their relationship to us. When we take time to notice them, greet them and meet their eyes-especially those who serve us in shops or restaurants the cleaner in the office, this gives them dignity and shows God’s love.

Only one of the ten lepers Jesus healed returned to give thanks. Everyone who believes in Christ has been rescued and healed. We’re the most blessed people on earth. Some days may be harder than others, and some seasons of life might have issues. But gratitude isn’t situational. It isn’t based on what we have or what we are, but on our relationship with the God who pulled us out of deep waters, set our feet on a rock, and put a new song of praise in our mouths.

Hymn 68: Lead us heavenly Father lead us

Offering

PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION

A prayer of thanksgiving

Maker, redeemer, life-giving God,

we thank you for all you have done for us.

We acknowledge the myriad ways

you have impacted our lives,

the times you have helped us,

healed us, drawn near to us.

We recognise that there will be times

you have helped us, but we did not see –

we thank you for those, too!

Help us perceive your working

in our lives and renew in us a spirit of gratitude.

Thank you, Lord, for all you have done for us!

Amen.

Prayers of intercession

We pray for a world in need of healing.

We pray for those who’s, lives have been disrupted by war or natural disasters, we ask for your spirit to be present in these situations.

Today we remember those who do not feel part of their communities.

They may be sick and feel excluded from normal life.

Or perhaps, like the lepers Jesus healed, their condition causes others to shun them.

Maybe they have suffered loss of some kind – bereavement, perhaps, or unemployment – and others avoid them, unwilling to engage with them in their pain and need.

We bring all these people before you – the avoided and those who avoid – and we acknowledge it in our hearts if we fall into either of these camps.

We ask for healing of the wounds, visible and invisible, that we bear and that we inflict on others. We pray for healing of divisions so that, in community, spirits may be healed even when bodies cannot.

We bring to you at this time anyone we know who needs your healing touch at this time………

May all be held in the grace of God, whose mercy knows no limits.

Amen.

Hymn 437: Guide me, O thou great Jehovah

BLESSING

We bring to you, Lord, our memories of our life so far,

however long or short, thanking you for all we have learnt.

Help us to see ourselves as you see us.

Help us to see other people as you see them.

Thank you for all the different friends we have.

We ask you to show us what really matters.

Help us to remember how much you love us and everyone. Amen.

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