Thanks – Harvest
“Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Eph 5.19, 20
Some people are chronically grateful; which can be infuriating for the rest of us. It sometimes makes you want to scream. Ogden Nash points it up beautifully in the last few lines of his poem about a moaning wife with an ever-grateful husband: “The Outcome of Mr MacLeod’s Gratitude”.
So she tired of her husband’s cheery noteHarvest Thanksgiving is a day in the Church calendar when we try to regain a proper sense of gratitude to God. Fortunately, we live in a part of the world where we are no longer dependent on good harvests, rain in due season and all the other vicissitudes of nature, ‘cruel in tooth and claw’.
And she stuffed a tea tray down his throat.
He remarked from the floor where they found him reclining
“I’m just a MacLeod with a silver lining.”
But this gives us an even greater, and in some ways harder responsibility to acknowledge our ultimate dependence upon God for life and breath and, in the words of our text, everything. And from this right sense of gratitude flows praise to God and compassion for others – another traditional theme of harvest-tide.
It is perhaps a symptom of living surrounded by plenty that we rarely say grace before meals these days. It is not only right to give thanks to God, to ask for his blessing, but also, in the words of our Bishop, ‘to enlarge our sympathies and make us mindful of the needs of others.”
Even George Herbert, writing in the 17th Century, in an age vastly more uncomfortable than our own, realises that complacency is setting in. So in his poem 'Gratefulnesse' from The Temple, written in his fortieth and final year:
Thou that hast given so much to me,Why do we find it so difficult to live with that proper Christian attitude of thanks, praise and compassion?
Give one thing more--a grateful heart:
Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if thy blessings had spare days,
But such a heart whose Pulse may be
Thy Praise.
Let’s speculate for a moment on today’s well-known Gospel story: the ten lepers.
You are part of a band of complete outcasts from society, facing an unpleasant death within a short time. Then one day you meet a healer called Jesus. You all shout; you can’t get near, it wouldn’t be allowed. You are told to go and show the Priest you’re better; how ridiculous, how embarrassing – but it’s worth a try, and as you traipse off, expecting nothing, you begin to notice signs of genuine healing. It’s a miracle!
So why did only one come back to say thank-you? What happened to the other nine? A lack of gratitude usually signifies a problem in attitude. So let’s do some guesswork, based on our own observation of humankind.
The first person was the nervous fearful sort; he was scared, completely confused and terrified, not knowing what was going on – he hid.
The second person was offended. She wanted to do something difficult for her healing. God helps them that that help themselves. The simplicity of the miracle offended her.
The third person realised, after the fact, that he did not want to be healed. He’d forgotten how to live, who he was without his leprosy. He’d allowed it to define him. Jesus took away his identity and he wasn’t grateful.
The fourth person, well, here is an easier one to identify with. She forgot. That’s it, nothing more, in all the excitement and joy she just forgot.
The fifth leper was unable to say thank you anymore to anyone. For years he had been shunned by family and friends and forced to beg. By living in constant need, he lost the ability to be grateful, for anything.
The sixth person, had contracted her Leprosy eleven years ago, when her children were toddlers. She had to leave her precious family. So when she was healed, she ran, like a bullet from a gun – she had to see them, she had to know how they were.
The seventh, well the seventh did not believe there was anything to be thankful for. It was entirely a coincidence. There had to be some logical explanation. Perhaps the water in that place. It was nothing to do with Jesus, why say thank you?
The eighth person was quite the opposite. She knew it was Jesus, she’d heard all about him and now she had experienced his healing touch. She couldn’t wait to tell as many people as possible that this really was the Messiah.
The ninth – what of the ninth? I don’t know. There could be so many reasons. Some are a mystery, beyond our imagination. He didn’t, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, he forgot, he meant to but got distracted…
There are lots of reasons for not living a life of gratitude to God and others. But as we focus on the tenth leper, we begin to see that it is the transforming love of Jesus which is at the heart of our gratitude; the pulse of our praise.
The tenth was a Samaritan, despised by the Jews. His religion was a version of Judaism but ‘not pure’. So he had been an outcast from Israel long before he contracted leprosy.
Of course we are used to thinking of the Good Samaritan, but Jesus only told that parable to highlight the contradiction to his Jewish hearers – the good Samaritan. We can think of parallel attitudes as we listen to some of the rhetoric in the Middle East today.
Among lepers, among the ten, other outcasts, the Samaritan had found a community of Jews to belong to. He had been rejected, and then in his illness found acceptance.
In sending him back home, his healing robbed him of his community.
So why did he say thank you?
Perhaps this Samaritan recognized something deeper in Christ than the immediate benefit of being free from leprosy. He had been healed with Jews; he had not been excluded from that.
In the middle of the confusion of what to do with himself after his healing, he had realised one thing. Jesus had not rejected him: Jesus, a Jew, a healthy Jew.
Perhaps he was beginning to see the heart of the Gospel which still we find so hard to grasp, sometimes even in the church. The healing love of God in Christ reaches out to all; the sick and the well, the Jews and the non-Jews; the people we like and the people we don’t like… We are all valuable to God. The same sun shines on the just and the unjust. Earthquakes and hurricanes strike where they will.
So however others respond, our response should be one of thankfulness, in all the changing scenes of life. From this springs all else. As Cicero said: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
As we come to this Eucharist, this giving of thanks over broken bread and outpoured wine, the liturgy encourages us to ‘…feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.’
Carry this with you into each moment of your week and of your lives.
Thou that hast given so much to me,“Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Eph 5.19, 20
Give one thing more - a grateful heart:
