Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God the Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Phil 4:4). That’s a verse we’ve no doubt heard a zillion times. Several songs have been written putting these words to music, usually happy and peppy music. But don’t forget where St. Paul was writing these words from. The yacht in Acapulco? A lawn chair on the white sandy beaches of Jamaica? The fieldstone fireplace in the log cabin up North? Hardly. Lest we forget, St. Paul was in jail when he wrote these words. He was in chains in the slammer, suffering for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Somehow, even from conditions as heinous as prison, St. Paul can rejoice with a heart of thanksgiving. He has learned the secret. And the secret is none other than his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. “12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:12-13). There it is. There’s that famous verse that has made it onto plaques and bookmarks and bumper stickers and the like.
It was the same secret that the lepers discovered in our Gospel reading too. The 9 “Thanksgiving Turkeys” as I affectionately call them. Leprosy was indeed a nasty and debilitating illness. It’s a disfiguring illness. Everyday you watch as more and more pieces of your body shale up and fall off. It ravages a person. And back in our Lord’s ministry, they didn’t have antibiotics. The only prescription for these people was basically social distance yourselves, into oblivion, forever! They didn’t understand germs and bacteria. All they knew was that lepers make more lepers if they touch you. So everyone who had leprosy was simply told “You have to stay away from people now.” You need to stay far away lest you give this terrible disease to others. So not only are you sick and suffering the consequences of this wretched disease, but you also are now ostracized from everyone and everything you care about. No going for breakfast at Smitty’s in the mall. No playing a round of golf with your chums. No hugs and snugs from the grandkids. All the comforts of home, family and society are gone. The only thing you can do is stand far off and call out to people.
“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (LK 17:13) they cry. Our Lord sees them. He has pity on them. He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. And as they go, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, they all receive divine healing! Their terrible conditions and suffering and isolation are all gone in the blink of an eye! They receive their very lives back! And as they go, 9 continue to walk on, but 1 comes back. He praises God with all of his might, loudly and publicly, and at the feet of Jesus he heaps non-stop thanksgiving! “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” (17). A Samaritan, a non-Jew comes back. All the Jews flew the coupe!
In our Old Testament reading, Moses is speaking to the Jews. They are on the verge, right on the very cusp of entering the Promised Land. The folks that Moses is speaking to are people who have only ever known the wilderness. Reams of sand and sharp rocks and prickly plants and everything that wants to kill you all day every day. They had been out there wandering in that wilderness for 40 years. And they haven’t been wandering 40 years because they were lost. Nobody can be lost for 40 years on planet earth, even if you can’t navigate your way out of a wet paper bag. No, this wandering was on purpose. It was by design. They were kept out there walking in circles that the faithless generation who left Egypt might die off and a new generation might enter the promised land. The people that Moses is speaking to have only ever known wilderness. But now Moses starts telling them this: “7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you” (Deut.8:7-10).
Moses speaks these words to people who have only known scarcity and subsistence living. They are about to enter into this Promised Land and to start enjoying the abundant blessing of the Lord God! We think “Yay! They’re going to have a great big Thanksgiving feast in this good and abundant land!” But what happens as time goes on? Israel grows cold to the God who brought them out of slavery and into this great land. They begin to forget that God is the giver. All these blessings, all this abundance of food and health and home and richness that God has supplied, they take for granted. They start to ask “What has God done for us lately?” They turn their backs on the One True God and start worshipping other gods. And all of this happens because they have forgotten this moment in Deuteronomy where they move from scarcity to abundance by the gracious provision of God’s Fatherly hand. They are going to forget to give thanks to God for all that they have received.
We live in a land that is overflowing with resources. Fields for wheat and grains, forests for wood and lumber, mines for coal and minerals for energy, more fresh water than we can ever hope to drink. Ok, so we don’t have figs and pomegranates! But we do produce more food than we can eat. We are a very large exporter of what the world needs. If we plucked up an Israelite from Moses’ day in our Deuteronomy reading and transplanted him smack dab in the middle of Saskatchewan, he wouldn’t see any difference between the Promised Land and our province! Abundance abounds!
This is why it’s key to approach our Thanksgiving like the Samaritan, like an outsider. Someone who doesn’t take God’s blessings for granted, as just common place things that we expect and demand should be there. Think about the other 9 lepers who left without giving thanks. Do you think they were immediately re-stricken with leprosy as soon as they got around the corner?! Probably not. Our Lord Jesus healed them, whether they gave thanks or not. And us too as we get set to live out Deuteronomy 8:10 today or tomorrow “you shall eat and be full” most likely we will have a Thanksgiving prayer before the meal, giving thanks to God for all His blessings. But many will not. And will God reach down from heaven and slap the food away and say “No turkey and punkin’ pie for you for you did not give thanks to God!” Probably not. The question isn’t about the Lord’s provision for His people. Rather the question is what happens to us when we are not thankful to the Lord when He so graciously provides?
Do we rejoice? Do we enjoy the blessings we have received? Are we grateful everyday? Do we return to God and give thanks and praise and count our blessings which are many and manifold? Or, do we just shrug and have another turkey bun sammich?! That’s the question. But what if “times is tuff” and I don’t feel like being thankful? The economy sucks. The cost of living and inflation are through the roof. I have a miserable disease. Time’s always been tuff. It was tough wandering in the desert for 40 years. It was tough being in jail writing letters of encouragement to the churches. But remember that St. Paul learned the secret “of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Phil 4:12). And the secret is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our Lord’s cross never goes away. His blood shed for us never goes away. Whether abundance or scarcity, whether much or little, the Cross of Christ cannot be taken away. If times are good, the cross is there. If times are bad, the cross is there. The forgiveness of sins and promise of life everlasting that were given to you in Baptism never go away. The meal of life that is richly prepared at our Lord’s Table causes us to taste and see that the Lord is good. This is the secret to lives of thankfulness. This is how we can do all things through Christ, because Christ has overcome the world and gives us life. In His Name, Amen!
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