Beyond the Patio

An Invitation to Live
Luke 17:11-19

“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 whole” (Luke 17:17-18 NRSV)

The interesting thing to me is that all the ten lepers were made clean of their disease. One leper, in his giving thanks, was made whole.

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That is why I think that being able to give thanks for the many blessings we receive in life is an invitation to live and to live more abundantly.

When we don’t give thanks for what we have, we get lost in ourselves. When all we do is think about ourselves we cannot be whole. We have to move beyond ourselves to live life in it’s fullest..

A.J. Cronin tells about doctor that he knew in South Wales prescribing what he called the “thank-you cure” for certain cases of neurosis. When a person came to him discouraged, pessimistic and full of their own woes, but without any symptoms of a serious ailment, he would give them this advise: “For six weeks I want you to say ‘thank you’ whenever anyone does you favour and to show you mean it emphasize the words with a smile”. Quite often the patient would say, “No one ever does me a favour,” whereupon the Doctor would reply, “Seek and you will find”. Six weeks later, more often than not, the patient would return with quite a new outlook, freed from their sense of grievance against life, convinced that people had suddenly become more kind and friendly.

Paul had the same prescription when he said, “Always give thanks for all things to the Lord your God”. Think of how drab life would be for a person lost in ingratitude. Every sunset is bleached of Color; every meal rendered bland and tasteless; every dream is cankered; every relationship soured. Ingratitude stops prayer, represses joy, misdirects energy, robs the middle years of their productivity, and crowns old age with a thorny wreath of bitterness. Another words ingratitude sucks the life our of us. Just think of all the things that you enjoy in life that you have never really earned. Sometimes I marvel at how I have appreciated so many things that I cannot truly say belong to me alone.

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So you see, the nine people who did not return to give thanks to Jesus, may have been healed of their leprosy but they missed out on the best part of the experience- the opportunity to express their gratitude and make their life much richer.

G.K. Chesterton once said that at one point in his life when he felt his life shipwrecked on the shoals of doubt and disbelief, he held unto whatever faith that remained by one “thin thread of thanks”. He thanked God whatever God might be that their was any life lived at all. He took life for gratitude and not for granted. He did not expect of life more than life had to give. He refused to whine because there was so little good . He relished in the good that existed. It was that “thin thread of thanks” that eventually led him back into an ampler and more zestful kind of living.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in his Letters and Papers from Prison when he relied on letters from his family and friends for any contact with the outside world and for any bit of news on what was happening at the time:

It’s a queer feeling to be so utterly dependent on the help of others, but at least it teaches one to be grateful, a lesson I hope I shall never forget.  In normal life we hardly realize how much more we recieve than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude.  It is easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared to what we owe to the help of others

Life cannot be rich without such gratitude. Our lives cannot be “whole” without it.

The Gospel this morning is an invitation to join with the Samaritan in giving thanks. It is also an invitation to be made whole – to discover life in it’s fullness. It is truly an invitation to live.

For your own health’s sake, I hope that you will not be among those lost in ingratitude, but with the one found grateful.

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