Anxiety and Thanksgiving

Some of us remember the quaint old days when the TV network news was considered a public service and news anchors were some of the most trusted voices on the public scene.

That is the perception no more; it seems as though the news is merely the vehicle to push the commercials on the viewer, and the most salacious, bloody, or disastrous stories are the ones that are aired.

It seems that this procedure is contributing to a general sense of anxiousness these days.

To be concerned about financial matters and jobs and retirement and health and family relationships etc. is normal, and we work at those situations as best we can.

But anxiousness is something else; it is concern that is pushed into an all-consuming worry in which one is not able to focus on anything positive or act to change things.

One becomes paralyzed.

Earlier this year in the Crossways class we viewed a movie about Father Damien and his work on Molokai, Hawaii among those suffering from leprosy in the late 1800's.

The state of things for those people was not concern or even anxiety, but rather despair.

Whenever one in Hawaii was discovered to have the disease, they were rounded up and taken by ship to this one barren end of an island.

They were landed by small boat if the seas were not too rough, or simply pushed overboard if it was too stormy.

If they made it to shore, that was OK, and if they drowned, their suffering was over more quickly.

They were left some huts for shelter and some poor food, and that's all.

There was no effective treatment for the disease until the 1930's, so anyone who had the disease before then was doomed to a horrible, disfiguring, painful and slow death , abandoned by the rest of society except for Father Damien and a very few others.

That was the way it had always been with those who got the disease, from ancient times until the medicine was discovered 75 years ago; the sufferers were ostracized, forced to live apart, required to warn anyone approaching “Unclean, unclean,” and they lived and died in pain and loneliness.

Their situation was not concern or anxiety, but more than that, utter despair.

The despair is so profound that it brings us to wonder how the ten lepers who approached Jesus could even drag themselves to the edge of the road and call out to Jesus “Lord have mercy.”

Jesus is not willing for despair to get the last word in their lives.

He directed them to “Go show yourselves to the priests”, the ones who were society's health officers in those days.

The sufferers were granted a gift of faith.

And so they went.

In the course of going, they discovered that they had been healed by Jesus.

What joy, what wonder!

In sermons we are always hard on the nine who went to the priests, but really, they are a lot like all of us.

When we get good gifts from God, instead of being filled with gratitude, we demand more.

The late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the story of a boy who fell off a pier into very rough water.

An old sailor standing nearby dove into the water despite great risk to himself and pulled the boy to safety.

The next day his mother came to the pier and asked around until he found the sailor.

“You're the one who saved my boy?” she queried.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Then where is his hat?” she demanded.

We laugh at the woman because it is so painfully true.

No matter what the situation, we always want more than what we have received.

It is so common for us to be demanding our “rights” in this or that situation.

But wait a minute!

There are not “rights” which are due to us; there are instead gifts which we receive from God, and we are charged by God to use these gifts well.

I'm hearing these days that some politicians are wanting to quote the nation's founding documents about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” but omitting the founders' admission that these things are endowed to us by God and do not exist independently from God.

All the political huffing and puffing doesn't change the truth; everything that we have and are is a gift from God.

And wonder of wonders, God continues to give good gifts even when we act like petulant children, demanding more.

That is the peculiar Good News in the Gospel story today, which should drive us to gratitude such as filled the one leper who returned to Jesus.

Gratitude, yes, here in this congregation we are invited to major in gratitude, rather than to be stuck in anxiety or overwhelmed with despair.

Gratitude that the gift of life is still ours this day.

Gratitude that we have been able to gather once more in this beautiful place with our brothers and sister in the faith.

Gratitude that despite concerns of all sorts, blessings continue to come to us in even greater variety and number.

Yes, in this congregation we can major in gratitude and thanksgiving.

Much of the time, however, we get stuck somewhere else.

Richard Hoffler some years ago applied his imagination to the motives of the nine who didn't return to Jesus.

Here is his list:

1. Leper #1 is a literalist. Jesus said to go to the priests and so he went.

He is one who follows the rules, keeps his duty, obeys the letter of the law.

2. Leper #2 is a procrastinator, who hurries to the priest and will get around to Jesus...tomorrow...or whenever.

3. Leper #3 is timid, too embarrassed to thank the all-powerful Jesus.

4. Leper #4 is a skeptic, who will demand that the healing needs to be proven, in case it is an illusion, a trick.

5. Leper# 5 is the egotist type that we have already mentioned, the one who is not grateful and feels that he deserve better.

6. Leper #6 is the cynic who snarls “He didn't do it for nothing. What's the catch?”

Leper #7 is the enthusiast who talks about how marvelous it is...and talks and talks...

Leper #8 is a pessimist who declare that “It won't last; tomorrow I'll be even worse off.

Leper #9 is the conformist who just wants things to go smoothly.

Dr. Hoffler applied lots of imagination in those descriptions,

and, yes, we can see ourselves reacting in those kinds of ways in response to God's good gifts that continue to come to us.

Our guests in Family Promise have for the most part been very thankful and appreciative for what we have been able to do.

But, human nature being what it is, you will not be surprised to hear that there have been a few persons who wanted to demand this or that, and we have had to ever so gently remind them that everything in Family Promise is a gift to our guests.

It is akin to our church-word grace, that is, God's good gifts to us, to which gratitude is the appropriate reaction.

A Jewish family was living in the starving time in WWII in Europe, just barely clinging to life.

When it came time for Passover, the father took a precious pinch of the little bit of fat that they had, pulled a thread from his coat, and made a crude tiny candle to go with their starvation meal of watery cabbage leaf for Passover .

In great anxiety, one of his children objected, “Why are you wasting the only fat that we have on such a foolish thing?”

The father replied, “Because if we don't have anything with which to say thank you to God, we truly do not have anything at all.”

Gratitude for much, and for little.

There is yet one more aspect of Jesus' story to grasp today.

Remember that all ten were healed of leprosy.

Jesus did not take away the gift from those who did not return,

but the one who did return received yet one more thing, perhaps the best thing of all.

He received a relationship, a personal connection, with the Lord Jesus himself.

The nine received health, but the 10^th healed leper came into the presence of God himself.

Physical healing is a good thing, but spiritual wholeness and serenity is even better.

And thanksgiving is part of that wholeness.

We are here today as persons who have been cleansed in the waters of baptism, and are reminded of that gift daily.

We are able to be here today in gratitude, and in our giving of thanks we discover that we are receiving the giver!

That's why we call the prayers at the Holy Communion the Great Thanksgiving.

It is the wonderful back and forth between the Lord God and us: proclamation to us, our response of gratitude, our discovery that the word that has come together with the bread and wine is in fact the very presence of Jesus.

With such great things happening, may we not become mired in anxiety or smothered with despair, but instead surround our concerns with praise and thanksgiving, ...and live!

AMEN.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.