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Clare L. Oatney
Christ Episcopal Church
October 10, 2004—Proper 23C
Ruth 1:8-19a; 2 Timothy 1:6-14; Luke 17:11-19

Every night, when we’re putting our three year old to bed, my husband and I talk with him about his day: what did he do, what were his favorite things, and so, what does he want to say thank you for? It’s really wonderful to see how willingly and easily he enters into the process of saying thank you for the good things in his life: For food and family and friends and teachers … and candy and Spiderman and toys and bugs…

It’s a deliberate thing, for me. To teach him that the most basic kind of prayer is simply to give thanks. To recognize the gift, and to be thankful. I want him to learn early … maybe it will become a habit. Who knows?

All I do know is that in my life, being mindful about this with John every night has been exceedingly helpful. Because the ongoing fact of my life seems to get in the way of my being thankful for that life, and I need to be reminded.

Preacher Fred Craddock writes, "It is often the outsider, the stranger, the visitor who sees and appreciates and responds for countless gifts that we have come to take for granted. The visitor in my home talks with and enjoys the children I hardly noticed between coming home and reading the evening paper. The visitor thanks my wife for the meal I have eaten 1,000 times in silence. It is so often the stranger who notices and expresses appreciation for what familiarity has blinded us to. This is the truth that hurts. But it is also truth that can heal. He is not just someone who shows us up for the ingrates we are. He is one sent by God to give us new eyes and ears. And hearts."

Over and over again, God gives us new eyes and ears and hearts, inviting us into a gratitude that overflows. God offers a thankfulness that transforms what had seemed ordinary into a world of blessing: a world in which God’s hand and God’s heart inhabit every corner.

We see it in today’s stories. Stories about gratitude. Stories about the ways in which God offers us new vision. Stories of unexpected love that refuses to take life for granted. Listen again to the stories.

Three widows stand at the side of the road. The older one headed toward home, the younger ones tearfully clinging to their mother in law and begging her to take them with her. “Go home to your own families,” Naomi says. “Stay in your own country, with your own customs, your own gods.” Recognizing the sense of this, Orpah turns around and heads back towards the land of her childhood. Ruth watches her leave, and as she imagines herself following suit, each step seems a step away from the love she has been given. And so she refuses to do what is sensible. Love makes her bold, and in a culture where life depends on men, she commits herself to the life of this older woman who has become mother to her (Phyllis Trible, in Sacred Journeys: A Woman’s Book of Daily Prayer, ed. Jan L. Richardson).

“I’m going with you.”

Unimaginable. Unheard of. From a daughter, one might expect such attachment, such loyalty. But from a daughter in law? Imagine Naomi’s heart: This old woman, whose husband is long dead, whose sons have died, has thought that she too is setting out on a long, lonely journey back into her past. And suddenly, unexpected love walks beside her.

The unexpected, by definition, slips through our blind spots, sidles past our ability to take things for granted. You can’t not notice it. And there it is: this incredible gift filling your heart and spilling tears of joy and thanksgiving.

New eyes, new ears, and a new heart. Surprised by love, we are invited into gratitude. Woken up by the unexpected, we look upon the life we had somehow stopped noticing, and see it with new eyes.

Ten lepers make their way through the countryside between Samaria and Galilee. It’s a perfect place for them, this no-man’s land, the space at the margins. Cast out of society, unable to work or even live with their families, they cry out to strangers from a distance: “Help us.” Hoping that someone might leave them a little food under a tree, or perhaps a blanket or an old cloak…

But the strangest thing has just happened. They have encountered Jesus—the teacher, the healer, some say the Messiah. And suddenly, nine of them are off and running to find the priests. To be declared officially well. To get permission to rejoin society. Running in joy, either knowing themselves to have cleansed of this terrible disease, or in great hopeful trust that they will be. No wonder this shambling band suddenly seems so fleet of foot!

One of them, however, on noticing that he has indeed been cured of his leprosy, wheels around. Stopped short by this incredible gift, given by a stranger, given by a Jew to him, a Samaritan, him, a leper. Unexpected.

And unlike the other nine, who rush off headlong toward the promise of a return to a normal life (and can you blame them, really, for wanting it, for wanting to put the awful past behind them and never look back?), he turns around. And remembering the misery of his previous state (and promising himself that he will never forget where he has been), he is overwhelmed by the miracle of what he now has. He sees through the new eyes God has surprised him with, and sees a world filled with blessing. And thanksgiving flows out of him (Richard Fairchild, “More than Normal” on Kir-Shalom website).

He has already been healed of his leprosy. But in this moment, Jesus declares that he has been made well in a different way: made whole … saved. Gratitude—recognizing what you have been given, and being thankful—is nothing less than wholeness, nothing less than salvation. And because you might not yet have noticed that this is a stewardship sermon, I should note that it is also the core of stewardship: not money, not budget, not guilt. Gratitude. A sense of having been gifted that transforms itself into action.

What is it that invites you into such gratefulness? A daily, mindful practice of counting your blessings? The perspective of a stranger? Maybe it just flows out of you naturally, like breathing, like laughing, like crying. If so, then you’re lucky. Because most of us need to be reminded, perhaps even jarred out of our stupor. By something out of the ordinary. Something … unexpected. Something that will give us new eyes, new ears, a new heart.

Holy One, all that we do and all that we have flows through you. Now we ask for just one thing: give us grateful and generous hearts. Amen.