This week I have been
reflecting on how we respond to those who have treated us with care, loving and
grace as we journey through life. Having lamented what, we have done to
creation last week my thoughts turned to gratitude for the gift we have in
creation and comes from reading Luke 17:11-19 from this week’s lectionary. Then
I was reminded of the following little story I once heard and was struck by:
Her name was Edna Miller and
she was about as plain as her name implied except when she was inside the walls
of a classroom with chalk in hand. She stood barely five-foot tall yet could
look eyeball to eyeball with the biggest bully in the school and stare him into
repentant submission. And could she teach. Man, could she teach! She began
teaching in 1922 and taught until she was compelled to turn in her chalk at the
age of 65. She taught through the Depression, making fullness in the emptiness
around her. She taught through World War II and was with the children as the
telegrams, "we are sorry to inform you," began to arrive with the
notice of their brothers' or fathers' death.
Through the years a middle
aged woman with a parade of children and a husband would stop by her frame
house and say, "you don't remember me, but you taught me in 7th grade and
I just want to thank you for the difference you made in my life." Letters
would appear around Christmas - "you probably don't remember me but you
taught me in high school and believed in me until I could believe in
myself....I have a good job now and a loving family and I just want to thank
you." At the 50th class reunion of 1945, there was a huge celebration in
her honour. And shortly after that, at the age of 95, Miss Edna Miller quietly
slipped into the arms of God. But she died with joy. She had been thanked and
remembered with gratitude.
As I reflected on this I was
also reminded of a teacher I knew in Townsville that finally retired in her 70’s
and I wondered what all those students who began their schooling with her over
the years would say about the loving grounding in life she sought to give them
which was based on her Christian faith. It also reminds me that we need to ask the
question: Do we remember God, do we thank our God, and do we turn back with joy
and gratitude? Do we remember that "we are the Lord's and not we
ourselves" and pause to remember that it is God who protects us, feeds us
with honey from the rock, cares for and nourishes us?
Returning to Luke’s story for
this week we have with the returning grateful healed leper even more blessing because
of his attitude of gratitude. Jesus said to the leper, "Get up and go on
your way, your faith has made you well." There is healing within the act
of thanksgiving. The medieval Flemish mystic, John Ruysbroeck, says,
"Those who do not praise God here on earth remain silent in
eternity." Praise affects us - forever.
We live in a materialistic,
individualistic, opulent society. And we forget the one to whom we owe all that
we have - the God in whom we live and move and have our being. All too easily
we think we did it all ourselves and glory in our rugged individualism. We cast
in gold the bootstraps by which we believe we pulled ourselves up. Those who do
not need God cannot know God. Dependency and thanksgiving hold hands when we
acknowledge with gratitude the gifts of our
Creator.
One of those with the disease
leprosy that had been cured turned back - and fell at the feet of Jesus and
thanked him. We are called to allow these proud hearts of ours to declare at
the feet of Jesus that we love our God, need our God and thank our God. Praise
and thanksgiving come from the same word in Hebrew. They can be interchanged,
one word for the other. When we thank God, we are praising God. And when we
praise God, we are thanking God. The word "yadaw" in Hebrew for
praise and thanksgiving means literally "to hold out one's hands." It
is both a physical attitude of supplication and of receptive thanksgiving.
It is the posture we see on Sunday’s
when the celebrant celebrates Eucharist with us, hands lifted as the prayers
are said. At the liturgy we pray,
"Lift up your hearts...we lift them to the Lord." And at these words
I can’t help but lift my hands in thanks which some of my congregation may find
a bit puzzling. Then there are the words, "Let us give thanks to the Lord
our God... It is right to give him thanks and praise." And indeed, it is
right and good that we should praise and thank our God with our hearts, our lives,
our very being.
Eucharist means literally
"thanksgiving". Thanksgiving is the central act of worship, through
the Eucharist, for gathered Christians. It is the heart of our worship
together. God gives to us all that we are and to God we return it with thankful
hearts. Thankfulness is the key to all true spirituality. Above all Christian’s
remember the love Jesus Christ had for us one Friday afternoon upon a cross.
"Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising
God with a loud voice."
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