"GRATITUDE"

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Luke 17:11-19

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

 -Cicero

Luke comes right out and says it.

In Jeremiah, you have to read it between the lines,

but it's there.

Both of our scripture readings this morning

are talking about gratitude.

Gratitude is one of those things

that we think we understand,

so much so that we don't give it much thought.

True gratitude is a lot richer than we give it credit for being.

The online Wikipedia

has one of the best definitions of gratitude that I've seen.

It says that gratitude is

"the substance of a heart ready to show appreciation or thankfulness."

Listen to that again.

Gratitude is the substance of a heart ready to show appreciation or thankfulness.

Note that gratitude is not the appreciation itself,

but the heart's readiness to give it.

It's not that gratitude is appreciation on steroids,

but more that it comes from its own place in our soul.

Not all gratitude is the same.

I can think of at least 3 levels of gratitude,

which conveniently start with a, b and c!

The first one is automatic gratitude.

It's like manners,

when someone holds the door for you

or says something nice about you.

It makes you feel good,

but your saying "thank you" is more of a reflex.

You know you mother would give you "that look"

if you didn't say it,

so you rattle it off without even thinking about it.

Automatic gratitude is not a bad thing.

It greases the wheels of life.

It paves the way for human relationships

and makes the going a little more pleasant.

That being said,

automatic gratitude is what it is -

it's not riveting,

it's not life changing.

There's still plenty of room for ingratitude

about other things in life.

We count our miseries carefully and accept our blessings without much thought.

- Chinese proverb

The second level is a little more complex.

I call it begrudging gratitude.

This is the kind of gratitude you feel

when the doctor has just given you a shot,

or your mother has just foisted spinach onto your plate,

or the police officer is writing you a speeding ticket,

or your father makes you save some of your allowance for college

rather than spend it all on video games.

Begrudging gratitude

is gratitude for things that you find it hard to be happy about.

You suspect that it will eventually feel better,

but right now you're not sure it's going to be any better.

Right now it hurts.

You have reason to trust the person

who currently has you over a barrel

because they have come through for you before.

But your trust isn't exactly freeflowing at this point.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

This is the kind of gratitude we find in today's reading from Jeremiah.

God's people are exiled in Babylon.

Jeremiah makes his point by using the word "exile"

four times in four verses.

And to add insult to injury,

God tells them it's his idea that they're there to begin with.

That's hard for them to swallow,

and even harder for them to trust.

They want to go home,

and they want to go home yesterday.

But listen to what Jeremiah says to them!

God tells them through Jeremiah to put down roots!

This is home for the foreseeable future.

Don't rent, build a house.

Find a good church home.

Join Rotary or Kiwanis or the Lions Club.

Get married.

Have babies and find good schools for them to go to.

Register to vote.

Plant gardens,

because you're going to be around here

long enough for them to produce.

"Seek the welfare of the city

where I have sent you into exile," says the Lord,

"and not only that, but pray for it to prosper,

because that is where you will find your welfare."

God was telling them to bloom where they were planted,

to bloom where God himself planted them.

They'd rather be anywhere but Babylon.

About the last thing they want

is to imagine that they're there for the long haul.

But because God has come through for them before,

and they have every reason to think

that God will come through for them again,

they will show a begrudging kind of gratitude.

The two best prayers I know are "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you."  -- Anne Lamott (Traveling Mercies)

Then there's the third kind of gratitude - cognitive:

earth shattering,

spine tingling,

life changing thankfulness.

Something has taken place

which causes you to know deep down in your bones

that nothing will ever be the same again.

And you know for sure that that "something"

comes from no other than God.

In the world of Buddhism,

the Pali word for gratitude is the compound word katannuta.

Kata means "that which has been done,"

especially done to oneself.

And annuta means "knowing or recognizing."

So, bottom line, the Buddhist word for gratitude

means "knowing and recognizing

what has been done to you for your benefit."

It's more than just emotion,

which we usually associate with that first kind of gratitude

and even with the second.

It's more cognitive -

it requires using our minds to put two and two together.

In short,

it's gratitude that's borne out of knowing

all the way to your toes

that something has been done for you

that you could not have done for yourself.

If the only prayer we say in our lifetime is "thank you," that would suffice.

- Meister Eckhart

This is surely the kind of gratitude

that our friend the tenth leper experienced that day.

This guy was an outsider

in just about every way.

Not only did he have leprosy,

which in itself meant that he was every bit as much in exile

as the Hebrews in Jeremiah's time.

He was a Samaritan leper.

People in Jesus' day would go out of their way

to avoid any encounter with a Samaritan.

But if the Samaritan had leprosy, well,

you can only imagine.

Your average faithful person,

probably much like any one of us,

would have fully expected the lepers' cries for mercy

to fall on deaf ears.

And with good reason.

Modern medicine in that day

directed that those with this infectious disease

be cordoned off from everyone else

in order to keep it from spreading.

But there Jesus went,

making eye contact with the wrong crowd

and bringing about change in their lives

that they could never have dreamed of.

Of the ten of them, only one -

the least likely candidate -

had a sense of cognitive katannuta.

The Samaritan leper recognized

that something great had been done for his benefit,

something which was sacrificial

and nothing less than a miracle.

The other ninety percent, well,

we can only imagine that they ran to celebrate their healing

with their loved ones.

Surely they felt some level of gratitude.

But I wonder if it was diminished somehow

because they didn't find a way to express it.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.   - John F. Kennedy

Since the time our children started school,

Paul has repeated a mantra almost every morning at our house.

As the kids are getting ready to leave the house

or as they're getting out of the car,

he'll say to them,

"Be sure and help somebody today."

Our prayer is that after five years,

it's begun to soak in.

Maybe it has.

This past week,

the kids and I were instant messaging with Paul

halfway around the world,

which is wonder enough in itself.

I think Alex brought it up first.

He asked Paul, "Daddy, did you help someone today?"

There was a pause on the other end.

"Yes, I hope I did in class today," he said.

Then, of course, Paul said "Did YOU help somebody today?"

Both of them thought for a minute and said,

well, no.

Paul wrote back - "Okay,

did anybody help YOU today?"

And again, well, no.

So here came the list from India.

"Did anybody take you to school today?

Did anyone teach your class today?

Did anyone work to grow the food you ate today?

Did anybody help you cross the street?

Did anyone clean the restrooms at school?"

Yes, yes, yes.

They got the point.

Not only is it important to help somebody every day,

it's maybe even more important

to have that katannuta moment

of recognizing how it is

that someone has helped you.

I find that the one thing which I want to put into practice in my own life is the conscious and deliberate habit of finding somebody to thank."   - Elton Trueblood

It doesn't have to involve exile or leprosy.

It just has to involve our head and our heart.

With the realization

that we are not nearly as self-sufficient as we might like to think,

true gratitude can change our lives.

It's a lot more than using good manners.

It's even more than gritting your teeth through a tough situation

and trusting that God will work it out in the end.

It's about recognizing God at work in our lives

and being able to do no other than to say so.

True gratitude

will create a wellspring of joy

where none existed before.

True gratitude is more than a nod of the head;

it's the substance of our heart.

What are you grateful for this day?

REALLY grateful for?

What is it

that so moves your heart when you think about it

that you're willing to drop everything

in order to go and say thank you?

In the kingdom of God,

true gratitude is the coin of the realm.

No matter what you're doing -

in worship,

in work,

in study,

in play -

God in Jesus Christ is in the middle of it,

bringing about healing and wholeness

and fullness of life.

Show the substance of your heart

ready to show appreciation and thankfulness. 

Amen.

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The quotations in today's sermon come from a variety of sources, and most can easily be found on the Web. Two good sources are www.wisdomquotes.com and www.quoteland.com.