Be Like the One Who Came Back
Ten men with leprosy met Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, as he traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.
They hoped he would make them well.
And he did.
Physically whole again, nine of the men went on their way without looking back.
“One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice," Luke writes (17:15). “He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him – and he was a Samaritan.”
Jesus was stunned.
“Were not all 10 cleansed?” he asked.
It's easy to imagine a look of disbelief on his face.
“Where are the other nine?”
Though it pains us to admit it, most of us live more like the nine than like the one. We're quick to throw ourselves at Jesus' feet to ask for help. But how often do we fall at his feet, offering praise and thanksgiving?
If you're like me, probably not as much as you’d like.
Ask people to examine their prayer lives and they almost always say they spend more time in petition and intercession – in the asking– than in praise and thanksgiving.
Perhaps we struggle with the concept of gratitude to God and deep down think we’re doing pretty well on our own.
There’s a classic scene in an episode of The Simpsons when Homer calls on Bart to offer the blessing around the Thanksgiving table.
“Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves so thanks for nothing,” Bart says, with head bowed.
Everyone gasps.
There are many things I am very comfortable thanking God for.
I thank God for creating us in his image, so we can be like him if only in small ways, and for creating the world with all of its wonders.
I thank God for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, for the example he set, the lessons he taught, the sacrifice he made for our eternal salvation.
I thank God for the Holy Spirit, sent to us when Jesus returned to God.
I thank God for his presence because I believe he's with us always and, as Paul said, that nothing can separate us from his love in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I thank God for the gift of love.
But the concept of thankfulness causes me to struggle at times.
I am thankful for my wonderful children and for the relationships we’ve built, for good health, for a roof over my head.
But if I thank God for those things, does that somehow imply he's turned his back on the married couples who so desperately cry out to him for children of their own and never conceive, on the ones who battle disease, on the ones who live on the streets?
In the book, When Helping Hurts, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert write of “the health-and-wealth gospel” or what some call Prosperity Theology: “At its core, the health-and-wealth gospel teaches that God rewards increasing levels of faith with greater amounts of wealth.”
We know better.
God loves the man who sleeps on the street tonight as much as the woman who sleeps in the mansion. God loves the child in the wheelchair as much as the star quarterback.
I thank God, too, for giving us the gift of free will. He can't simply intervene and make all things as we would want them to be, without taking away that gift. Yes, all things happen for a reason. But God doesn’t make all things happen. Sometimes things happen because of poor choices made by ourselves or by others.
Likewise, we live in a fallen, sinful world, with pleasure and pain, with life and death, with health and sickness.
Deep down, aren’t we most thankful for, as Dante Rossetti suggests, the God moments, the times when our heart beats in rhythm with his and we experience love or compassion or another of the amazing attributes he passed along to us?
“The worst moment for the atheist,” Rossetti said, “is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.”
As we move toward Thanksgiving, there is much to be thankful for, even in the year 2020.
Will we take the time to thank God and others in our lives or will we just keep going on our way, like those nine men Jesus healed on his way to Jerusalem?
In this season and always, I want to be the one who came back.~ Forrest
***For information on Mission opportunities listed below or to sign up, contact Forrest White, Director of Mission Ministries, (fwhite@firstumc.org).
