Sheer Gratitude

A Sermon by Donel McClellan
First Congregational United Church of Christ
Bellingham, Washington

It is a joy to return to this pulpit following two months of sick leave, and I am grateful to all of you for your patience. I am especially indebted to Cindy Bauleke, Sharry Nyberg, the staff and leadership of this congregation for taking on additional tasks while I was away. In addition I have been buoyed more than you can imagine by your prayers, emails, and cards.

It is an curious coincidence that the text for the Sunday of my return is a story about healing It is a subject about which I know far more now, than I did at the beginning of the summer. For those of you who are new to the congregation, a little explanation may be in order.

Through this summer I have been on a fascinating and moving journey which I did not plan or expect. I have been blessed with a succession of grace filled experiences. At the end of July, following medical tests, I discovered that I had an advanced form of prostate cancer. I was grateful because the cancer was found and because surgery was an option. Immediately, plans were made for surgery but I am grateful that I was invited to get a second opinion from the regional prostate cancer specialist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Dr. Tia Higano in Seattle ordered some additional tests and discovered, almost by accident, that in addition to the prostate cancer I had a kidney tumor. I was grateful to Dr. Higano for her diligence because if the kidney tumor not been discovered, I would be living with a time bomb which could detonate at any time.

Next our family met with Dr. Tom Takayama, a kidney surgeon at the University of Washington Medical Center, and we were grateful to hear that I was a candidate for surgery. In August an 8½ hour surgery was completed and the good news is that it was very successful, removing the damaged kidney and the tumor which originated there. For the last six weeks I have been healing from that surgery and am grateful that the healing process has gone very well.

I hope you can understand why my response to my illness has been one of gratitude. I have been surrounded by a delightful and loving family, a compassionate congregation, friends from many places, and a team of exceptionally competent physicians.

In the future I need to take steps to address the prostate cancer, and there is always a chance that one or the other of the cancers may reappear. I cannot know if I am cured but I do believe that I that I am healed.

In one of his mysteries, Tony Hillerman, tells of a Navajo woman who has become seriously ill. It is the custom of that tribe, for the entire community to take responsibility for the health of one of its members. They gather around her for the Night Chant Ceremony, a ritual of singing, dancing, bells, drumming, and sand painting that lasts for nine days. In this case, says Hillerman, cure will not come, because the woman is dying of liver cancer, but the ritual is meant to "heal Mrs. Agnes Tsosie and restore her to harmony."¹

The distinction between healing and cure is important to those of us who face life-threatening illnesses. And discerning the difference is absolutely necessary for understanding this curious story of Jesus and the lepers.

Jesus, of course, was known as a healer. People flocked to him to receive his touch. In today’s text, Jesus is traveling in the border between Samaria and Galilee. Galilee is the home of Jesus and his followers. Samaria is a region inhabited by an ancient offshoot of Judaism. Generally speaking there was no love lost between Samaritans and Jews and the Samaritans were despised by the Jewish population. Jesus and his friends are dwelling in the margins of society.

When he entered a small village, ten lepers approached Jesus. They kept their distance as lepers were required to do. The several skin diseases which are covered by the biblical word for leprosy were all considered extremely contagious. Lepers stayed away form healthy people and made noises so nobody would inadvertently bump into them. Lepers lived on the edges of society. They were unwelcome inside the village except to beg at the outskirts for food. At night they were forced outside the village or city to fend for themselves. For lepers in Jesus’ time, there was literally no hope for a future better than the present.

These ten hopeless lepers saw Jesus and cried out to him. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Jesus turned and when the saw the ten he simply said, “Go and show yourselves to the priest.” When the lepers obeyed and took the first step, they were made clean, that is, they were cured of their illness.

Naturally they wanted to go to the temple in Jerusalem to show the priests that were cured, and to be restored to a place in the community. One of the ten was different. When he saw that he was clean, he was overcome and returned to Jesus shouting praise to God, and lying at Jesus’ feet in gratitude.

Almost as an after note, Luke mentions that this man was a Samaritan. That is important because it suggests that he was doubly marginalized. First he was a leper. Second he was a despised Samaritan living in a Jewish village. He had two strikes against him. He would not have been welcome at the Temple in Jerusalem. He was separated from the community by both his illness and his religion.

Jesus turns to the disciples and asks, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he spoke to the man lying at his feet. “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well.” In other words, in addition to being cured you are healed. Ten lepers asked for God’s mercy. Nine were cured. One was cured and healed. The word healed means made whole.

So Jesus distinguished between making ten lepers clean—curing them—and healing the one who returned to express his gratitude. One might say that nine were cured in their bodies and one received wholeness of body, mind and spirit. It seems that the key was gratitude; thanks expressed; in theological terms doxology

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.²

Thanking takes effort. It requires thought and action. It seems to be an important component of faith. Carlyle Marney, one of the great preachers of the last century said, Faith is one-half belief; the other half is trust. Trust allows us to put our faith into action.

William Sloan Coffin, reflects thoughtfully on the issues that he now faces due to declining health. Coffin says:

I am less intentional than ‘attentional.’ I am more and more attentive to family and friends and to nature’s beauty. Although still outraged by callous behavior, particularly in high places, I feel more often serene, grateful for God’s gift of life. For the compassions that fail not, I find myself saying daily to my loving Maker, ‘I can no other answer make than thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks’ ³

Strangely enough, having looked death in the eye over the past few months, I have found a renewed sense of gratitude. Perhaps it was because of your prayers, but I never felt anything but the support of God’s everlasting arms. I was as comfortable going into surgery as I am entering my office in the mornings. Quite frankly, I was surprised and humbled. When things were toughest I never felt more loved, cared for and valued. Perhaps the best way to put it is that I felt a sense of wholeness. I think I understand the difference between healing and cure. I would take healing over cure every time. For healing binds me to the One who created and sustains me.

Faith finds its most eloquent expression in gratitude. The mystery of faith is that thanksgiving does not depend upon our well being or the material possessions we have been given. One of my all time favorite hymns was written about 1649 by a German pastor named Martin Rinkhart. From 1618 to 1648 Europe, and Germany in particular, were devastated by the Thirty Years War. Martin lived all that time in Eilenberg, a walled city in Germany. Since it was fortified, refugees from the war flocked to Eilenberg for a safe haven from the battles raging through the countryside. Soon the town was overrun with poverty and the overcrowded populace was a convenient breeding ground for the plague. It was an unimaginably terrible time. In 1637 Martin Rinkhart buried 4480 persons who died from the plague, one of them was his wife. By the end of the war he was the only pastor left alive in the town. Between the war and the plague the population of Germany was reduced from 16 million to 6 million during these years.

At the end of the war, Martin wrote a remarkable hymn which we still sing at thanksgiving season.

Even in the most difficult and dreadful times, our God is with us and brings healing. Our only possible response is sheer gratitude.

1. Tony Hillerman, Talking God, New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1989, p 288. Cited by Frederick J. Gaiser in his sermon, Your Faith Has Made You Well http://www.saplc.org/sr011014.htm

2. Source unknown

3. William Sloane Coffin, Credo, Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p. 173).