Thank You- Common Sayings in Life
Luke 17: 11-19
September 21, 1980
One of the great German thinkers of the 20th century once wrote: ”Words are worn out not by use but by careless use. The most noble words can become ineffective clichés, but clichés put into a new context can become powerful vehicles of communication.
For the next few weeks, we are attempting to rescue common sayings like hello, goodbye, thanks, and I’m sorry, from the pits of superficiality. Maybe, by raising those cliches to a new level, a new context, we may once again have them become powerful vehicles of communication.
Let us pray:
0 God, we thank you for the gift of language. May the words that we hear be engrafted on our hearts. May the thoughts that we have go with us as we leave this place. May the Gospel touch our minds, enkindle our spirits, and send us out refreshed, renewed, and restored. Amen
This morning, we are focusing our thoughts on the word thanks, or, to be more formal, thank you — that common cliche, used so much and meaning so little. To do this, I want to place our thoughts within the context of a story in Scripture; so let’s think back to Luke’s Gospel for the day.
The story starts with a simple incident of healing. Jesus unexpectedly cured ten lepers. He cured them completely and sent them to a priest to be certified, in order that they might re-enter society.
(The priests in those days had a different function. Their task was to certify officially that people had a clean bill of health. As the story goes, only one of the lepers responded in a more than superficial way. Only one came back, and he was a Samaritan, an outsider.
You say you don’t understand the other lepers. Giving thanks is so elemental, so automatic, so natural, so polite — everybody does it. You say it’s as easy as falling off a log, almost a reflex action. Well, don’t be so certain. Having spent many years in the helping profession, I can attest that giving thanks in any but the most superficial way is not easy.
Having observed human nature from the vantage point of the ministry, I can assure you that anything more than the most cliche-ridden thanks is hard to find, and even harder to sustain.
Let’s move back again to the story of the lepers, and let’s allow our imagination to soar, and see if we can speculate on what lay behind their difficulty in giving thanks. Why should a leper who has experienced great healing not get around to returning thanks? Could it be that, consciously or unconsciously, the nine lepers realized that by giving thanks, they would be acknowledging their dependence?
The lepers certainly did not have short memories. We all remember the gifts given to us, the healing acts that come from others, and the help and support that come from outside ourselves. We are all very much aware of experiences that elicit these feelings. But to respond, to admit publicly that you received something, would be to acknowledge a deep dependence — and that is almost too much to ask.
We can smile when we are told that Jimmy Durante used to run off to the nearest phone booth after every successful performance and dial the letters G-0-D and say thanks, and hang up… But really, to mean thanks, to believe that Jimmy Durante meant more than a ritual, would be asking too much.
The mythology of our age has it that we are self-reliant. To be sure, we need a little help from our friends, or from science, but that’s all. We seek independence, not dependence. We don’t want to owe anyone. We don’t want to have to count on others. We want to be free. And that’s just why the lepers, most probably, were hesitant to come back. All the cherished myths would have had to be scrapped. In giving thanks, they would be declaring weakness, vulnerability, and dependence, and no one likes to see themselves in that light.
But wait. Possibly there was another reason why the nine lepers failed to give adequate thanks. Possibly, they understood that to express gratitude meant to incur an obligation. One of the disturbing truths of our existence is that real gratitude compels us to respond, to follow the person to whom we are thankful.
It was not that the nine lepers were ingrates — far from it. They probably sent a thank-you note, or whatever was the 1st century equivalent. But to do more than go through the motions would have meant a radical change in their lifestyle. They would have been obligated to Jesus. I think this is something that bears on what we are doing this Sunday. This is ministry Sunday. Asunder, where we acknowledge the ministries of some of our people. And we have the opportunity to sign up for ministries in the future. But more than signing up, I want you to think about your motivation for signing up. If you are doing it out of self-interest, let’s meet some more people or learn a new skill, or if you are doing it out of a higher motivation of helping, if you are doing it out of any of these motivations no change will happen within yourself. It is not out of spiritual thankfulness that anything will occur, I’m really not down grading the sign up process. It is just that I want you to realize that signing up is ultimately tied and with Thanksgiving.
Let me issue a solemn warning here to those of you who take gratitude seriously. If you do it will lead you into the mystery of love and the mystery of service. No longer will you be able to stop with a few words, 1/2 hearted gesture, a polite nod, giving that unused part of yourself that seems left over. If you are really thankful, you will be catapulted into love and action. So watch out about being thankful, you will forever be obligated. This summer, I read with interest an article in Life magazine about Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The reporter could not understand how Mother Teresa could work and live with leopards; it was beyond her comprehension. When asked, Mother Teresa said, No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for $1000, yet I willingly care for them out of thankfulness for God’s love.
That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? The spirit of thanks. The motivation behind all our Christian ministries. As a matter of fact, without that motivation, that spirit is all wasted motion.
About 20 years ago I can recall hearing a fantastic sermon by the late Ted Ferris, rector of Trinity Church in Boston. Ted Ferris probably was the best preacher of the Episcopal Church has produced in the last 50 years. The sermon was entitled, the sense of gratitude. They said there were 5 recognized senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. He then pointed out that if you lost any of these senses, you were crippled, but you could learn to compensate. On the other hand, Ferris said, there is a sixth sense, the sense of gratitude, and it’s a Christian loses this sense, he is as good as dead, though still breathing.
Think about that the next time you are asked to sign up for a ministry and are asked first to look at your motivations. As the old cliche goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Unfortunately, there is more truth in that Comanche than we acknowledge. Think for a moment of the last time something good happened to you. Didn’t you want to say a real thank you, thank you to God? But what happened? Most of us are just too busy.
Focusing once more on the ungrateful 9 lepers, perhaps, just perhaps, I have been too hard on them. Perhaps they had intended to say thanks and simply kept putting it off. At the first free time, they were planning to come back, but suddenly found themselves so busy that it was not practicable. Perhaps the intention was there; sooner or later, they would have come back to Jesus. It was just that they, like most of us, found that their sooner or later usually added up to never.
There’s a wonderful line from the play The Music Man. It is said by the band director to the librarian, who hesitates to enter into a relationship with him. He says, keep putting off until tomorrow, which can be done today, and you will find that your life has been nothing but a collection of empty yesterdays.
Well, what about yourselves? Well, this is always the bottom line. Do you identify with the 9 lepers, or are you like the Samaritan? Are you too busy to give a good thanks to God, or are you willing to reorient your priorities? The choice is yours. But this much we can say: keep putting off until tomorrow, which can be done today, and you will find that your life has been nothing but a collection of empty yesterdays.
Let it be, Lord. Let it be
Amen