Count Your Blessings, Not Your Winnings

Luke 17:11-19

Dear Grandma and Aunt Helen,

             Thank you for the book that you gave me for my birthday. It looks really cool. I will be reading it soon and I’m sure I will enjoy it.

            How are you? We’re fine. Not much going on. It’s been hot outside.

            Well, thanks again for the book.

            Love,

            Nathan

 

            Okay, how’s that? Can I go play?

            What do you mean, “Is that all?” I can’t think of anything else to write. Come on, that’s good enough. I can’t help it if I live a boring life.

           

            Sigh. (Crumple paper)

 

Dear Grandma and Aunt Helen,”

 

            This was a rather painful ritual I went through twice a year growing up—at Christmas and my birthday. The gifts I received were almost always delivered in person. Thanking was easy—you did it right on the spot. But my Grandma Aaseng lived in California with my Aunt Helen, and so they sent gifts through the mail. Which was good, except then I needed to write a letter to thank them.

            This was a task I put off for as long as I could. Until my parents had had enough of this procrastination and made me sit at the desk and finish it before I could do anything else.

 

            Not one of my prouder memories in life. It allows me to relate well to the Gospel reading in Luke today.

            In this story, Jesus is traveling with his disciples along the border between two hostile states: Galilee and Samaria. They go into a place where they meet 10 lepers. These are society’s outcasts. They suffer from a cruel wasting disease that not only destroys their bodies but forces them to live separate from society.

            Calling from far off, which, by law, was the only way they could communicate with anyone outside their band, they ask Jesus to take pity on them. Jesus does. They go to the priests to present themselves as clean. One of the 10, a Samaritan, comes back to thank Jesus for the healing.

 

            What happened to the other nine?  They are too busy celebrating their good fortune to remember to give thanks.

 

            The moral lesson is obvious. When somebody does something for you, the proper response is to express thanks. It is rude, uncivilized behavior to accept a gift from someone without acknowledging the gift. It is a lesson we all teach our kids, and it’s not always easy. I admit I had to be practically dragged to that table and made to sit there until I got that thank you note written. Some years I probably would not have written it at all if I wasn’t under duress.

 

            I can’t tell if ingratitude is part of our basic nature or not. I have memories of our own children opening a present and jumping up and dancing around and hugging us and shouting, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” No one had to prompt them to do that. And I have other memories, involving the same parties, of being on the opposite end of this letter-writing scenario, enforcing the writing of an overdue letter. No real consistent pattern there.

 

            Whether or not it is in our nature to give thanks, giving thanks is a practice that we value highly. No one likes to think of himself or herself as ungrateful. We even have a national holiday whose only purpose is giving thanks.

 

            Because of our respect for giving thanks, the behavior of the nine lepers is shocking. Against all odds, they have been given a gift beyond their dreams or imagination. Their world has changed on the spot from despair and loneliness and suffering, to one of health and freedom.

 

            How can they take such an awesome gift and not even acknowledge what has been done for them? Their selfish behavior is so far beyond what a normal person would do that no self-respecting adult could relate to it. So what is the purpose of including these verses, except as a simple children’s story to help them learn the proper way to act?

 

            If it is hard to see ourselves in this story, consider an interesting dynamic that lies under the surface. The leper band contains both Jews and Samaritans, who in normal society had nothing to do with each other. Anywhere else, they’d be enemies. Wouldn’t give each other the time of day. Yet they live together in this group. The isolation is so bad, the victims so desperate for human companionship, that even centuries-old feuds and traditions are set aside. They get along; they share.

 

            Why? Because they understand better than anyone else the need for human companionship. They understand it because that wonderful gift has been taken away from them. Like many things, only when it is gone do they recognize how valuable it is. 

 

            Those of us who regularly experience this great gift of companionship forget what it is worth. But those who don’t have it understand that a chance for just a touch of human contact is far too valuable to be thrown away because of jealousies and hatred and barriers and spite and past grudges and just plain meanness. And so those, who in most places on earth would be cursing each other, find themselves thankful that at least they have each other.

 

            If we don’t identify with the ungrateful lepers, maybe it’s because we are so swamped with blessings that we have forgotten how valuable they are.

 

            That truth was demonstrated for me in a vivid way when I was a counselor at a state camp for cognitively disabled persons in North Dakota. I’ve told this story before in adult education but it really fits here.

 

            I was absolutely miserable. Wishing the entire summer would end. I felt like I was abused, unlucky, dumped on, been given a raw deal by God. Nothing ever goes my way. And these people I was in charge of were even worse off. They had been dealt a horrible hand in life. All I could feel for them is pity that they had been given so little in life. But at night at the campfire, these people sang a song:

 

            Thank you Lord for saving my soul.

            Thank you Lord for making me whole

            Thank you Lord for giving to me

            Thy great salvation so rich and free.

 

            When you listen to that to that song, joyfully sung by those people, this passage from Luke hits right in the gut, so hard it takes the wind out of you. I can hear the voice of Jesus saying, “Were not all these people saved? Was no one found to return and give thanks to God but these few?”

 

            Those of us who have been showered with God’s great gifts forget what they are worth. We forget how we have been blessed. The old admonition to “count your blessings” is a valuable one.

 

            The question arises, then, what are we to give God thanks for? In the case of the lepers, it’s obvious. They were sick, isolated from society. Now they are healed and accepted back into the fold. They can thank God for healing.

            What about us? What do we thank God for? I admit this has been a troubling point for me ever since reading Third World theologians. I used to thank God regularly for all the blessings of food and shelter and security, that God has blessed me with a high standard of living, that God has blessed me with a wonderful family, and good job, and favorable weather and all that.

            And the Third World theologians point out that when you thank God for giving you those things, what are you saying to the billions of people in the world who do not have them? That God chooses not to give them the same things and chooses to let them live miserable lives? That God loves you more than God loves them?

 

            Voices from the Third World tell us that when we think we are counting our blessings, often we are really just counting our winnings. Without intending to do so, we rub it in the faces of the losers. Blessings are not the same as winnings.

 

Dear Grandma and Helen,

            Thank you for sending all those Christmas presents. When they arrived in the mail, I happened to be the one who was home. Since there wasn’t anyone else around at the time, so I opened all the presents, assuming they were for me.

            So, thank you for the game, for the DVD, the CD player, the books, and the clothes. It’s all great stuff, far more than I deserve. You are so good to me; I can’t thank you enough.

 

Love,

Nathan

 

P.S. It would be nice if you send something to my brothers and sisters sometime, too.

 

            When we thank God, are we counting our blessings, or are we counting our winnings?

 

            So what can we thank God for?

            For sending the package to all of us. For sending a world filled with food and beauty and wonder and riches for all to enjoy. For making possible the gifts of companionship and love and sharing. For touching us with inspiration and intelligence and creativity. Or this:

 

            Thank you Lord, for saving my soul

            Thank you Lord, for making me whole

            Thank you Lord, for giving to me

            Thy great salvation so rich and free.

 

            At the end of this Gospel story is a fascinating statement that reminds us that giving thanks is not simply an obligation: it draws us into life.

 

            Notices that Jesus heals all 10 lepers. But he says to the one who returns to give thanks, “Rise and go, your faith has made you well.”

            Does that strike you as odd? If this guy’s faith made him well, what about the other nine? They don’t seem to have any faith at all. Yet they got healed. What made them well?  Jesus seems to imply that if this Samaritan did not have faith, he would not be healed. If the other nine got well without any faith, why is this guy treated differently?

 

            I was pondering this when I came across an article in Newsweek about a book called Thank You Power by Deborah Norville. According to her, everyday expressions of gratitude are a giant step down the road to happiness. For reasons of mental health, she recommends not only counting blessings but writing them down. Jot down 3 or 4 things a day for which you are thankful. Doing that focuses you on the positive, rather than the negative, and people who do that have a better chance of living happy and productive lives.

 

            It turns out that counting our blessings is more important than we ever guessed. Yes, there is a time for anger, and grief, and disappointment. But in the long run, those things are poison. Eventually, we need to let go of them before they kill us.

            In contrast, there is tremendous healing power in giving thanks. I suspect that is what Jesus was telling the one who gave thanks. That is why this guy’s faith made him well. Because that attitude put him on the path to long term wellness.

 

            Writing the letter to my grandmother and aunt was important for their sakes. But it also had value that I never recognized. There is healing power in being reminded of how lucky you are to have an aunt and a grandmother who care for you.

 

            My youngest brother wrote a song that expresses what this Gospel is all about, in the simplest terms. Based on a saying of Daj Hammerskjold, UN Secretary General who died on the job in the Congo, it tells how giving thanks propels us into a future filled with new life.

 

            For all that has been, we give thanks.

            For all that will be, we say yes.

            For all the good that’s been and will be,

            And for all hard times as well.

            We give thanks.

            We say yes.  

 

            Dear God, 

            For all that has been, thank you. Details to follow—every day.

For all that is to come, as long as you are there, I can’t wait.

 

            Your adopted child,

            Nate