Thanksgiving--Mud or Stars?

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Once upon a time Jesus healed ten lepers. Incurables. People not supposed to ever get well. They all went away except one man he had healed. He knelt down and said: “Thanks…thanks…thanks…” And Jesus looked around and said: “Where are the nine? Were there not ten healed?” I think Jesus is still asking that question. We all beset with blessing after blessing…and most of our days we forget all the tender mercies that come our way. 

And so that’s what I want to talk about today. Making sure that of all the things we do in life—we do not forget to be grateful to God. It isn’t easy you know. And if we don’t work at it—we’ll be like those two guys in prison: “Two men looked out from the bars—One saw the mud and the other saw the stars.” This thanksgiving will it be mud or stars. Will  we pass or fail this test.

I want to get a handle on this idea by using a little poem I read the other day by Mary Oliver. 

“Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention. 

Be astonished.

Tell about it.”

So this is what I am trying to remember not just this Thanksgiving but all the other days that follow. I think it is a way to make sure that we don’t follow those nine that Jesus healed and went on their way, Forgetting this wonderful thing that had happened to them.

First lesson for us: Pay attention. Sit down folks—look out your window. What do we see? I’m talking about really seeing. Mud or stars. I look out my window and I had to first turn off the TV and put down the newspaper. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to know what was going happen with Roy Moore. I wanted to know if this tax bill would pass and if it did—what would it mean. I wanted to know what Mr. Trump’s yet another tweet said this morning. 

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But to do this—I can’t look out my window. You see there is so much diversion in our lives today that it is so easy to spend all our time on the mud—and ignore the stars. But put it all down—not only the newspaper and the TV and your aches and pains and the frustration with some brother or sister or child or job or whatever. I’m not talking about just whistling while you work. Some pollyanna thing. Not that. But something a little deeper. 

Look out your window. It was a beautiful day last Friday while I was trying desperately to figure out what I’d say today.The sun was shining. It was a nippy November morning. Across the street the Hispanic workers are building a house. They’re laughing. They are working hard. This morning a man came to check our furnace and make sure that Christmas Eve we’d have heat. work. Yes—it costs but somebody came when I called them and helped out. Outside my window the tree ln my front yard is still beautiful—the leaves, most of them are still there. And they are sort of a red-gold. Maple tree. Beautiful. Some of the ferns and hostas I planted out front are still there. And the pansies are beginning to show their color. My bird feeder needs to filled again. The birds just keep coming. 

photo by The Pageman / flickr

And the phone rings and my son wants to know how the old folks are doing. And I look across the hall and see my wife—and know once again—how grateful I ought to be for somebody who puts up with me and all my strange habits. 57 years. And she’s still here. I forget that a lot.

We’re all in the same boat folks. Look out your window and tell God what’s there. That’s the real thanksgiving. You may remember Robert Fulghum that wrote that book—Everything I learned in kindergarten…Well he wrote several books. And in one of these he tells the story of what happened to him when he was in an airport in Hong Kong. He said he sat down and there was a young woman in the seat next to him. And she was crying. Big time. She was young and looked something like a hippie. Had a backpack and shoes pretty worn out, holes all in her blue jean—and just crying. She told him she didn’t want to go home to America but her parents had said it was time. Her money had run out—and so she had to leave. But she kept crying. “I’ve lost my ticket,” she said. And I don’t have any money and my plane is gonna leave before long and I’ll be stuck. I don’t know what to do.” Sobbing. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t buy her another ticket—but he felt so sorry for her. After they had been sitting for two-three hours—an older couple came by and saw her tears and wanted to talk to the airlines about her problem and take her to lunch. So she tried to wipe away the tears and she stood up and reached for her back pack. Suddenly she began to scream. Like she had been shot. What? And then she began to laugh. Her ticket was in her seat. She had been sitting on it the whole time. She laughed and cried and picked her backpack and ran off to catch her plane. 

Fulghum said he had told that story a hundred times. For he said most of us—have sat on our tickets, have had no idea and don't know what we are going to do. And he said we all have a ticket—and we just need to look around carefully and find it—and we’ll make the trip.

So that’s the first point. Not mud—stars. Pay attention.

photo by Kevin Steinhardt / flickr

Second lesson: Be astonished. The nine lepers did not come back. They never stopped to give Jesus thanks. And I doubt if they saw the stars—the wonder of what had happened to them. 

Remember Jesus telling his disciples if you want to really be a disciple you need to become like a little child. Children didn’t count for much—in that time. And yet Jesus said these little ones hold the secret of discipleship and maybe life too. 

Why? They have the gift of astonishment. They look around and say: “Wow.” 

Remember what happened that first Christmas. Those old scruffy shepherds, dipping snuff—rough as they come. They heard the angels sing and they were told where to find the child. The angels sang: “Glory to God in the highest.” And the Shepherds finally found not the inn—but a stable. And there in a straw-covered manger surrounded by animals and steaming dung—they began too whisper—these rough-tough men. “Them angels was right—it shore is glorious. He is glorious.”I wonder if they did not live off that night for the rest of their days. The song says: “Glory shone around.” Not everybody in Bethlehem saw that glory. I wonder about us.

Astonishment can change our lives. Somebody said that the glory is any place that God is present. Years before the Shepherds—Moses, tending sheep—maybe wishing for a better pay check—or wishing his wife wouldn’t stay on him so much—God spoke. God. And he said, there by that burning bush, “Moses, take off your shoes, the place where you stand is holy ground.” Remember the song: “We are standing on holy ground—and there are angels all around.” Here. Where we are. In this church. Down the road at your house. Holy Ground. You gotta be kidding. Here? Here?

The Psalm said: “The whole earth is full of your glory.” Look up: the heavens are telling of the glory of God. We just got back from Ireland—and I want bore you with the details. But when we got back we sent our pictures off and made this book called Ireland Memories—2017. And I looked through it Friday morning and remembered. And I’d look at a page and say: “Yes.” 

Folks, we all have and album and this Thanksgiving we need it take it down and look closely. The day you finished college. The day you came home from the service. The wedding that night by candlelight. The day you joined the church. The time you stood at the hospital and looked through the glass and there was your baby. Your baby. Or when you lost him or her and you didn’t think you could stand it. And somebody gave you a hug. Or somebody brought a casserole. Or somebody called you in a moment when you needed it the most. 

Take off your shoes. Look around you. Be astonished. There are palaces everyone and we need to remember.

Third lesson: Tell about it.  Remember Roger Hammerstein’s song: “A bell is not a bell until you ring it. A song’s not a song until you sing it; Love in your heart was not put there to stay—Love isn’t love ‘till you give it away.” 

Do you think that leper that came back to Jesus to thank him for what he had done for him—forgot that. I doubt it. He went home and said: Let me tell you why they let me come back to the village—lepers had to live outside the gates. For a reason. Sanitation. And he was home “Let me tell you why…I meet this Jesus and he changed my life forever. I am so grateful.” 

That’s thanksgiving. Not keeping it quiet. But telling somebody. 

There is a little book I found called 365 Thank Yous. It’s by John Kralik. I recommend it to

photo by daBinsi / flickr

every body. This is his story. He said in December 22, 2007 he was in a terrible place. His law firm was losing money. And they had lost their lease. He was going through a difficult divorce. He was out of money and living in a small, stuffy apartment where he slept on the floor under an ancient air conditioner. He said his sons had grown distant from him. It was supposed to be Christmas. And he was this fifty-two year old guy, forty pounds overweight, pasty and tired.  He said after twenty-eight years as a lawyer he had nothing to show for all his hard work. He said he had recovered a million dollars for one client and the man had stopped paying him his bill. They owed him $170,000 and would not pay. He had a girl friend—Grace—but she had broken up with him the night before. He was alone.

He said that he and Grace had decided to take a walk through the mountains on New Year’s Day. But when he called her she had other plans. So he went anyway. By himself. He said walking there was life everywhere.And he did not know what to do. Just a loser walking alone. He said I wanted to do something with my life that I wasn’t doing. And he thought—I always wanted to write. But he never got around to it. As he walked he thought he heard a voice that said: “Until you learn to be grateful for the things you have—you will not receive the things you want.” He remembered that his grandfather years before when he was little saying I”m going to give you a silver dollar. And the grandfather said: If you write me a thank-you note I’ll send you another silver dollar. But he said he never sent a thank-you note for that second silver dollar. Maybe, he thought, I ought to begin to say thank you for the people that have meant something to me. At least I could do that. And so then he said: “I wonder if I could find one person to be thankful for every day of this new year.” So he said I’m going to do this. I’m going to write 365 thank you notes this year. And he did—and out of it came this little book. 

He said he didn’t make the 365 day deadline. But it took him a couple more. But he said his first note was to his son. His boy had sent him a single-cup coffee maker and he thanked him for the gift and said: I’ll see you soon. He said they didn’t even speak…but it cracked the door. He put the letter in an envelope but said he didn’t even have son’s address. They were that estranged. So he called him up to find out the address and zip code. And the boy said let’s have lunch. And weeks later they did. John said he didn’t know how that would be—but slowly they began to talk. And before they left the son handed his Daddy an envelope. This is for you, he said. He opened it and out fell these hundred dollar bills. What’s this, he asked. And the boy said I am paying back the loan when you loaned me that money. There were 40 hundred bills. And they began to talk and meet. 

He said he wrote only two or three lines in every note or he couldn’t have gotten around to all his notes. But something happened to him as he remembered help and kindness from all sorts of people. At the end of the book he said over a two-year period he had written over 200 thank-yous. He wrote that in writing those notes he examined his life and what seemed to be perfectly awful was really a whole lot better than he thought. And the wonder was when he tells how his life changed dramatically when he looked out at his world with gratitude.

The point—there’s is enough mud in all our lives. Sometimes we think we will drown in that stuff. But those that are grateful—see something more. They see the stars. This man’s life changed miraculously over time. But it started and continued when he began to say thanks. 

We don’t know where the nine really are. But we do know that we can be the one that thanks God for every gift—and turns then to share our gratitude with those around us.

And that’s our sermon for this Thanksgiving. Thanks be to God.

photo by Zulkifi Mohamad / flickr

(This sermon was preached at the Mount Zion Presbyterian Church, Sandy Springs, SC, November 19, 2017)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com