“God’s People Walk in Thankfulness”
October 13, 2013
The 21st Sunday of the Christian Season of Ordinary Time/Kingdomtide/Time of the Church
Ruth 1: 8 - 19a/Psalm 113/2 Timothy 2: 3 – 15/Luke 17:11-19
His Excellency
The Most Reverend Ariel Cornelio P. Santos D.D.
Auxiliary Bishop and Locum Tenens
of the
Archdiocese of Manila
the
National Church in the Philippines
and the
Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church
It takes the whole Season of Ordinary Time, maybe a lifetime, to realize who we are as the people of God. We always have to remember where we came from. Jesus said, “I know where I came from, and I know where I am going.” It helps that we do that and that we go back to our creation and the truth of it. We have been created in the image and likeness of our God. He has called us; He has given us the honor and privilege to function for Him as kings and priests.
The truth of our creation tells us that we have been blessed, equipped, and given all that we would ever need to fulfill that calling. Everything pertaining to life and godliness is given to us. God's enablements precede His commandments. Before He sends us to do something, on a mission, He blesses us first and He equips us for that which He wants us to do.
We are reminded another dimension of who we are as the people of God. We are a thankful people. The reason we are all here for Eucharist is to give thanks. This is what Eucharist means: thanksgiving.
The gospel is the story of ten lepers whom Jesus healed where only one out of ten came back to give thanks. Leprosy was a stigma, a sign, an illustration of sin present in one’s life. In Biblical times, lepers were ostracized. They had to live outside of town. The ten lepers were outside between Galilee and Samaria. From a distance, as a provided by law, they had to shout, “Unclean!” when somebody is approaching to warn them of defilement when they come near and touch them.
Instead of shouting that, from a distance, these ten lepers, seeing Jesus, shouted for mercy. It was something that they did not deserve. Mercy is something that is given to somebody who doesn’t deserve it. It is the very definition of mercy. This is what Jesus gave. This gives us a picture of God, in His mercy, reaching down to us while we were yet sinners deserving condemnation and shame. Despite the distance created by sin, He breached that gap and save us.
The ten lepers did what Jesus commanded them to do. They had to do it in faith. Jesus told them, “Go, show yourselves to the priest.” According to Old Testament law, in Leviticus, the priests had to certify the healing and the cleansing of a leper. The lepers were not cleansed! Before they left, they must have looked at their skin and saw that they were not cleansed so what is the point of going to the priest? They obeyed in faith.
On their way, when they took a step of faith and obeyed, then, the fullness of the healing and salvation came. Forgiveness, salvation, healing and all the other blessings from God are obtained in fullness when we obey God’s command in faith. The fullness of salvation and blessing comes to us when we, in faith, obey what God commands. When we have obtained these blessings, we are to give thanks. It is not God but we who are the recipients of the blessings.
Jesus said in Luke 17:5-10, “Which of you having a servant, who has come in from the field after plowing, will ask with him to sit down for dinner but would not say, ‘Well, I know you are tired. But there is something for me: clean up yourself, cloth yourself and then serve me,’ and he doesn’t give him thanks.” We are to give God thanks because our obedience is not a burden for which God owes us thanks. Rather, when we obey in faith, it serves as the means, the avenue by which He bestows grace and blessing.
Jesus told the leper, “Your faith, which was shown in your obedience, has made you well." It was his faith, shown in his obedience that made him well and so he gave thanks. This is why we say, "It is meet and right to give Him thanks and praise.”
With the servant and the Canaanite woman who had a daughter who was demon-possessed, with them the faith, as God's people, was challenged and stirred up. In the gospel, this thankful foreigner, a Samaritan, we are reminded not only is it meet and right, but is our bounden duty to give thanks always and everywhere as we pray.
Thanks and praise is expressed best in loving God with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and according to the Torah, with all our money. Jesus expects all to give thanks and to give their all. When one leper returned, He looked for the other nine. On Sunday, when somebody is not here, He always asks, "Where are the others not giving thanks? Didn’t I bless them not just during the week, but their whole lives? They should be here giving thanks!”
Thankfulness is a response. Since God is the giver of life and the owner of all things, and from Him all blessings flow, the only thing we can offer to God is thanks and praise. I established two weeks or so that there is no such thing as secular – that which is not God’s but ours. We cannot offer anything to God except our thanks and praise.
We sing, “What can we give that You have not given? What do we have that is not already Yours?” Nothing! We cannot give God anything but thanks and praise as a response to what He has blessed us with. It is a sacrifice. Sacrifice means a holy offering. Sacre - sacred- means a holy offering. Sacrifice is not something that really costs us dearly and difficult for us to give to God. We own nothing. It should be very easy to God because we simply give from what He gave to us. We give it with thanks and praise because that is the only thing that we can offer to Him. The only acceptable sacrifice is a pure and sincere thanks given by the virtue of Christ Himself giving one hundred percent for others and for us also.
Adam understood this until he was deceived and fell short and sinned. Sin is falling short of the glory of God by not obeying, by not living out the nature of God in us and evidencing His image and His likeness in which we were made. In thankfulness, we respond to this honor and privilege of our calling. As kings – to rule and reign over His creation; and as priests – to offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to Him.
Romans says that all of creation longs anxiously for the revealing of the sons of God. They want to see the Adams ruling and reigning, leading them in universal worship and thanksgiving to God. How do we give thanks?
We pray in the Daily Office the General Thanksgiving that says, “To give thanks is not just to show forth Thy praise with our lips but in our lives by giving up ourselves to Thy service and by walking before Thee in faithfulness and holiness all the days of our life.”
To love and serve the Lord among His people also is to show our thanks to our God. God said, “Freely, you have received, and so freely also you are to give.” This is because everything is His. Every blessing comes from Him and He has given them to us for our use, for our enjoyment, for our equipping; but they are not ours to hoard or withhold.
Are we to give forgiveness? How many times? Seventy times seven because forgiveness is not ours to withhold. It is given to us to flow through us. We are blessed to be a blessing; forgiven to give forgiveness; given mercy so that we can give mercy; healed so that we can be instruments of healing. It is not ours to withhold.
We say, “They don’t deserve it!” Exactly neither did we in the first place. This is why it is called mercy. This is why it is called grace. By its very definition, those are given to somebody who doesn’t deserve them.
We respond: freely, we have received; freely, we give. This is why we are commanded: do not withhold good from those to whom it is due. It is due to everyone. They may not be deserving but it is due them. Good is the blessing, the provision, the grace, the mercy, and we give it. We need to realize and understand that we are to be a thankful people.
The General Thanksgiving says, “Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we Thine unworthy servants do give Thee most humble and hearty thanks for all Thy goodness and lovingkindness to us and to all men. We bless Thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessing of this life; but above all for Thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And we beseech Thee, give us that due sense of all Thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful.” Unfeignedly is not stopping in giving thanks to God at least every Sunday. It should be every day. You don’t need to have Eucharist. Every day is Eucharist as far as thanksgiving is concerned.
May we not forget that we are to give thanks to our God every day of our lives. Our Eucharistic prayers give us countless reasons for thanks always and everywhere; the prayers also that we pray for a certain Season, for a particular work of God specifically for that time. He, in different times and different places works great things on our behalf. We don’t just say, “Thank you, Lord! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” We specifically pray or mention what He has done and we say, “It is meet and right and our bounden duty.”
I used to struggle with “bounden duty to give thanks.” I thought it should be voluntary. Yes, it should be voluntary, but the reason it is our duty is because we are priests. Priests offer the sacrifice of praise and thanks. It is their duty, not necessarily that they are obligated, but if they understand the reasons, they don’t have to be obligated. They will give thanks. We are to understand that we have countless reasons to give thanks to God. No ifs, not buts, no saying, “You don’t understand.”
We pray, “In Him, Thou hast delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before Thee. In Him, Thou hast brought us out of error into truth; out of sin into righteousness; out of death into life.” We say, “But God, you still don’t understand my problem. You still don’t understand what I am going through.”
This reminds me of the spies that were sent to the Promised Land. Of the twelve, only two gave a good report. The others were negative. They said, “Like God said, this land flows with milk and honey.” The grapes were so big that they had to be pulled by two men. They added, “We saw giants in the land.” Imagine the scenario: the ten men who were negative told Moses, “Why don’t you go back to God, go up the mountain, talk to God and tell Him, ‘There are giants in the land that You told us to conquer.’” Moses goes up, consults God, comes back to the people, and says, “Thus saith the Lord, ‘Oops, I forgot about the giants!’” Can you imagine God saying that?
God knows about your problem. He knows about your giants, but still, the land is flowing with milk and honey. We have been given the ability to conquer the giants. God will never say, “Oops,” about your problem because the fire goes before Him and burns up all His enemies. The hills, the mountains, the problems melt like wax in the presence of the Lord when we come to His Table and give thanks!
We sing, “When I look into your holiness; when I gaze into your loveliness. When all things that surround us become shadows in the light of You.” This is the awesomeness, not just of His presence but of His making us worthy to stand in His presence. This is awesome! I am not belittling His presence. His presence will probably also melt us, not just the mountains. The awesomeness of Him of making us worthy to stand in His presence is more awesome. His character is more awesome than the supernatural aspect about Him.
It is not what we get ourselves caught up in. It is about giving thanks and praise to God in response to His amazing grace and countless blessings. Let us forget about ourselves and magnify the Lord and worship Him and give Him thanks. Focus on and don’t lose sight of the truth. The truth is that His love is greater than anything else. Neither death, nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present including what you are going through, including your problems, nor things even to come can separate us from the love of God.
In everything, we are to give thanks – always and everywhere. We are to give thanks – not complaints, not anxieties, no doubt, but thanks from the heart because it is meet and right to do so. When we forget the words we say every time we come to the Table and pray the Eucharistic prayers, and we see our problems bigger, then, we honor Him with our lips but our hearts are far away from Him.
May that not be with us because God wants us constantly reminded that we are to have the Eucharist often in memory of Him and for what He has done for us. In Him, He has delivered us out of evil and made us worthy to stand before Him. In Him, He has brought us out of error into truth; out of sin into righteousness; out of death into eternal life. Won’t that melt your problems? “Do this in memory of Me!” We are to do the Eucharist, of giving of thanks for us not just ceremonially but every day of our lives.
God is looking for us when we are not here. When we gather here as a people, we are to give thanks until He comes. This is because it is meet and a right and our bounden duty as priests to our God. This is just the way it is in the kingdom of God.
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