Sorry – Please – Thank you
I am aware that different cultures have different values, but I suspect that for most people from most cultures, ‘Sorry, Please, Thank you’ are among the first words that most of us were taught
They are some of the most important words: I remember one man in my first parish, and in the four years I was there, I don’t think I ever heard him say thank you to anybody. It wound me up!
They are important words, but they are also difficult words to say. I’m not really talking about saying thank you just from habit (although it is a good habit to get into) but really saying thank you - can be one of the most difficult things we do.
Because when we say thank you, we are acknowledging our debt to the other person.
We are recognising that we did not deserve to receive whatever we received, and that they gave it to us as an act of kindness or mercy.
In our reading from Luke 17 we have a story where Jesus does an amazing thing. He heals 10 people of leprosy
And yet only one person returns to say thank you.
We don’t know why the other 9 in this story didn’t return
But we do know that one of them when he realized he was healed was so overwhelmed that he turned round, came back to Jesus, fell at his feet and said thank you
Thank you for coming to no man’s land: the region between Samaria and Galilee, that nobody lived in, except for lepers and outcasts.
Thank you for listening to our cry for mercy
Thank you for speaking the Word which brought us healing
Thank you for your presence, your love and your power.
Thank you for choosing to heal even me, a Samaritan, a nobody, especially to you a Jew.
And Jesus said to him, ‘Rise and go; Your faith has ‘saved’ you’.
His obedience to Jesus – in going to the priest – brought him healing
His give thanks to Jesus brought him salvation.
Today we meet to give thanks for all the blessings that God gives us – particularly for his provision of the harvest: we think more of that in a few minutes
But perhaps we might find it difficult to say thank you when life is hard, when things are crumbling around us, when many of our hopes and dreams have been crushed, when we are scared and fearful for those who we love or for ourselves. When it seems that prayers are not answered,
But this is the time when we most need to learn to give thanks.
The Bible tells us, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4.6)
“Be thankful” (Colossians 3:15)
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful” (Colossians 4.2)
Giving thanks to God, even when life is hard, is both a mark that we have been saved, and it is also one of the ways that God can transform us. It helps us to become the people God made us to be.
Giving thanks to God is one of the marks that we have been saved.
It means that God has begun to open our eyes so that we recognize that everything that we have is a gift from God.
Life, this world, other people, families, memory, the ability to think and to feel, the different seasons, food to eat, clothes to wear, the skills and abilities we have been given, music and colours and shapes, art and beauty and harmony and creativity. It is all gift.
We have no claim on God. We gave nothing to God that God should have given so much to us.
I remember one visit to a man in my parish in North London. He began to give me excuses as to why he didn’t come to church. ‘I’m too busy’, he said. ‘I get up, have breakfast, take the dog for a walk, come back and read the paper, I make lunch, take the dog for another walk, have tea and then watch telly in the evening. I’m too busy. And then he added, ‘Anyway. What has God done for me, that I should do anything for him?’
To which I responded in a very unpastoral way. I looked at him, and I said, ‘Why should God have done anything for you?’
But in one sense it is true. What has any one of us done for God, that God should do anything for us.God has given everything to us, and if God chooses to take it away, then so be it. What have we given to God, that God should have given to us?
As Job said, when everything – possessions, family and health – was stripped away from him: ‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord’
And when we say thank you to God our heavenly Father and to our Lord Jesus Christ, we recognize that everything that we have comes from him as gift, and we are recognising our complete dependence on his love and mercy
Giving thanks to God transforms us because, as we thank God, He opens our eyes
Can I encourage you in your own prayers not to begin with what you want, but to begin with thanksgiving or praise.
There is a Vietnamese Proverb: “When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.”
Shakespeare, not someone I often quote in sermons, puts these words into the mouth of Henry VI: “O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.”
And when we do choose to give thanks to God, it is good to stop and try to think about God, about his love and faithfulness and power and presence with us. Think of what God has done for you, and for all that he has given for you. And it is not just material things. We think of his love in giving us His Son, in his love for us, in the death of Jesus for us, for forgiveness, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, for the way that he is changing us and making us more like his Son, for each other and his people from all times and places – the Church, of the Scriptures and his guidance, of his promises, of the purpose he gives us and the hope that we have.
And then we can bring it back to more immediate things. If it is in the evening, we can think back over the past day and see how God was present in both the good and also the bad stuff that happened.
And when we come together, we give thanks. The prayer we pray before communion is mainly a prayer of thanksgiving, giving thanks to God for what he has done.
Those of you who join us for morning prayer will know that we always try to begin our time of prayer with thanksgiving.
And giving thanks is particularly important when things are difficult.
Because even in the darkest of nights there is some light.
And when everything is dark for you, and you struggle to thank God for anything, perhaps reread some of the prayers or sing one of the hymns on our order of service (take it home with you, re-read the bible passage, think about what has been said), or go to YouTube and sing along!
GK Chesterton said, “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
And often when we start to thank God, especially when things are difficult, and maybe we are scared, we do see things in a new way
I like the prayer of Matthew Henry. He lived many years ago and was a well-known Bible scholar. He was robbed of his wallet. Knowing that it was his duty to give thanks in everything, he meditated on this incident and recorded in his diary the following:
"Let me be thankful, first, because he never robbed me before; second, because although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed."
And when we seek to say thank you (спасибо) to God, especially in the worst of situations, we begin to see not only a glimpse of God, but how much God has given us, what God has done for us, and how God continues to be at work. And we begin to see the love and the holiness and the beauty and the power of God.
And I think that is why one mystic said, "If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." (Meister Eckhard)
