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A Thankful Spirit

28th Sunday : 13 October 2013  : Luke 17: 11-19

One of the helpful tips Bishop Tom Brown of Wellington gave his clergy is to keep an appreciation file. He told them, every time someone sends you a card thanking you for the way you took a funeral or a wedding don’t throw it away after a few weeks. Put it in the file. It will remind you in the face of criticism or discouragement that you made a difference to people’s lives.

Sending cards in appreciation is a good idea too, I have learnt over the years. The trouble is it is often hard to find appropriate cards for that kind of a purpose. These days’ novelty cards, and shock cards, and rude cards seem to be all the rage. So whenever I find thank you cards that will function in a variety of situations I buy up large and stockpile them against occasions of future gratitude.

When we do good to others we needn’t expect to be thanked for it. An act of service or mercy is worth doing for its own sake. Yet it is true that a pat on the head and a word of thanks makes the world go around. And it can be surprising who shows gratitude and who takes other people’s goodness for granted. It’s the same with those who come to the party and those who don’t in a situation of great need or a crisis. I recall a hospice chaplain telling me that the dying sometimes report that its unpredictable who comes through as a rock and a support for them on their last journey, and who just fades away.

When Jesus told the ten healed lepers to go and show themselves to the priests, nine of them did exactly as they were told. In a way it cant be held against them that they stuck to the instructions, and that it didn’t occur to them to do more, or something different. How often we take the same painting by numbers approach when we are trying to learn the ways of the kingdom.

In his ministry Jesus brought comfort and joy to many. He gave without asking. How often he must have seen people take their healing as a just deliverance from their years of suffering, or immediately become pre occupied with the new possibilities of a better life. But every now and then somebody did the unexpected. They responded with an act of wholehearted, spontaneous, sympathetic imagination that took what had just happened to a new level. Sometimes, too, they dropped everything and joined the entourage of Jesus to give their lives completely.

In our troubles, and pre occupations do we have a thankful spirit that counts our blessings and takes note of all the goodness done to us every day that sustains our lives? That prayer on the front cover of the Pebble comes from a famous line of George Herbert:

Thou hast given so much to me–Give one thing more-a grateful heart.

If that kind of attitude reigns within us we will be less weighed down with what has gone wrong. Our eyes will be open to what is good and hopeful in our present situation. We will be ready to co operate with what God has under way in our lives. And the ways of praise and thanksgiving will grow in us.

At my theological college there was a Scottish student, Jonathan, who was in the habit of prostrating himself full length on the carpet in his times of personal prayer in the chapel. That is a bit extreme we thought as we stepped around him. But that of course is exactly what the Samaritan did as he threw himself at the feet of Jesus. And if you have ever seen photographs of Roman Catholic ordinations you might have noticed that those who are about to be ordained priests prostrate themselves in a similar manner as a symbol of the whole offering of their lives to God.

This capacity for reverence, for devotion, for adoration is something we can learn from. Using the whole of the body in prayer. Bringing all of ourselves into the presence of God. Having that dimension of awe in our religion as we come before the holiness of God.

We live in an age when many people have lost any sense of the holy, any awareness of how to behave in a sacred space. During the days of my Wellington ministry St Peter’s, Willis St, was open every day, and had many visitors, some of whom I saw putting cups of take away coffee on the altar. I guess you have to expect that in age when so many have no sense of Church culture. But what about us who are of the household of faith? I hope there are times and places where we feel lost in wonder, love and praise-and that we let God know that by our reverent behaviour, our passionate adoration, and maybe some God directed body language.

"Stand up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you." As the Samaritan rose to his feet from that passionate act of adoration he got the double blessing that the others had missed out on. Everything was changed for him. It wasn’t just an act of physical healing. May that happen for us too!