Gratitude for a new start in life

Here's the sermon, which is adapted from ‘Luke for Everyone’ by Tom Wright, that I have shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Peter's Nevendon today:

What would make you shout for joy at the top of your voice? What would make you fall on the ground – yes, flat on your face! – in front of someone?

Two explorers were lost in the South American jungle some time ago. For nine months they wandered about, not knowing where they were or how to get out. Finally, after many adventures and often giving up hope, they were found and rescued. They probably didn’t have the energy to shout, but they would have felt like it. Certainly their relatives back home did.

You might shout for joy when the doctor told you that someone you loved very dearly had come safely through an operation, and was going to be all right after all. You might do it when suddenly all your debts were rolled away and you were given a new start in life.

Which is, then, more surprising: the fact that one person came back, shouted for joy, and fell down at Jesus’ feet? Or the fact that nine didn’t?

All ten had to trust Jesus in order to receive their healing (Luke 17. 11-19). Interestingly, none were healed until they had obeyed what Jesus asked them to do. The priest who lived locally had the responsibility to declare when people were healed from such diseases. That was why Jesus asked them to go to the priests but at the point that they obeyed Jesus and turned to go they were not healed. It was on the way to the priests, as they were obeying Jesus’ instruction, that they were made clean and their lives changed.

There is a saying that we should be the change that we want to see in the world and Jesus regularly challenges us to take responsibility for changes in our individual lives and in the world around. We are the hands and feet, the eyes, ears and mouth of God in our world. He does not mess with the free will that we have as human beings and so works through us, his body. If we are not prepared to pray, to speak and to act, then his ability to impact our lives, the lives of others and ultimately our world is restricted.

A little while ago I was told about a church musician who was struggling to read music because of diminishing eyesight but who would not have glasses or any other corrective treatment because he was believing that the Lord would heal him. That is like the old joke about the man caught in floods who believed that the Lord would rescue him. He turns away a neighbour in a dinghy, a lifeboat and a helicopter before the waters rise over his home, all because he believed that the Lord would rescue him. He arrived in heaven in a state of shock. “Lord,” he complained, “why didn’t you protect and rescue me?” “I sent you two boats and a helicopter, “ said the Lord wearily, “what more did you want.”

So, we need to play our part if we are to see change come within our lives, our church and our world. Part of the change that God wants to see is flagged by the fact that the man who returned to thank Jesus was a Samaritan, a foreigner and outsider to the Jews of Jesus’ day. Jesus focussed his ministry on the lost sheep of Israel but regularly commended the faith that he found in those who were not Israelites – the Caananite woman, the Roman Centurian, the Samaritan woman at the well, and this Samaritan man. The faith of those who are not thought of as the people of God often puts to shame the faith of those who are.

Throughout his ministry Jesus commends and includes in the kingdom of God those who were considered as excluded and outside of the kingdom by the people of his day. Like Jesus, we are called to be the change for those who are excluded in our own day; however and wherever that exclusion comes. In this story, those who consider themselves part of the children of God are shamed because they don’t return to thank Jesus and that is a challenge to us.

Luke doesn’t say that the nine were any less cured, but he does imply that they were less grateful. But it is not only the nine who are shown up by this story. It is also all of us who fail to thank God ‘always and for everything’, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 5. 20. We know with our heads, if we have any Christian faith at all, that our God is the giver of all things: every mouthful of food we take, every breath of air we inhale, every note of music we hear, every smile on the face of a friend, a child, a spouse – all that, and a million more things are good gifts from his generosity.

There is an old spiritual discipline of listing our blessings, naming them before God, and giving thanks. It’s a healthy thing to do, especially in a world where we too often assume we have an absolute right to health, happiness and every possible creature comfort.

Jesus’ closing words to the Samaritan invite a closer look. The word for ‘get up’ is a word early Christians would have recognised as having to do with resurrection. Like the prodigal son, this man ‘was dead, and is alive again’. New life, had arrived in his village that day, in the shape of Jesus, and it had called out of him a faith and gratitude that he didn’t know he had. His experience of life had been one of suffering and exclusion but, through Jesus, he came to see that life could be about transformation and inclusion. His personal change began as he obeyed the words of Jesus, it continued as he was accepted back into society by letting the priest examine him and went on to live as a grateful witness to the transformation that Jesus brings as we follow him. May it be so for each of us. Amen.

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Tracey Chapman - All That You Have Is Your Soul.

Count your blessings

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

“When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.”

Chris Fenner writes: “Sometimes in the Christian faith, the simplest tenets are the most memorable and enduring. The hymn “Count Your Blessings” was first published in a collection called Songs for Young People (1897), published for the Methodist Book Concern (the publishing arm of the Methodist Episcopal Church), and edited by E.O. Excell, a prolific hymnal editor and compiler. True to its intent as a song for youth, its message is simple and clear: The best way to fight discouragement is to look for the blessings of life.

Little is known about the circumstances of the composition of this hymn, other than what is known about the authors. E.O. Excell (1851–1921), the composer, ran a publishing business based out of Chicago, with a specialty for Sunday School materials. In 1897, he was also working in conjunction with revivalist Sam P. Jones (1847–1906) and toured with him across the United States and elsewhere. Johnson Oatman Jr. (1856–1922), the lyricist, was an ordained minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church and at the time was in the mercantile business with his father in Lumberton, New Jersey, as Johnson Oatman & Son. Oatman had started writing songs in 1892.

Biographer J.H. Hall later reported: But it remained for Prof. E.O. Excell to bring out in 1897 what, in the opinion of most critics, is said to be Mr. Oatman’s masterpiece. “Count Your Blessings,” like “No, Not One,” has gone all over the world. Like a beam of sunlight it has brightened up the dark places of earth. Perhaps no American hymn was ever received with such enthusiasm in England as “Count Your Blessings.” A London daily, in giving an account of a meeting presided over by Gypsy Smith, said, “Mr. Smith announced a hymn. ‘Let us sing “Count Your Blessings.”’ Said he, ‘Down in South London the men sing it, the boys whistle it, and the women rock their babies to sleep to the tune.’” [J.H. Hall, “Johnson Oatman Jr.” Biography of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers (NY: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1914), p. 358.]"

"Growing up, Oatman realized that he would never be a great singer or preacher, but he eventually discovered his passion: hymn writing. He became a prolific writer and wrote over 5000 hymns throughout his lifetime. Most hymnals published today have at least one of his songs. Instead of being discouraged by his lack of musical oratory skills, Oatman found hope in his ability to write." "Perhaps the reason this song has been so universally included in hymnals is that it reminds discouraged Christians of the grace they have been given. It is often easy to take a negative view of life, but when we remember the things we have been given, we cannot deny that we are blessed."

That is also what the opening verses of Psalm 111 are designed to achieve (Psalm 111.1-5). They are headed up ‘Praise for God’s Wonderful Works’. The works of the Lord are great, full of honour and majesty, with his righteousness enduring forever. He is gracious and merciful, his deeds are wonderful as he provides food for those who fear him and is ever mindful of his covenant with us. As a result, we should study his works with delight and thanks and praise to Him with our whole hearts when we gather together, like this, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. Psalm 111 essentially says study the wonderful works of God so you can count your blessings and give God the praise and thanks that are due to Him.

Our readings today give us more reasons to be thankful through the summary of our faith that St Paul shares with Timothy (1 Timothy 3.16). Paul says that “the mystery of our religion is great: He [Jesus] was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.” Paul shares the surprising revelation of Jesus as God in the world in order that Timothy and all those reading this letter give thanks to God for what we have received in and through Jesus. That is another way of or reason for counting our blessings.

By contrast, in our Gospel reading (Luke 7.31-35), Jesus speaks about people who complain whatever they receive. Jesus said that, of all those who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist, yet the people of which he speaks in today’s reading said he had a demon as he ate no bread and drank no wine. Of Jesus, God’s Son, their promised Messiah, they said he was “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” These were cynics who were so attuned to criticism of others that they could not recognise a blessing when two were standing right before their eyes.

We are called to be those who recognise and count their blessings, especially when we gather together for worship as we are doing today.

“When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
Count your many blessings, money cannot buy
Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.”

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Guy Penrod - Count Your Blessings.

Start:Stop - Blessings found in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties

Bible reading

‘… a thorn was given me in the flesh … Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.’ (2 Corinthians 12. 7 - 10)

Reflection

‘In the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, writer and academic John Hull lost his sight. To help him make sense of the ensuing upheaval in his life, he began to keep an audio diary. Across three years, he created over 16 hours of material; these recordings would form a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness.’

‘Based on these original recordings and his published diaries ‘Touching the Rock’, [the film] Notes on Blindness recreates Hull’s fascinating and deeply moving experiences through an immersive hybrid of documentary, dramatic reconstruction and highly sensory cinematic techniques and sound design. Sensitive, poetic and thought-provoking, the film charts Hull’s journey through emotional turmoil and spiritual crisis to a renewed perception of the world and the discovery of ‘a world beyond sight’.’ ‘In a John Newton moment of amazing grace, an overwhelmed Hull stands among towering pillars to full organ accompaniment. He tells Marilyn of an intense feeling that God was approaching him. “It’s a gift. Not a gift I want but it is a gift. Not why I got it but what am I going to do with it?”’

‘We travel with Hull farther and farther into the world, or non-world, of blindness, until finally he comes to a point where he can no longer summon up memories of faces, of places, even memories of the light. This is the bend in the tunnel: beyond this is “deep blindness.” And yet at this deepest, darkest, most despairing point, there comes a mysterious change—no longer an agonized sense of loss, of bereftness, of hopelessness, of mourning, but a new sense of life and creativity and identity. “One must recreate one’s life or be destroyed,” Hull writes, and it is precisely re-creation, the creation of an entirely new organization and identity, which is described in the closing pages of his astonishing book. At this point, then, Hull wonders if blindness is not “a dark, paradoxical gift” and an entry—unsought … but to be received—into a new and deep form of being.’

In reflecting on the nature of that gift, John Hull said that, ‘After living with it and meditating on it for some time, I realized that blindness is not just a loss but it is one of the great human states which have characteristics of its own.’

‘My works, are, in a way, a yearning to overcome the abyss which divides blind people from sighted people. In seeking to overcome that abyss I've emphasized the uniqueness of the blind condition—blindness is a world. I've also sought to show that it's one of a number of human worlds. That sight is also a world. And that to gain our full humanity, blind people and sighted people need each other.’

St Paul and John Hull challenge us to search for the gifts and blessings to be found in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Prayer

God of grace, you know our weaknesses and failings, and that without your help we can accomplish nothing for the good of souls, our own and others. Grant us, therefore, the help of your grace. Grant it according to our particular needs this day. Enable us to see the tasks you will set before us in the daily routine of our lives, and help us work hard at our appointed tasks. Teach us to bear patiently all the trials of suffering or failure that may come to us today. May we know your grace is sufficient for us, for power is made perfect in weakness.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Eternal God, Light of the nations, in Christ you make all things new: guide our nation in the coming General Election through the inspiration of your Spirit, that understanding may put an end to discord and all bitterness. Give us grace to rebuild bonds of trust that together we may work for the dignity and flourishing of all. Grant Your gifts of wisdom and compassion to those who are standing as candidates, giving them a commitment to seek the good of all people and a desire to protect people who are weak and vulnerable. Free us from all bitterness and recrimination and in all things grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can and wisdom to know the difference.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Almighty God, through your Holy Spirit you created unity in the midst of diversity; we acknowledge that human diversity is an expression of your manifold love for your creation; we confess that in our brokenness as human beings we turn diversity into a source of alienation, injustice, oppression, and wounding. Empower us to recognize and celebrate differences as your great gift to the human family. Enable us to be the architects of understanding, of respect and love.

Enable us to find the gifts and blessings that you share in set-backs, disappointments and difficulties.

Blessing

May Christ, who out of defeat brings new hope and a new future, fill you with his new life; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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The Call - What's Happened To You.