L’action de grâce, Acción de gracias, a Ação de graça. In French, in Spanish, in Portuguese and, I imagine, in other Romance languages, the words used for Thanksgiving contain the word “grace” and in English those words seem to translate most easily into “an attitude of gratitude”. That’s kind of catchy, “an attitude of gratitude”. Something we think about on this Thanksgiving weekend.
Even in the secular world around us, “Thanksgiving” makes it into the acceptable list of holidays and everyone is able to say that we are, or that we should be, thankful. All kinds of people ask the question, “What are you thankful for?”. And in our Canadian context the response is somewhat predictable. We give thanks for living in such a beautiful and spacious and peaceful country. We give thanks for the freedoms we have and cherish. We give thanks for the food we have to eat, most often in bountiful amount. We give thanks for our homes, both the shelters that keep us safe from the elements and also the families that we find within them and the love that we experience there. Of course not all of us share in this bounty and freedom to the same extent and there are those among us who seem to face more challenges than gifts and for whom “thanksgiving” may be difficult. But in general, an “attitude of gratitude” is not too difficult to muster as we come to this Thanksgiving weekend.
But what happens on Tuesday. When the turkey is finished and the guests have gone home. When we go back to work and have to face the hundred or so emails that have piled up over the weekend if we decided to turn our phone off for the holiday. Or when we have to return to the unresolved conflicts and tensions with colleagues that do not seem to have an easy solution. Or when we are left alone with our nearest and dearest and have to remove the pleasant and happy masks that we put on when the guests were present. Or when we realize that the cost of the Thanksgiving meal is going to mean it is difficult to make it to the end of the month without having to turn to the food bank for some support. Do we have an “attitude of gratitude” then? Yes, there is much for which we should be thankful but there are many worries and conflicts as well that may reveal a different attitude in us.
Remember the word “grace”? – or “grâce”, or “gracias”, or “graça”? Where does it go? On most other days the world around us does not tell us to be thankful, to have an “attitude of gratitude” for everything that we have. It tells us that we do not have enough. That no matter how good our lives might be, they could be much better. That it is up to us to get as many of this world’s goods as we possibly can by what ever means necessary. To not be grateful for, or satisfied with, the food we eat or the clothes we wear or the friends we have. To be afraid to share what we have because tomorrow we might not have enough. To feel entitled to the gifts we have been given because of the work we have done or because of the family into which we have been born or because we are better in some way or another than our neighbour. Yes, we can be grateful for what we have in this life but really, when we are completely honest with ourselves, we do believe that there is something we have done or there is something about who we are that makes us deserving of it all. An “attitude of gratitude” is not easy to sustain.
As Jesus was walking along on the borderland between Galilee and Samaria, always a dangerous place of uncertainty and risk, ten lepers approached him. Of course they did not get right into his face. There were laws about that. They knew better. They were sick. People were afraid of them. In the popular mind, God was punishing them for something they had done. But they also knew that Jesus was a nice guy and they had heard that he had the power to heal. They were willing to risk at least getting a bit closer to him to see if somehow he could change their wretched situation. Without touching them, Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priest. This was mandated by the law for someone who had been healed of leprosy. It was a check to make sure everything was really as it was said to be. Leprosy was not something to be played around with. But Jesus command meant that the people who had leprosy had been healed. “Go and get it checked out with the priest”. No doubt they were overwhelmed, overcome with joy mixed with some disbelief. Could this really be true? Had their lives really, truly been transformed, turned around, become something they could never even have imagined? “Go and show what has happened to the priest”.
So off they went. As they were told to do.
But one turned around. For one of those people who had been suffering with the scourge of leprosy, it was necessary to turn around. To look back on what had happened and to give thanks. He had done nothing to merit this cure just as he had done nothing to merit the disease. With his nine friends, his encounter with Jesus had brought an unexpected transformation in his life. In his encounter with Jesus, he had encountered grace. The free gift of God’s love in his life. He did not know why or how. We do not know why or how. But he knew that he had to respond. He had to recognize what had happened and he had to give thanks. As so often happens in Luke’s gospel, there is an additional twist. In a little throw away line we are told, “And he was a Samaritan”.
Another “good” Samaritan. Another Samaritan who gets it. For us perhaps, that does not have a great deal of impact. But for those who heard this story for the first time, it would have been a bomb shell. You see, Samaritans were the bad guys. They got the religion all mixed up. They didn’t follow the laws. They probably dressed strangely and maybe smelled of different food and spoke with a different accent and lived in different kinds of houses and didn’t raise their children to have respect and liked to drink a bit too much and always had to be watched in case they were plotting some evil act. They were not to be trusted or respected or believed. So how was it that the man who turned around and came back and gave thanks was a Samaritan? Surely a Samaritan would not have done this in a million years. But he did. And where were the others? Going to the priest, as they were told to do.
The Samaritan was no better than the other nine. He didn’t do anything more or anything less. But he had an attitude of gratitude, where you would least expect to find it. He recognized that in the encounter with Jesus, he had encountered grace. And that is what it was all about. That is what it is always all about. Five hundred years ago, those involved in the movement we know now as the Protestant Reformation, recognized again that it was all about grace. One of the “solas” that much later came to be named as characterizing the Reformation was “sola gratia”, by grace alone. There is nothing that we can do to merit our salvation. Nothing the church can do or any other human being. We are completely and utterly dependent on God’s love and grace. Just like the lepers who encountered Jesus in that marginal space, we too can encounter Jesus in our lives and, in that meeting, we can encounter grace that comes to us without any action on our part. As the Reformers taught, our proper response is one of thanksgiving for our experience of God’s grace in our life. It is often those on the margins, and perhaps even the doubly marginalized like the Samaritan leper, who most readily recognize this. They are no better than the other nine lepers, no better than you or me. But in their response of thanksgiving we are called back to recognize grace at work in our own lives. Even when it is not Thanksgiving. Even when it is hard to have an attitude of gratitude.
When I was in Mozambique, I used to receive unsolicited donations from many people in Canada to help out with my ministry. These gifts may have come from people who had heard me speak or who had read something I had written or who just knew that I was in a place of great need. At the time the country was engaged in a civil war and people’s average income was the lowest in the world. There were projects that people could support and of course my stipend was paid by gifts to the church. But some people just wanted to put some money in my hand and make sure it got to the right place. I felt responsible for that money and found it difficult to know what to do with it so it would do the most good. I set up a little fund that would provide some money to people who came to me with a project that would help them have some income into the future. Usually investment in a pair of animals or a bunch of chicks or some piece of equipment that would continue to make a little money for themselves and their families and enough to return the loan so others could also benefit. It was a good idea I thought, of course, and there was a long line of people who came to my door with their proposals. It took a long time to sit with people and hear their stories and try to figure out how much would be of assistance. Trouble was, the money never came back. And I got discouraged.
One day a young woman, the only female student at the seminary where I taught, came to my door. She had a proposal written out for buying pigs and raising them for sale. Life was not easy for her. She was a single woman in a world where she was supposed to be married and in a church that only reluctantly agreed to the ordination of women. I read the proposal and listened to her story. My cynicism kicked in and when I passed over some money I thought to myself that I would never see it again. Time passed and my theory turned out to be true and somehow I felt that I had been hoodwinked again. The woman never mentioned the project to me. A couple of years went by and nothing happened. Then one day, an older woman appeared at my door clutching a rolled up handkerchief in her hands. She did not speak Portuguese, only the local African language. I had to get someone to translate for me and I found out it was the young woman’s mother. I thought, “Here we go again” and I wondered how much she was going to ask for this time. I invited the mother to sit down. She told me that she and her daughter were very sorry that they had not been able to pay back the money. They had bought the pigs and had tried to care for them. But there had been a drought and they could not keep the pigs alive. However, they were grateful for the loan and the trust I had put in them. Although it had been difficult, over the past two years they had put aside a little bit of money every month to pay back the loan. She unrolled the handkerchief to reveal the coins and the bills that were equal to the amount of the loan. They had been embarrassed that the project had not worked out but thanked me for my support and she apologized profusely for taking so long to get the money back to me.
I learned a lot about grace. Sola gratia. An attitude of gratitude. And how we encounter grace in our lives. From a most unlikely source in a most unlikely place. In an encounter with Jesus.
Thanks be to God.
