As I consider the story of the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus in Luke 17:11-19 and the Samaritan who returned to give thanks to Jesus for his healing, there is a lesson for me about gratitude for Christ’s guidance along the pathway of life.
These words of Thomas Merton speak to me about being thankful and grateful.
To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.
Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful man knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. (Thoughts in Solitude, p. 33)
The movement from power through strength to power through powerlessness is our call. As fearful, anxious, insecure, and wounded people we are tempted constantly to grab a little bit of power that the world around us offers, left and right, here and there, now and then. These bits of power make us little puppets jerked up and down on strings until we are dead. But insofar as we dare to be baptized in powerlessness, always moving toward the poor who do not have such power, we are plunged right into the heart of God’s endless mercy. We are free to reenter our world with the same divine power with which Jesus came, and we are able to walk in the valley of darkness and tears, unceasingly in communion with God, with our heads erect, confidently standing under the cross of our life.
It is this power that engenders leaders for our communities, women and men who dare to take risks and take new initiatives. It is this power that enables us to be not only gentle as doves, but also as clever as serpents in our dealings with governments and church agencies. It is this power that enables us to talk straight and without hesitation about sharing money with those who have financial resources, to call men and women to radical service, to challenge people to make long-term commitments in the world of human services, and to keep announcing the good news everywhere at all times. It is this divine power that makes us saints—fearless—who can make all things new.
“People try nonviolence for a week, and when it ‘doesn’t work,’ they go back to violence, which hasn’t worked for centuries.”—Theodore Roszak
Verse of the day
let them turn away from evil and do good; let them seek peace and pursue it.
– 1 Peter 3:11
Voice of the day
The kids all say grown-ups are strange, and aren’t they? / They teach their kids not to do as I do, but as I say / They cry for peace and then make war
– Loretta Lynn, “Ain’t It Funny”
Prayer of the day
God may we not just turn away from war but actively embody peace.
“The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink. A platform which stands a few feet above napalm, torture, exploitation, poison gas, A and H bombs, the works. Give man a decent place to stand.”—Joan Baez
Verse of the day
And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.”
– Genesis 1:20
Voice of the day
If you have [people] who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have [people] who will deal likewise with their fellow men [and women].
– Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
Prayer of the day
Creator of all living beings great and small, teach us to cherish your creation with your divine tenderness and depth.
“One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better.”—Daniel Berrigan
“Violence produces only something resembling justice, but it distances people from the possibility of living justly, without violence.”—Leo Tolstoy
This Sunday is both the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost and World Communion Sunday. In the Presbyterian Church (USA) the denomination receives a special offering called the “Peace and Global Witness” offering on World Communion Sunday. This offering, according to the Presbyterian Mission Agency encourages the church to cast off anxiety and fear, discord and division, and embrace our God’s mission of reconciliation to those around the corner and around the world. (https://specialofferings.pcusa.org )
The Gospel reading for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost is Luke 17:5-10. Perhaps the most well-known portion of that reading is Jesus’ comment—The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ The Lord replied, If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you (verses 5-6) One might wonder why the apostles asked the Lord to increase their faith.
In the passages leading up to today’s lesson, Jesus had been teaching the disciples some hard lessons about discipleship and putting God first. It’s no wonder that they were feeling a bit overwhelmed and wanted to make sure they were prepared for the work they were being called to do. His story about the mustard seed Jesus was teaching that it wasn’t about how much faith you have, but rather living your life out of that faith. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Mother Teresa—Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. It’s about how we live our lives each day.
Using the example of a servant or slave, Jesus instructed the disciples that following his commandments to love and forgive wasn’t something special that deserves an award. Living a life of service in his name is an essential part of the calling of a Christ-follower. In the lectionary commentary, Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Joseph R, Jeter, Jr, says the following about living such a life of service in relationship to World Communion Sunday.
On World Communion Sunday (the first Sunday in October), congregations across the world partake of Communion. Someone has described the sacred table on this day as 25,000 miles long. In our fragmented world, in which groups often relate with suspicion and violence and even try to destroy one another, the churches of the world coming together to break the loaf and drink the cup is a sign of God’s intention for all people to live together in love, peace, and justice… Worldwide Communion Sunday begins on the other side of the International Date Line, so that the observance starts first on Sunday morning in the churches of the Tonga Islands, Fiji Islands, New Zealand, Australia, and so on towards the West during the twenty-four hours of the day… In a time when there is so much disunity, here is an opportunity to witness in a broken world to an unbroken Christian fellowship. (Preaching God’s Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year C, p. 417) (https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Gods-Transforming-Justice-Lectionary/dp/0664234550 )
These words especially hit very close to home for me: In our fragmented world, in which groups often relate with suspicion and violence and even try to destroy one another, the churches of the world coming together to break the loaf and drink the cup is a sign of God’s intention for all people to live together in love, peace, and justice. I believe that these words speak to the current national and world environment. Far too often we are so busy erecting barriers and dividing people into “us” versus “them” that we forget what we were created to be and, in whose image, we were created. We cannot love our God unless we love our neighbor, and we cannot fully love our neighbor unless we love ourselves.
Part of the faith community’s responsibility is to build bridges of love, justice, mercy, and peace in a broken world. Until we celebrate the unity that is found in the midst of our diversity, we will not be living out the calling to be disciples and followers of Jesus.
In his Alaskan Journal (p. 308), Thomas Merton wrote about communion, and unity. The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words. It is beyond speech. It is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity, but we discover an old unity. (https://www.amazon.com/Alaskan-Journal-Thomas-Merton/dp/0918824575 )
My prayer for this World Communion Sunday is that we can discover that old unity which is found in the love of God and love of neighbor just as Jesus taught so long ago. Then we will realize that it isn’t about the greatness of our faith or tossing mulberry trees into the ocean but rather it is about living our faith by humbly serving God and one another.
“Sabbath is an antidote to the system of anxiety we so often find ourselves trapped in. . . . Sabbath invites us into an experience of time outside of time and in that eternal moment anxiety dissipates and slips away.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
When can you set aside some Sabbath time in your life this week?
