When Ingratitude Is Louder Than Gratitude?
Text: Luke 17:11-19
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Loud is what we get in today’s reading from the Gospel
of Luke. The one leper who came back to
thank Jesus, fell at Jesus’ feet with a loud voice, glorifying God. You see, I
am told that one of the consequences of leprosy is that it makes your voice hoarse.
A leper cannot make any loud noises. That is why lepers would often rattle pots
and pans and bells when they wanted to get attention. Their voices did not
carry that far.
But when this leper was healed by Jesus? Well, he regained his voice and he certainly
used it. No more soft talking for him!
He used that voice to glorify and praise God LOUDLY, worshipping at
Jesus’ feet.
So what do we make of him being so very loud? You see, when someone is loud, they typically
are excited. When someone is loud, it drowns
out everything else.
So, I guess we could ask ourselves a question, are we
loud as a Christian? I am not talking
about turning the church sound system up or getting loud instruments into the
chancel area of the church to raise the roof of the church. I am simply asking if our praise and thankfulness
towards God is louder than all the complaining, bickering, and gossip that we
do in life? Does our thankfulness
towards God drown out our ingratitude?
Do you speak about what God has done in your life louder than – perhaps
– your gossip about others? Which is
louder: your gratitude for the gifts you have received or your ingratitude for
what you don’t have?
Ouch. Those
questions really hurt. And they are
supposed to.
You see, loudness comes from being excited. And we get excited when something good
happens to us. When we get something
that we don’t deserve, we become thankful and excited and loud. Gratitude and
excitement tend to make us loud and full of joy.
But, life has had a way of turning us into serious adults,
who only bicker, complain, and gossip.
Being an adult tends to lead us into bitterness where we do not
recognize all the good gifts that we have received. Furthermore, as adults we can convince
ourselves that it is against good piety to laugh, giggle, and show forth joy
like a little child.
Remember what Jesus said in the Gospels?
“Unless you turn and become like children you will not enter the
kingdom of God…”
The point being: that leper was excited and loud like a
little child because he had had a horrible disease that was eating up his body. The leper was alienated from human society.
Death was already chewing on him and he knew it. But one word from Jesus made death run away.
One word from Jesus and the leper’s skin was whole and pure again. His voice became smooth, as it had been
before. He was a new man. And like a kid opening a gift at Christmas, this
leper was excited and thankful and loud. Wouldn’t you have been excited too if
you were that leper? You bet! So, what
is our excuse now?
Dear friends, something a lot worse than leprosy wars
against us: sin. But unlike leprosy, sin does not just result in the death of
our body. Sin lands us in hell. It lands
us in the agony of eternal separation from God who alone is life and joy. And
there is nothing we can do about sin. No
matter how hard we scrub, we are sin-sick.
Stained with sin.
But Jesus came, sent by the Father, to take care of sin’s
damning effects once and for all. Jesus healed you from sin’s condemnation by taking
the leprosy of sin into His sinless body and enduring it for us. Then he rose
again and now delivers His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation to you and
me through His Word and Sacraments.
Listen up! Jesus
did that for you and me! And what do we
do? Well, like the nine, most of the time we forget it and go back to the “seriousness”
of life. We receive the good news and
then go back to the daily grind. We
receive the gift of immortality and then we go back to the business of getting
and spending. And so, we many times fail to see just how lucky, blessed, and
fortunate we are! We forget to be like
little kids – remembering that we can’t do much of anything and have been given
everything!
I wonder sometimes if we don’t have it all
backwards. We adults tend to become
quieter the older we get. And then we
begin to complain, bicker, and gossip.
Frankly stated, we are the ones that need to pull out our catechism
again and remember that for all that the Lord has done, it is our duty to thank
and praise God – to gladly serve and obey Him. In other words, if we can be
brought to repentance to be like a little child who knows that he cannot do
anything, we would begin to see just how many gifts the Lord showers down on us
every single day! And the more that we
see the gifts that the Lord gives us, the more we become like loud little
children!
Dear Baptized Saints, Christ has done it all and gives
it to you as gift! Being thankful does not begin with you trying to be thankful
but it comes from the fact that we have been given forgiveness, life, and
salvation when we don’t deserve it and especially when we can’t earn it. And so, if your grumbling and complaining is
louder than your thankfulness and gratitude - repent!
May the Lord God forgive you and me for being loud with
complaints and quiet on gratitude!
May the Lord fill our lips with gratitude, excitement,
and joy.
May the Lord cause us to be loud on joy and gratitude
to drown out the complaints, bickering, and gossip around us!
And as a church, may Jesus continually shower his gifts
upon us so that we can be loud about forgiveness, life, and salvation – and
quiet with complaints, bickering, and gossip.
And yes, when we are loud about Jesus and His gifts,
others will hear and notice.
We Lutherans seem to always be complaining about how we
do not do evangelism correctly. But the
joke is on us! Evangelism does not
depend on slick marketing campaigns or cheesy sales techniques but simply being
loud about Jesus.
The best evangelism is simply overheard praise, loud
voices glorifying God, people who are excited about what Jesus has done for them
and who let that thanksgiving and praise drive out complaints, bickering, and
gossip. People notice that. They notice churches that are loud on Jesus and
quiet on the silly mantras of the world.
They notice the difference and they want to know why.
And so, it is rather simple. We come to church to be like loud children –
to be like that loud leper. We come to
receive gifts here at this church and then we say,
“This is so awesome! I
don’t deserve this grace. I can’t earn
this forgiveness. I am not worthy for I
am a fool – the chief of sinners! And
yet, Jesus is for me! Jesus gives to me! He claims me.
I am His!”
Baptized Saints, this Thanksgiving let us take our cue
from this Samaritan ex-leper. Remember the great things that our God has done
for you in Christ Jesus - and the great things He goes on doing as you receive
from Him in Holy Communion.
And as you receive today and in the weeks to come,
don’t forget that it is o.k. to be a loud little child who is excited to
receive gifts with thanksgiving.
In the
name of Jesus. Amen.
This sermon is borrowed, adjusted, and indebted in part to Rev. Will Weedon’s sermon on Luke 17:11-19.
Comments