THE BIG SECRET
Scripture
The Big Secret. The Big Secret of Giving. That’s our theme for Stewardship this
year. The Big Secret of Giving.
A man and his teenage son
were on a fishing trip miles from home. At the teen’s insistence, they decided
to attend Sunday worship service at a small rural church. As they walked back to their car after the
service, the father was filled with complaints. “The service was too long, the sermon was boring, and the singing was
off key.”
Finally the teenager had to
say something. So he said, “Dad, I
thought it was pretty good for the dollar you put in the collection plate.”
Some folks just don’t have much sense of gratitude. Nine hundred years ago, Meister Eckhart wrote some very simple but important words about our Gospel Reading this morning: "The most important prayer in the world is just two words long: 'Thank you.'"
Ten lepers were healed but only one came back with a grateful heart to say this prayer to Jesus: Thank you.
Now let's think about this story for a moment. To be a leper in those days was to be an absolute outcast. You were cast out of your family, you were cast out of your religious community, you were cast out of your town. You might as well have been dead.
So it was really ten dead people that came to Jesus to ask for healing. Standing well away from him (as lepers were required by law to do) they cried out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"
And he does. He looks at them and tells them to go "show yourselves to the priests." What does that mean? Well, the priests are the ones who have the power to verify that they are indeed healed – had been made clean - and can be welcomed back into the town, into the temple, into their family.
And as the ten go, they are healed. You can imagine what comes next: they rush to the priests, the priests verify
that they are healed, there are tearful reunions with families, friends, etc.,
and then the former lepers resume their normal life. Ah... Back to normal. They come into contact with Jesus Christ, the
Lord of Life and Death, the Messenger of the
But one of them doesn't go to the
priests. One of them doesn't rush back
home. One of them knows that coming into
contact with Jesus Christ offers you something more than simply a normal
life. Instead, he comes back to Jesus,
loudly praising God: "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
And Jesus says to him, "Get up and go on your way.
Your faith has made you well.”
Okay – now wait a second. All ten lepers were healed without Jesus mentioning anything about their faith. It was just this one who returned to thank Jesus who evoked these special words: “Your faith has made you well.” In Young’s Literal Translation of the Bible, this verse is translated, “Thy faith has saved thee… Thy faith has saved thee…”
Now we know what’s going on here: ten lepers were healed but only one leper was saved. All ten got their outsides washed clean. Only one got changed inside. Nine got back their normal lives. Only one was delivered into newness of life. Nine of them thought the healing was a miracle. Only one of them understood that the real miracle was being drawn into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ.
Sometimes life is tough. We lose so much in this life of ours - our health, our hope, our friends and our loved ones. We see injustice all around us. We fall prey to disease and disaster. And all those things, all those very difficult things, come together to wound us, to put a great big hole in our souls. And we need to be healed. Just as if we were lepers ourselves, we need to be healed.
And, you know what? We are. Again and again, we are healed. Just like those ten lepers. Again and again, miracles enter our lives.
Then what comes next for us? Too often we go back to normal. We go back to normal.
I'm a fool ...
I can close my eyes and remember a moment when my mate looked more beautiful than words; a time when I watched my child busy at play, eyes sparkling in wonder and discovery, and I found myself absolutely astonished at how blessed I really was; taking a long walk alone in the mountains of Colorado, and on that walk I felt completely at home on this earth, completely a part of God's Creation. And those are just a few of the miracles I can recall.
I'm a fool and maybe maybe you are too, because you, too, can close your eyes and remember those moments that were epiphanies, miracles of grace, thunderbolts of blessedness that told us that we were loved, we were blessed, we were completely a part of God's Creation - moments when we were healed - and yet, too often, here we are again, back to normal, feeling unlucky, unloved, and all alone, looking for God to perform another miracle, to heal us again. That's why we're fools. Because, like those nine lepers, we were healed but we were not saved. We were rescued but we were not transformed.
A woman was taking a journey along a
road. As she walked, she came to a
bridge that spanned a huge chasm. If you
peeked over the edge of the bridge you could see a
Then the man took the other end of the rope, tied it around his waist, and jumped off the bridge.
Well, the woman was shocked. She hung on to the rope for dear life, just barely able to avoid it being yanked out of her hands when the slack was all taken up. But she held on to the rope and the man dangled in the air, suspended over the rocks below.
"Are you all right?" the woman shouted to the man.
"Don't let go!" the man answered.
"Why did you jump?" she asked.
"Please, don't let go!" the man shouted back.
"I don't think I can pull you up," the woman shouted down to the man. Though she was strong enough to hold on by wedging her feet against the side of the bridge, she couldn't pull him up.
"Please - hang on. If you let go, I'll die!" the man shouted.
"Why
don't you try pulling yourself up?"
The man didn't answer.
"Try pulling yourself up!"
"Hang on! Don't let go!" the man shouted.
The woman hung on for quite a long time and began looking to see if someone else was coming. She couldn't go for help, there was nothing there for her to tie the rope to, but perhaps a traveller would be passing by who could help her pull the man up. But the minutes went by and no one came. No one was even in sight. And the woman's arms grew more and more tired.
"Listen," she said. "I can't hold on much longer. Please try to pull yourself up."
"Don't
let go! If you do, I'll die!"
"You
have to try to pull yourself up."
"Don't let go!"
More minutes passed until the woman knew she could hold on no longer.
"Listen. I'm going to count to ten. If you haven't started climbing up the rope
by the time I say ten, then I'm going to have to let go."
"Don't! Don't let go!"
"One. Two. Three. Four."
"If
you let go I'll die!"
"Five. Six.
Seven. Eight."
"Please! Don't let go!"
"Nine. Ten."
The woman let go. And then she crossed the bridge to the other side and continued her journey.
This is a powerful story, isn’t it? I would guess many of you thought of someone you know who reminded you of the man dangling at the end of the rope, someone who seems to constantly need rescuing and never seems to take responsibility to really change. Maybe you even thought of yourselves as the woman who was hanging on to that rope and finally had to let go. I believe the story is wise – sometimes there are times when we must let go, even if it means the person we have been constantly rescuing may hit bottom as a result of our letting go. Sometimes real change begins when you hit bottom.
This morning, however, I want you to cast the roles of this story somewhat differently. I would like you to consider God for the role of the woman hanging on to the rope and yourself as the man dangling in mid air. As you’re doing that, let me ask you this: How long do you expect God to keep holding on to that rope and rescuing you? How many miracles will it take for you to be ready to pull yourself up into a new life?
Some folks get rescued, get healed, and all they want is their old life back. But that’s not how it works with God. God offers you a new life, not an old one. When things are out of control, when we’re threatened with being swallowed by chaos, we ask God to rescue us so that we can regain control of our lives. But you know what God says? No. Salvation means that you will never be in control of your lives again. Receiving newness of life means placing God in control of it.
And now, finally, we’ve entered Big Secret territory. In our Epistle Reading Paul writes, “I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Paul understands the secret of having God in control, of living in gratitude through all circumstances. That’s why he is saying “thank you” to those Philippians, who, despite their own poverty, shared their blessings in support of the ministry of the Gospel. That’s why of all Paul’s churches, he had the happiest and most loving relationship with those Philippians. They knew the secret too. They knew that after God’s saving touch, their lives would never be ordinary again.
Lewis Smedes had twenty-to-one odds against him surviving his disease. But he did survive. And as he lay in his hospital bed he had a moment when he felt what he calls the almost unbearable goodness of being alive:
“It was
then I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the
ultimate joy of living. It was better
than sex, better than winning a lottery, better than watching your daughter
graduate from college, better and deeper than any other feeling. It is perhaps the genesis of all other really
good feelings in the human repertoire. I
am sure that nothing in life can ever match the feeling of being held by a
gracious energy percolating from the abyss where beats the loving heart of
God.”
When you’ve hit bottom and discovered God’s love even there, you find out that salvation begins with putting God in control. It begins with giving up your old, ordinary life, and inside embracing a new life, one lived filled with gratitude.
So, the next time God saves you, don’t stay out there at the end of the rope asking God to keep saving you. Pull yourself up to our loving God and say the words we need to say every day: “Thank you.” And then go about living a life that is no longer ordinary, but worthy of the salvation you’ve been granted. That is the secret. Amen.
Sermon preached by Reverend Stephen P. Savides
at First Congregational United Church of Christ,