Saturday, June 30, 2018
Please and thanks
Luke 17:17
So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?
I am in the middle of a battle with my teenage son over manners and politeness. He is at a stage where he is trying to see how far he could push the boundaries and get away with it. So he would come downstairs in the morning and say “good morning.” I would stare at him until he says, “good morning daddy.” Then I would respond with “good morning Corey.” He would then start an argument about this. He would then start to argue that this makes no sense since it’s only the two of us in the house. According to his logic, he couldn’t be speaking to anyone else.
There is a young man on my staff who got hired in part because he was very polite and mannerly. This young man is so polite that he tells you ‘thank you’ when he did something for you and you should be the one saying thank you. His parents did a great job with him, very unlike the job I appear to be doing with my son.
Many of us take good manners for granted, it’s such a natural thing that you don’t notice it until you run into someone who is impolite and unmannerly. This happens often when we encounter someone in customer services who wished they had a different job or no job at all. They treat you like you are disturbing their well being by coming for the service that they are being paid to provide.
Please and thank you are among the first things that we seek to teach children as a foundation for manners and politeness. I have a friend who taught her children to say thank you from the time she was breastfeeding. The baby would be crying for hunger, she would pick the child up and, holding the breast before the child’s lips, would recite the child’s thank you prayer to God for the meal that she was about to receive, then having given God thanks she would say the child’s thanks to her, “thank you mommy” only then the child was allowed to suckle.
As her children grew it was a sight to behold when they sat their little selves at the dining table barely able to reach up, they would give thanks to God and then shout out “thank you mommy and daddy” before eating the food before them.
In Luke 17:11-19, Dr Luke records a story of the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus. In this miracle, Jesus did, as he had done before, recorded in Luke 5:14, “And He charged him to tell no one, “But go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as a testimony to them, just as Moses commanded.” Jesus was always concerned that the healing is clarified by the proper authorities and that he was operating in keeping with the established law at the time.
Ten lepers were healed at once. It was not surprising that so many were healed at once because, again, the law at the time required that they be outside of the city and they tended to gather in groups to support each other and struggle together. However, what was surprising was their response having been declared clean.
Nine of the healed lepers missed the Hallmark moment. This was a great opportunity for the expression of gratitude. There were healed of the physical disease and they were healed of the social disease. Being healed of leprosy meant that there was now the opportunity to be reunited with their families and reintegrated into wider society. It’s a poignant card moment.
Getting back to my son and manners and moments, there is a moment when I am going to collect his report card at school – one is coming up next week. I usually stop at the Hallmark store on the way to get a card and a gift for his class teacher. I try to get a card that is a demonstration of the family’s gratitude. Gratitude for her trying, if he did well, its gratitude for her trying and succeeding, if he did not do well, its gratitude for her trying. Showing gratitude is important for us as well as for the person to whom we show the gratitude.
These nine recovered lepers had not been well brought up apparently, despite having Jewish cultural and religious roots. Thanksgiving to God is one of the things we learn from giving thanks to our parents, teachers and others as we grow. It is the point that my friend, who lead the children in a prayer of thanksgiving before breastfeeding, was making.
Many of us treat God the same way that these nine lepers did. We pray fervently for His intervention in our circumstances, but as the time progresses and the responses to those prayers come in, we get so caught up with the answers that we forget the God who answered.
Ron Kenoly put it this way in his song “I bow my knee” – I seek the giver not the gift / My heart’s desire is to lift him/you high above on earthly kings / To bring you pleasure Lord.
Think on these things:
- Are you a mannerly and polite person?
- Do you find it easy to show gratitude to others for the help they have provided for you, even if it is their job to do it?
- If you are a parent, are you doing a good job of teaching your children to be polite and mannerly, to others and to be thankful to God?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would show more gratitude to God all the time for all the things that he is doing for us, the spectacular as well as the seemingly ordinary.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex