While I never consented to “date” Tom, he made a lasting impression on me. As we drove back to College together that weekend, Tom began flying down the freeway at a speed I had not previously encountered. And sure enough an officer in a squad car came along to give Tom a ticket. Seeing the flashing lights behind him Tom said aloud in the car, “well, thank you Jesus,” and pulled slowly off the road. Tom rolled down the window and before the officer could scan us with his Ever-ready flashlight Tom said, “Thank you for pulling us over officer.” Just like that. And he wasn’t a bit sarcastic about it. He meant it and his sincerity lit up the car from the inside out. “Your name, son?” the officer inquired, palm out, “registration, and driver’s license.”

“Officer,” Tom said, producing the documents, “I am so glad that you stopped us, I was going way too fast and I could have put myself and Karen in danger…I don’t know what I was thinking, but I think the Lord put you in our path on purpose.” Now I’d been a young Christian for a few years at that time but I’d never quite seen the power of gratitude in action. Is it a good thing to encounter a bad thing? A speeding ticket Tom couldn’t afford was a gift in his life? That’s the way he saw it.

This event has stayed with me every time I have to climb out of a bad attitude pit. I encounter my own stumbling block moments with dismay, and stress, and adrenaline rather than with my faith and with a sure conviction that even the bad stuff has good within it. Tom was able to avoid “bad attitude” by practicing gratitude. Well, this faith stuff is very powerful.

We encounter a fellow not unlike Tom in the scripture story from Luke’s healing Gospel this morning. We encounter ten who are healed and one who comes back to praise God and offer thanks. This story is set at the beginning of a new unit of sayings on Gods mercy and salvation. Jesus and his disciples are traveling in the border region between Samaria and Galilee, “trying to skirt around Samaria, as most Jewish travelers did.” (1) In this region of the country it’s likely that the lepers, who were cast out of both Jewish and Samarian cultures, gathered together and lived in an enclave of the shunned. The law forbade anyone with leprosy from living in the midst of those who were well.

In Luke’s story we see the depth of Jesus’ courage, his disregard for conventional social norms about who is “in” and who is “out,” he risks his own health. Luke wants us to know that the reign of God is expansive, free from conventional prejudice, and full of surprising grace. There is no one in this Gospel (or in this room, or in the world) who is beyond the healing of Christ. No one is eliminated from healing by being too sick or too contagious. No one is denied a healing touch by being from the wrong part of the globe, having the wrong color of skin, or the wrong ancestry, or the wrong religious belief. Jesus healed lepers, among then a Samaritan, whom others hated for their rejection of
the “true” religion. Jesus arrives in the midst of ethnic warfare and stands on the land between the sects and gathers a bunch of highly contagious people with skin rotting odors and lung filling coughs and placed his hands on them.

From time to time people ask me why I follow Jesus. This is just one good example. Incredible courage, inclusive love.

As Jesus approaches the men with leprosy keep their distance like they’re supposed to according to the law and for the protection of strangers. They call out to Jesus as if they have already known of him, or heard of his miraculous power. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus obviously heard them, but the scripture also says he saw them. This may have increased his compassion. He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. This was a requirement for any who are healed and we find this in other healing gospel stories, with lepers, with the woman with the flow of blood. As they take off for their homeland they are cleansed.

A priest would likely pronounce their healing and reunite these men with their families and communities. Nine of them saw the priest. But there is uncertainty about number ten, the Samaritan. He would not have been welcomed by the priest do to his ethnicity. His healing stands in the gospel alongside of the parable we call “the good Samaritan,” and the healing of Naaman, who was also a foreigner. This healing reminds us that those who we least expect to be in right relationship with God, may in fact, be the most in-tune with divine mercy.

When Jesus looks up, he is surely surprised. Here comes the Samaritan back again. Does he want something? Didn’t it work? The man’s first act upon returning to Jesus is to offer glory to God. He comes back praising God in a loud voice. I think he was singing something, don’t you? “Jesus is just alright with me, Jesus is just alright, yeah!” or maybe, “Oh, how I love Jesus, oh, how I love Jesus, because he first loved me.” He comes back praising God. And then in a great dramatic way, he throws himself at Jesus feet and thanks him.

Praise God in all things. And, live a life of gratitude. The lessons the Samaritan teaches us. The lessons Tom taught me in a car alongside a freeway a long time ago.

There are several other proponents of praise and gratitude. Among them are a group of psychologists known as “positive psychologists,” who I suspect, after working for years with depressed and anxious people decided to find out what makes the happiest and resilient people, happy. The movement began with the research of Martin Seligman, but many have taken up the study of gratitude. Deborah Norville has a new book out called Thank you Power; Making the Science of Gratitude Work for You. Her research has found that changing a bad attitude to gratitude has more benefits than you might have imagined. “We’ll sleep better and exercise more. We’ll feel more optimistic. We’ll be more alert and active. And if we do this over a period of time, we’ll realize that we’re making progress toward our life goals.” (2)

Psychology professor at the University of Miami, Michael McCullough and Robert Emmons of the University of California have spent a decade studying the role gratitude plays in physical and emotional well-being. They took three groups of volunteers and randomly assigned them to focus on one of three things each week. The first group concentrated on hassles, and noted everything that went wrong or irritated them. The second group focused on things for which they were grateful, things that enhanced their lives. The third group focused on ordinary life events.

“The people who focused on gratitude were just flat-out happier. They saw their lives in favorable terms. They reported fewer negative physical symptoms such as headaches or colds, and they were active in ways that were good for them. They spent almost an hour and a half more per week exercising…those who were grateful had a higher quality of life. (They also)…became more pro-social and compassionate.” In a follow up study they found that those who had the gratitude attitude were “less materialistic, less apt to see a connection between life satisfaction and material things. They were more willing to part with their possessions.” (3)

Studies by other researchers have found that the grateful minded have clearer thinking, better resilience in hard times, higher immune functioning, stress inoculation, closer family ties, and greater religiousness. Wow. The summary list of top ten reasons to be thankful: optimism, energy, determination, interest, joy, fitness, wellness, sleep, generosity.

Catherine Price of the magazine Greater Good (4) decided that she’d give the gratitude thing a try. Being basically a pessimist she thought it would be a tough go, and if it could work for her, well, it could work for anybody. She did three things. She kept a five minute a day gratitude journal in which she wrote things like: “On January 30th I was grateful for my perseverance, the Pacific Ocean, and that fact that I have really, really good cholesterol.” It was a stretch at first, obviously, but got easier over time. She not only wrote things down every day, but when she was feeling particularly low she could look back over the list as a pick-me up technique rather than reaching for a cookie or a chocolate bar.

The second thing she did (also on the advise of positive psychologists) was to write a gratitude letter to someone she cared about. (A mentor, friend, family member, someone you have never properly thanked.) She called her grandmother when the letter was finished and read it aloud to her. They both cried a lot. It was very sweet.

The third thing she did was slow down to savor the good things, observing a fall tree in full red leaves, smelling the aroma of coffee in the morning, and petting the cat in her lap. She intentionally focused on what she was doing, thinking, or feeling in a given moment. She wrote in her journal, “the actions of my daily life are actually quite pleasant…it’s the anxieties that get me derailed.” (4) And these words are true for many of us.

Now I’d admit that I was in a rather crabby space in my life when I started working on this sermon. And reading all of this material left me the challenge too. So I may just buy Dr. Emmons new book called simply “Thanks.” If I knew how to find my old college friend Tom, I’d write him a thank you letter for giving me such a good example of making the best in the worst of moments.

I’ve started my change already. Rather than focus on the scary and frightening realities, my own hopelessness about the nation, our war torn earth, the suffering I am more consciously searching for hope. And then on the news I saw Elissa Wall - a courageous 21 year-old from southern Utah beautifully offering gratitude, giving me hope. Against her will she was married and raped at fourteen. But she found a way to stop child sexual abuse within her Mormon sect by telling her story to protective services, a lawyer, and now the world. On the national news she thanked God for her healing, she honored her parents for their own beliefs in the tradition that had oppressed her. She said (inserted copy of her transcript).

(http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,695213229,00.html)

“When I was young, my mother taught me that evil flourishes when good men do nothing. This has not been easy for us. The easy thing would have been to do nothing. But I have followed my heart, and I have spoken the truth

What Lamont and I would like to convey (is) our love to our families. Mother, I love you and my sisters unconditionally. I will go to the ends of the earth for you. I understand and respect your convictions, but I will not give up on you.

I have very tender feelings for the FLDS (Fundamental Latter Day Saints) people. There is so much good in them. I pray they will find the strength to step back and re-examine what they have been told to believe and follow their hearts.

This trial has not been about religion or a vendetta. It is simply about child abuse and preventing further abuse.

I hope that all FLDS girls and young women will understand that no matter what anyone may say, you are created equal. You do not have to surrender your rights or your spiritual sovereignty. I know how hard it is, but please, stand up and fight, fight for your voice and choice. I will continue to fight with you.”
Elissa Wall

Elissa, your faith has made you well.

When the Samaritan came back it must have been a surprise to Jesus. I suppose he was used to having people just take off and leave him to rejoin their loved ones and start their happy lives after his healings. But the Samaritan came back to him. And we learn in this moment that the one with gratitude is not only healed but is also saved. Saved from what? A life of entitlement, a life of anxiety, and a life that just takes great things for granted or expects the worse. A life of pessimism, headaches, high blood pressure, lowered immunity, social isolation, our own negative thoughts. That’s what we can be saved from too. With less bad attitude and a little more gratitude we too can live “well.” It’s the gospel truth.

(1) The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX Commentary on Luke, (1995) Abingdon Press Nashville TN. pp. 325-328.
(2) The New Science of Thank You, Deborah Norville from Reader’s Digest October 2007 (available on-line)
(3) Norville, Ibid.
(4) Stumbling Toward Gratitude, by Catherine Price. Online version of Greater Good magazine, summer 2007.