Gratitude for God’s Grace as An Act of Worship
TranscriptioN
I want to invite the Reverend Susan Rockwell to come forward. Reverend Susan's a chaplain in our diocese, and she and her family call Corpus Christi home. So thank you for sharing the word with us this morning.
Let us pray.
“Heavenly Father, I ask you to take my mind and use it to proclaim your word. Take my lips and speak your truth through them. Open the ears of all who listen, that they may hear only your word, and set our hearts on fire with love for you. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Well, this is the first time I ever wrote a title, and the funny thing is, you know, Morgan goes and say, “What's the title of your sermon?” I never have one, but I have one today, and this is what I hope I reach: Gratitude for God's grace as an act of worship.
Okay, so this morning I'm going to make a survey of a couple of the lectionary texts for today, and I want to spend time with you focusing on gratitude. It's similar to praise, but gratitude needs the engagement of our mind. It's a decision to be grateful. Praise, I think, is an exuberant, emotional outburst.
I can enthusiastically praise God as I'm driving into a beautiful sunrise, and quite often I break out into a hymn, and it's usually When Morning Gilds the Skies, My Heart Awakening Cries, May Jesus Christ Be Praised. It's just wonderful—the sunrise, the hymn. It's often, and I'm driving into a hymn of praise for the magnificent colors of a sunset. At those times, I usually break out into Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven. So for me, praise is more automatic, but gratitude for me requires thought. For me, it takes reflection—blessing, an answered prayer, an unexpected pleasant encounter with a stranger’s smile, a kind word from the checker in Walmart who is obviously having a stressful day, but she's still able to be pleasant. All through the day, little things make me grateful.
As I was thinking of gratitude versus praise, I was wondering if I was trying to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. But I thought a lot about gratitude this week, and I've tried to make a point within the context of three of our lectionary scriptures appointed for the day: Psalm 113, Ruth (that also includes chapters 2, 3, and 4), and Luke's Gospel describing the story of ten lepers who were healed by Jesus as he was on his way to Jerusalem.
Starting in Ruth 1, I read several commentaries on Ruth 1:1–19. These verses seemed to be focused on Naomi and her grief. Her husband had died; her two sons also subsequently died. She was inconsolable in spite of her daughter-in-law Ruth, her faithful and loving companion. In fact, her grief made her so bitter, she even changed her name from Naomi, which means “sweet” or “pleasant,” to Mara, which means “bitter.”
She said, “I went out from Bethlehem full, but the Lord has brought me back to Bethlehem empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me?” Naomi wanted more than anything to be alone in her grief and bitterness.
She urged Ruth and her other daughters-in-law repeatedly to go back to Moab. At this point, Ruth shared her lovely, poem-like speech with Naomi—a poem that we know is often read at weddings: “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.” And after hearing this, Naomi said no more.
Because I was mining in the Scriptures for evidence of gratitude, I went deeper into the book of Ruth to find verses that shouted, “Thank you, God.” There are many. I'll just list a few.
Even though Naomi was grieving and feeling abandoned by God, he still graciously guided them back to Bethlehem in time for the beginning of barley harvest during the famine in Moab. Naomi's grief expressed itself in bitterness and sadness, and in spite of that bitter heaviness, God's grace sustained Ruth as she continued to be with Naomi and love her.
If you've ever been with someone who's grieving, it's hard work to just be, and to listen, and to love that person. It's hard work. Naomi had a kinsman of her husband, Elimelech, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. Then Boaz said to his servant in charge of the reapers, “Whose young woman is this?” The servant replied, “She is the young Moabite woman who returned with Naomi from the land of Moab.” And Ruth said, “Please, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves.” Working behind the scenes, God had placed Boaz in a position of authority to oversee the welfare of Ruth and Naomi.
We can see it clearly in this text—the way God works behind the scenes. He does the same thing in all lives. If we happen to observe and connect the events that transpired, we can clearly see God at work right in front of us.
An old-time Southern evangelist used to say, “Even when God's not working, God is working.” And I was talking about working behind the scenes—we don't see God working behind the scenes.
Some are content with feeling Christian feelings—with feeling love for God, with loving God's word, with feeling love for his people. But what do we do? We regret that God didn't just feel his love for us. Instead, “For God so loved the world,” he put his love into action and gave his only begotten Son. This is not a new Scripture to us.
Psalms 113 and 118 are called Egyptian Hallel. I didn’t know either, but Hallel is the root word of our “Hallelujah.” They’re songs of praise and thanksgiving recited on major Jewish holidays—Passover, Sukkot—to remember Israel's deliverance from Egypt and his blessings throughout the year. Psalm 113 was most likely recited by Jesus and his disciples when they celebrated the Passover that night before his betrayal and arrest. “Who is like the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and on earth?”
We might not realize it, but we praise and thank God for his condescending grace. Grace from a caring, loving God who comes from the highest heaven to help the humblest of the earth. One commentator said, “God's loftiness can never be absolutely measured unless this condescension is taken into account. And this condescension can never be sufficiently wondered at unless his loftiness is felt.”
We have this grace as part of being his creation—the sun, the rain, water, air, moon, stars, vegetation, animal and ocean life, beauty all around us everywhere. Everywhere we look. Even our next breaths and heartbeats come from this condescending grace in his creation of mankind.
As his beloved children, we see his grace in all our circumstances, often before we know there's a need or before we even think to ask. In the person of Jesus Christ, God made the ultimate in condescending grace by coming down to our level to save all mankind. Even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He deserves our highest praise and never-ending gratitude. As those who bear his name, we are never at a loss for words.
Now, not necessarily last but least, I'm going to turn to the Gospel of Luke. And I'm going to read an article sent to a pastor some years ago. It might be a stretch to make a comparison to Luke 17—that was my hard work. But I desire to explore gratitude, and I also enjoy a good music story.
So this is how it happened. On January 12, 2007, a cold January morning, a man hoping for donations stationed himself at a metro subway station in Washington, D.C. Wearing street clothes and a baseball cap, he played his violin with the violin case open on the pavement in front of him.
Subway musicians at rush hour are very commonly seen by regular metro riders. Most people, as usual, were in a hurry and probably didn't notice that this musician was playing music by Johann Sebastian Bach with incredible skill for around 45 minutes until rush hour was over and the crowd thinned.
It's estimated that more than 1,000 people normally walk by on their way to the train at any metro station. Only a handful of people normally stop to listen to subway musicians. They’re hoping for donations. Some of them are judged to be panhandlers, and mostly they’re ignored—not worthy of notice. There really are so many of them. When the violinist finished playing, he packed everything up and walked away. No one noticed. No one applauded. No one thanked him for the beautiful music he had just played.
At the end of rush hour, he had made $32.17. But I didn’t see that this story was about money. No one had recognized him. No one knew that three days earlier he had sold out a concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where the tickets in 2007 went for about $120. No one knew he was playing the Gibson Stradivarius worth millions of dollars. No one knew it was concert violinist Joshua Bell, who had debuted at Carnegie Hall at the age of 17. No one knew that in concert season 2025–2026, Joshua Bell concert tickets at Lincoln Center would go for between $300 and $900.
Full disclosure requires that this natural event was an experiment. It was a setup to see what reaction there would be to this subway musician. And it was an experiment that was meant to expose the easily distracted, self-focused, unobservant, ungrateful side of the human heart. I think that was a little unfair, but it made a good story. And I could easily see myself as a distracted, self-focused, unobservant, ungrateful person—especially if I were running late to catch my train. I would be easily set up.
What is the observer Luke showing us about distraction, self-focus, and ingratitude in his story? I think most of us understand the death sentence of leprosy in the ancient Middle East. Lepers were ordered to be at least 50 yards away from everyone. It was a highly contagious bacterial disease with no known cure, causing severe nerve damage and large sores, leading to crippling deformities and paralysis.
In fact, it wasn’t until the late 1800s that the bacterium causing leprosy was discovered by a Norwegian physician, Gerhard Hansen, making it possible to develop medications and other treatments. Today, the disease has been named after Dr. Hansen and is called Hansen’s disease. It’s now curable and mostly eradicated in Western countries where there’s improved sanitation, nutrition, and antibiotics.
In Jesus’ time, lepers were isolated and feared—with good reason. There was only one possibility for a cure: divine intervention. Here are ten lepers who just happened to be in the vicinity of Jesus. When they recognized him as a rabbi and possibly a healer, their loud shouts of “Help! Heal us! Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” were unmistakable and clearly heard by everyone. When Jesus heard them, his words were, “Show yourselves to the priests.” Jesus did not classify them as Jew, Samaritan, poor, rich, young, old, saved, or unsaved. He saw their extreme need and was moved to compassion, to grant them the mercy that comes from his never-ending grace. As the ten were walking along to find a priest, they noticed—they calmly walked along—they began to notice that the leprosy scars and the signs of leprosy were going away.
I can’t imagine that they kept calmly walking along. I’m sure they were jumping around and praising God. Well, maybe not praising God, but they were jumping for joy. And all the ten were healed. But like our metro subway riders, nine of them apparently had a more important task—of being declared healed and cleansed. Surely they must have been ecstatic to see that they were finally healed from an incurable disease like leprosy.
But these nine apparently kept going. Like the subway riders, they were self-focused, hurried, and distracted, and not thinking of gratitude for something that was so extraordinary, miraculous, glorious. One of the ten stopped, turned back, and began praising and thanking God for his healing. When he reached Jesus, he fell on his knees at Jesus’ feet, thanking him over and over again. He recognized that God was at work when Jesus noticed and healed hurts and brokenness that were not noticed by others. He understood that to thank Jesus is to glorify God. That gratitude is faith that makes us well. It makes all Jesus’ work of healing and restoration—to respond in gratitude to Jesus is to thank and glorify God. Jesus asks, “Were not ten healed? But the nine—where are they? Was no one found who had returned to give glory to God except this unappealing, unwelcome foreigner and outsider, the Samaritan?” which is the way the Jews thought about their neighbors in Samaria. And he said to him, “Stand up; go. Your faith has saved you.” We might remember that only one leper was saved.
The parts of us that are hidden deeply in ourselves—where we may least want them to be seen and most need them to be touched—Jesus, who is not afraid, does not mind meeting us in those places. It may be that if we recognize him there, we’ll find in him that deep—we’ll find, in that deepest sense, a new awareness of the grateful love that saves us and makes us well.
As for D.C. metro riders, there is, of course, real blessing in slowing down a little, beginning to allow God to show us beauty in ordinary things and miracles right in front of us, like a Chaconne by a master violinist on a subway station platform.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Edited using ChatGPT.
