“Nine Went On With Their Lives;

One Went On To Life”

Luke 17:11-19

Today marks the beginning of our Trails Through Tellico – and we might add the words Beyond Tellico - stewardship campaign. Over the next many days, Trail Leaders will begin circulating from neighbor-to-neighbor a very attractive notebook that takes a look back at some of the great things that have happened in our church during the past year, and that also invites the people of our church to give support to God’s work in and through our Community Church in the new year.

This is one of my favorite times during the year – not that I ever feel very comfortable talking about money from the pulpit, and certainly not because I enjoy the painstaking process of putting together budgets and nominating slates and other administrative details. That’s hard work, and we are blessed to have some lay leaders in our church who are very good at it.

What I enjoy about this time of year is how it challenges us to see our lives in relation to God and all that God is doing in the world.

Today’s lesson from Luke is a great example.

Ten people – they were lepers whose suffering had to be beyond anything we can imagine – encountered Jesus as he walked along the border between Galilee and Samaria.

“Have pity on us, son of David!” they begged.

Jesus answered, “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” which was an odd sort of thing to say. You see, lepers weren’t allowed into the temple because they were considered unclean. Didn’t Jesus know this? Surely, they would be chased away. But they went on their way – leprous disfigurements and all - not knowing what would happen.

But the wonderful surprise the ten lepers experienced was that, as they went on their way, the leprosy was miraculously healed. They were made well! They were blessed by God with new life and health and opportunity! Their prayers were answered! They could go home now! They could get a job! They could enjoy the love of their families! They could be people again!

And so they went on their way with the kind of joy that comes only when you know God has richly blessed your life.

But as they went on their way, one of the ten stopped. And turning around, he ran as fast as his newly restored legs could carry him, all the way back to Jesus.

And there he fell on his knees before the Lord and wept, “Thank you!”

How do you respond to the rich blessings God has poured into your life? Many people, I’m afraid, receive God’s blessings with great joy, and run to church to celebrate them, but then simply go on with their lives. The blessings we receive are sort of like the Oreo cookie my grandson Ryan receives. He pulls the two sides apart, and then – with a look of delicious gratitude spread across his face - licks the frosting out of the middle! And then, with a big smile, Ryan goes right back to running up and down the hallway naked – which is one of his favorite things to do.

Oh, Ryan is thankful. But his thankfulness has no direction.

I struggle in my own life with this very thing. God has been so good to me, and my life is filled with blessing upon blessing. I KNOW that I came into this world with nothing. I KNOW that I’ll leave this world just as empty-handed. But in the few short years I’ve had in-between those times, God has filled my life with beautiful gifts. I had a mother and father who loved me. I had the opportunity for a good education. I met Sandy when I was a Junior in High School and she was a Freshman. Blessing for me – still up in the air for her! God gave us two beautiful children, and later a fine son and daughter-in-law. And, of course, little Ryan. Three pounds, one ounce when he was born! What a little miracle! God has been generous toward me.

God gave me a calling to ministry - something I never would have chosen for myself, and it has brought a level of joy and fulfillment to me that I cannot even describe. God has blessed me with thousands of parishioners who have not only put up with me, but have loved me in ways that bring tears to my eyes. You are more than mere parishioners. You are true friends.

My life has not been perfect, nor has it been particularly easy. Right now, in fact, I worry about our daughter Bethany who had a heart ablation procedure on Friday to correct a racing heartbeat problem. It didn’t go all that well, and at this point, it may have created some other rhythm problems that didn’t exist before. I’m scared for my little girl. I tossed and turned all last night worrying about her. But as Sandy and I agreed on the phone yesterday, we know that God will bring us through. Somehow.

God has been our faithful Friend. I would recommend Him to anyone who needs a Friend in their lives! God has been good to me. God has blessed me in more ways than I can count. And I am very thankful.

But where will my thankfulness take me?

For the nine lepers, their great thankfulness took them to a celebration at church, and then back to their lives.

But for the Samaritan leper, it took him back to Christ.

That’s what blessings are intended to do, you know! They are God’s way of telling people who come into the world with nothing, leave the world with nothing, but get the use of all sorts of beautiful things in-between – that He loves us – that He is able to provide us with all we need for life – that He can be trusted with our lives, our families, and our world.

God speaks to us in the blessings we receive!

“Come to me!”

And that’s what I love about this time of year, when we unashamedly ask people to consider the blessings God has poured into our lives, and we invite them – like the man in the story - to come to Christ.

Come to Christ the Friend. Come to Christ the Healer. Come to Christ the Savior…of the world.

Just recently, an old friend of mine – a parishioner in my first church – passed away. She was a pretty challenging church member – one of those who never came to services because, she said, she could worship God just as well tending her roses as sitting in the congregation. I think the real reason is that she was mad about something that happened in the past, but she avoided dealing with that by seeking sanctuary in her beautiful garden. I never argued with her about the importance of seeing God in nature because I believe that God’s beauty is seen indeed in roses and other works of creation. And we ought to worship God there.

So I never argued with her about that. But I did argue with her about the importance of her relationship with Christ through the church. You see, Jesus came not just to redeem nature, but to save and heal human beings. You can’t come to Christ without embracing his work among people.

This was a lesson that came to my friend when her young grandson was diagnosed with Leukemia. And in the frightening days that followed, the very people she avoided every Sunday streamed into her life with gifts of love, and hope, and prayer. And months later, we all celebrated together the gift of the grandson’s healing. And when he suffered a relapse a few years later, the people once again embraced him and his grandmother with gentle love and lots of prayer. Chris is completely well today.

To be truly thankful for the blessings we have received is to be truly generous in sharing those blessings with others.

That’s a lot of what it means to come to Christ.

This coming year in our church, the only new significant financial commitments we are making are those that will touch peoples’ lives directly with the grace of God. We need some gifted person to join our staff who can bless and strengthen the lives of our kids – both here in the church and throughout the Village. Jesus said the kids are the most important people in the Kingdom of Heaven, and that the measure of our faith is how we care for them. So we want to find a part-time young person who can rally them together and help them and their families grow as Christians.

We also need to pick up more of the cost of the grant that helped us start our Parish Nursing ministry. We will pay three-quarters of it next year. And, although some of us weren’t sure about that ministry when it was first proposed, there are hundreds of true believers now because of Mary McNeal’s extraordinary ministry. Through your generous faith, the Lord has sent and used Mary to bless the lives of many, many people. And we are committed to making sure that ministry continues and grows.

And we need to add a second associate pastor who will help us expand, deepen and make more comprehensive our ability to bring Christian care to our congregation, and outreach to our community. We are a big church with many challenging needs in this broad and diverse congregation of ours. And we live in a county whose people face great challenges, too. We want to make sure we can live up to our calling to faithfully and effectively share Christ’s love with all those God gives us to care for and minister to.

All these things are about people, and ministering with Christ to their needs.

So what will you do with the enormously generous gifts that God has shared with you?

Some folks are content to be happy, and then to get on with their lives.

But others, turn around and come to Christ – and joyfully join his work!

I hope that you are like the one leper who came to Christ, and joined his cause, because others found life through him, and he found true life too! You see, there’s even something in it for us!

We get a deepened relationship with the God who made us and loves us.

We get to spread the Good News about Christ, and to give God a good reputation in the world.

We get to make the world a better place.

We get to make the Church better in ministering to people.

And we get joy and fulfillment in knowing that we are using our blessings in the way that God intends them to be used.

Day after day after day, we are called to come to Christ.

And once again now, we hear the calling!

If you are already a member of our church, I hope you will deepen your commitment to Christ by sharing even more generously of your blessings. If you are new to our church and community, I invite you to join a great cause.

And this is what it looks like: a man or woman recognizes the blessings he or she has received, and then runs as fast as he or she can to fall at Jesus’ feet to say….”Thank you!”