Word Ten: Present and Grateful
A
Sermon on The Tenth Command and Luke 17:11-19
By Griff Martin
For
the Fifteenth Sunday Following Pentecost (10 Words Series)
October
27, 2019
For
the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
Incarnate and Resurrected God, we
ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and
breathing new reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of your
presence here in this space and in these words, God, for if we are present to
you then nothing else will matter, but if we are not present to you then
nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the
Comforter. Amen.
How
content are you? On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being as discontent as possible and
10 being totally content, how content are you with your life right now?
I
ask that because of an interview I watched probably almost a decade ago now,
and in it the gentleman being interviewed said he was 100% content with his
life. The journalist looked amazed, and she stopped and paused and said, “I
don’t think I have ever met anyone who is 100% content with life.” I have
thought about it a lot. I had not met anyone 100% content with life; I still don’t
know that I have. I am not 100% content with life…. What I know is, I would
love to get to a place in my life where I can say I am 100% content.
And
I know that getting to that place has nothing to do with everything that is
going on around me and instead has everything to do with what is going on
inside me.
It has
everything to do with this command – this last word – but before we go there…
first, a story; a parable.
There
was an exhausted American businessman who traveled to a faraway island for a
vacation. Every day on the vacation he went to the beach to swim, and every day
he found a native there slowly cleaning a fish while sitting next to his tiny
boat. After observing this for several days, the businessman decided to talk to
the fisherman.
“Do
you catch fish every day?” The visitor asked.
“Oh,
yes,” the native said. “Plenty of fish here.”
“Well,”
the visitor asked, “how often do you fish?”
“I
fish every morning,” the native said.
“But
what do you do then?” The businessman asked.
“Well,”
the native said, “first I clean the fish for supper, then I take a little nap,
then I build a bit of my house, then I eat with my family, and then, for the
rest of the night, I play my guitar, visit with my friends, and drink my
homemade wine.”
The
American thought for a minute, perplexed by the reply. “But don’t you see?” The
American asked. “If you fished all day, you could sell your fish, buy a bigger
boat, hire helpers to can and pack and sell your fish and you could make a lot
of money.”
“But
then what would I do with it?” The native replied.
“Why,
you could buy a bigger house, quit working, enjoy your family, take big
vacations and party with your friends the rest of your life.”
“Mister”
the fisherman said to the businessman, “that’s what I am doing now, and I only
have to catch one fish a day to do it.”
And
the tenth word…. Do not covet. Do not envy. Do not desire after.
This
is an intriguing final word of the 10 words. For starters, this one is in a
different league. There are a lot of fascinating ways to break up the 10 Words –
those that deal with your spiritual life and communal life, those that deal
with God and those that deal with neighbors. But this one is the trickiest. If
you were to play “one of these is not like the other,” this is the odd man out.
Because all the other 9 are about actions; things you do. This one is not, this
is about something you think, it’s about your thoughts and your outlook.
Breaking this one will most likely lead to breaking one of the other 9.
Thoughts lead to action. Sin always begins in the soul.
This
particular word is about self-control, and self-control is learning to think
differently. Because as any good therapist (really, any good human being) will
tell you, if you want to act differently, you have to think differently. You
want to act better? Then learn to think better.
Which
means like all the other 9 words, it should come as no surprise to you at this
point in the sermon series that this command is probably a lot bigger than we
have made it. Although, a side testimony here: I will tell you that right
before starting this sermon series I really almost scrapped the whole thing – a
progressive church doing 10 weeks looking at the 10 commands? However, each of
these commands has given me life. Yes, I have found them way more challenging,
but I have also found 10 words that I am really trying to use to guide my life
differently right now, and I have found 10 words that I think truly could
reshape us into the people God desires.
It’s
the truth of Richard Rohr this week who wrote this statement, one of the most
powerful Christian ethics I have ever encountered: “Institutional religion
tends to think of people as very simple, and therefore the law must be very
complex to protect them in every situation. Jesus does the opposite: He treats
people as very complex—different in religion, lifestyle, virtue, temperament,
and success—and keeps the law very simple in order to bring them to God.”
Covet.
Here’s how I was taught it and have long thought about “covet:” To covet is to
desire that which is not mine to desire. I remember feeling guilty about this
one for the first time as an elementary student, and it involved a plumber with
a raccoon tail. Some of you got that reference instantly and it means that you
spent some of your childhood playing Super Mario Brothers Two. This was the
first game where the mushroom and the flower could help you fly – a feature not
available in the original Super Mario Brothers game. All my friends had it and
I had to wish and wait until Christmas. And I remember knowing that I was
envying; coveting.
Because
that is how this has been taught. What is the material good that someone else
has that you want? The new BMW? The pool in the backyard? A bigger bank account?
A bigger TV? A movie room? A vacation house? Now, in this community, that is
what some of us are privileged enough to desire. There are others here who just
want a safe place to sleep at night, a bed, clean clothes…. you are not
coveting. Those are basic human rights. You should not feel guilty for those
desires; we should feel guilty those desires even exist.
Coveting:
wanting something that someone else has but I don’t have yet.
However,
what about our other wants, the ones that are not material goods? I wish my kid
acted more like their kid. I wish my marriage was more like their marriage. I
wish this church was more like the church was 10 years ago. I wish our
political leaders were acting better. I wish traffic was better. I wish I was
smarter, thinner, more charming, less controlling, less gay, less anxious,
younger, healthier.
Oh
God, now it kinda hurts a little bit, doesn’t it?
What
if coveting is not only a material good that I want, but it is also every time
I think in my head about the world that I wish I lived in instead of the world
I am actually living in? And if we are honest, how much time in our souls do we
dedicate to the world we want to imagine we live in and not the one we actually
do live in?
Scripture speaks to this condition, a condition that
I think is present in every human being. The antidote to coveting, to the world
you imagine that would be perfect for you…. It’s gratitude, and gratitude
begins with presence. The poet David Whyte says it best: “Gratitude arises from
paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything.”
I have thought for a long time about the Gospel
passage we just read. There is so much to unpack in it, but it always comes
back to this one question for me: Why just the one leper? Why, when there are
10 lepers who are healed, why does only one return to say thank you? We are
better than that, right? Especially in a case like this where you once had a
life-threatening and alienating disease and it’s instantly cured.
Here is how I am reading this story this morning, in
light of gratitude and presence: I think the one who comes back is the one who
is the leader, and I think his understanding of gratitude and presence begins
way before this healing. In fact, I think his ability to be present is what
leads to the healing.
I think the other nine spend much of their days in
the “what ifs,” and the “why us?” You know, where we spend most of our days.
What if this had not happened and I did not have leprosy? Well, I would be home
with my wife and kids, I would have finally moved up from fishing to having my
own boat, I would be mayor of the town, I would be a priest, I would have
finally married…. Why me? Why did this happen to me? Why am I the outcast? Why
am I despised? Why am I so unlucky? Why does the bad stuff always happen to me?
And the “what if” and the “why me” thinking leads to
nowhere and it will get you nowhere, even if it’s kind of like a drug and it
gives you a temporary boost. It won’t last. But oh, we love it. We love to sit
around and do our “what if” and “why me thinking;” look at almost everything
posted on social media.
I think that one of the nine refuses to do this
thinking. “Sitting around thinking ‘why me’ and ‘what if’ won’t get us anywhere,”
this one thinks. “However, I have heard about this Jesus fellow; let’s see if
we can find him because maybe there is a different way.” This one has a
faithful imagination. So off they go, and I have no idea how long they travel;
it’s hard to keep up with Jesus. And I can imagine how many times the 1 had to
stop the 9 and say “throwing that pity party and sitting around talking about
how things used to be or could be is not getting us to where we need to be, so
get up and get moving.”
This one is already paying attention; he has already
accepted reality and is present in the moment. So, when they see Jesus and when
the healing takes place, he is present and there. The other 9, I think they
take off to go finish their “what ifs” and “why mes”. One goes to chase the
girl he’s been talking about for 4 years. One goes to chase his career. One
goes to find his family. One goes to finish his religious education. One goes
to right all the wrongs folks did to him as an outcast – he has a lot of
grudges and it’s time for payback; he chases revenge. And my hunch is they
might spend a lot of their lives still chasing and running. How many of us
spend our lives doing the same thing?
But this one, he is present, and that presence
allows him to go back and be grateful.
I have been thinking a lot about this story and
about this command because, to be frank, it’s one I have failed the last few
weeks. The start of fall is never easy on my soul because I covet – I want it
to turn to fall weather on September 1 and I live in a place where fall does
not arrive on my schedule. Instead, we get the second summer and it’s so hot
and the heat makes us all behave so godawful.
In the last few weeks I have had to cancel two trips
I was really looking forward to, I had to pay taxes, I had to get back into the
school routine, I was sick for a week with a fever every night for 17 days and
it culminated in pneumonia, and the work of being pastor has been a bit
challenging. As my mentor says to me often, “Man, there are a lot of curveballs
thrown your way at First Austin.” And then, on top of that, have you turned on the
news in the last 6 weeks? We are not doing well. And all that resulted in my
own “what if, why me” pity party?
And I can throw one heck of a party; it’s an all-night
rager in my soul so that when I wake up in the morning and have not even had my
first sip of coffee, that party is already going full-speed and the music is
turned up to the max and the dancing has already begun and everyone has already
had one too many.
Which is why my morning practices are so important
to my own sanity and well-being and spirituality. My 3 practices I do as soon
as I get to my office: sit, read, write.…. I sit: my morning silent mediation.
I read: A Gospel story and some gentle poetry, and then I write. Two things I
try to write everyday: the first, a note to myself from love, from God (it
always starts: Dear Griff, dear beloved… I am here for you and will not leave
and I love you… it’s the greatest truth I need to learn each day), and then a
list of ten things I was grateful for in the past 24 hours.
Well, in the last 6 weeks, I have failed to do that
often, which has resulted in not being present and not being grateful, which
leads to coveting and wishing my life was different.
I have coveted a lot. I wish I could be a better
pastor who knew how to fix everything and be all things to all people. I wish
everyone liked me more. I wish I had not had to cancel those two events I had
been planning and looking forward to for months. I wish I felt better. I wish
traffic was less. I wish I did not have to pay taxes. I wish everyone was
behaving better. I wish I was behaving better…. And on and on and on.
And then, one morning I did my practices… and here
is what I saw that afternoon. It was the evening of Pub Theology and I got
there a bit early, so I wandered over to Half-Price Books. I was browsing,
trying to kill 20 minutes and I headed to the religious section. It’s really a
place you can sometimes find a jewel hidden in the ruins.
Except this day, it was not; it was a lot of Joel
Olsteen and Joyce Myers.
And then, a couple walked up behind me to the
shelves dedicated to Bibles. I eavesdropped, because something about them
caught me. They looked at almost every Bible on the 2 shelves, and then they
opened the last one – it was still in a box. It was not my cup of tea; it had
big pink flowers on it, it had tabs to help you find every book, it had a lot
of inspirational quotes. And he said in almost a whisper, “Babe, this is your
Bible… I know it.”
And she started crying.
She protested at first because she said they did not
have the money for it, and it was too nice. He kept saying, “this is your Bible
I know it.” She cried harder and harder, and finally, as they walked off with
that Bible, I heard her say, “I can’t believe my first Bible is so nice and so
perfect… I have wanted this for so long.”
First Austin, we live in a beautiful and good world,
we just need to get out of the one we are trying so hard to create in our mind
through our wants and needs and live in the one that already exists around us.
The tenth command… do not covet…. The tenth word….
Be present and grateful.
Amen and Amen.
*art work: Gratitude, Todd Davidson/Illustration Works/Corbis
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