Be Grateful (or Pay Attention)
A Homily on Luke 17:11-19
by Griff Martin
For the Twenty Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (and the Thirty Third of Covid Worship)
For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
November 22, 2020
*This document comes from an oral manuscript.
Incarnate God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God, for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.
It’s worth noticing what gets noticed.
Parenting teaches me this over and over again, every child is like having a new set of unique eyes to see the world through. It’s the picture I shared right as the sermon started today, this was taken three years ago when we went to New York City, this picture was from the morning that we went to the Met. It was a perfect day, we walked through Central Park with coffees and then to the Met where we had a good three hours to see the Met.
I knew what I wanted to see first, the Anna Wintour exhibit that spring was all about the intersection of fashion, art and religion. There were items from the Vatican that were on display for the first time ever. There were incredible couture clothing that had religious leanings, I could have spent all day there. But there was so much more of the museum to see, we had a list of the art we wanted to show the kids: “Washington Crossing the Delaware”, Georgia O’Keeffe, VanGough, “Madonna and Child”, “Autumn Rhythm Number 30" by Jackson Pollock.
And they were good with all these, they understood their importance although they certainly liked some more than others.
It was near the Pollock piece when we lost Jude.The Pollock piece is big and you want to take it in up close and from a distance and there is a lot of activity around this piece, so while we were doing that Jude wandered.
And then of course, mid-amazement we realized that we had lost a child, before the true "we lost a kid in New York" panic set in, we found him around the corner sitting on the ground, which is when we took the picture I showed earlier.
Jude was lost but not in the way we had first thought, Jude was lost in this piece of art, the one that we had rushed by to try and get to "Autumn Rhythm Number 30." As we reflect on the story, we do remember that Jude said to us, "I like that," pointing at this piece. I remember thinking is that art, or just a marking where they are going to hang the actual art later?, like a big marks-a-lot circle for the painting should go here.
What Jude had noticed was Martin Puryear’s piece “Tango,” a sculpture created from painted pine. Puryear is a Black American contemporary artist, a MacArthur Genius, who is known for his reductive style, he approaches art from a meditative stance and challenges the physical, poetic boundaries of the materials he works with.
And Jude loved this piece, "Tango." Of all the things we saw that morning, the memory I will carry with me is stopping to sit with Jude in front of that piece and to ask him, “Tell me what you like about this piece... what do you see?”
And when he answered, I found myself having a new favorite piece of art, one that I had walked by and not noticed.
It’s worth noticing what gets noticed.
One of my favorite seminary professors used to talk about contemplative life as noticing the things that everyone else rushes by in the hurry of life.
It’s an intriguing way of reading the Gospels, one of my favorite things actually about the Gospels. The Gospels are stories and often a story is repeated and one of my favorite ways to learn about the author is to see what they notice that the others did not, what little detail stuck out to them about this moment and what does that detail tell me not only about that moment but about them.
We have one of those in the story this morning, we are in Luke’s telling this morning. Luke the doctor, which means Luke is supposed to pay attention to details and notice things that others don’t notice in order to bring about a healing. It’s no surprise that when you read the Gospels this way, noting who notices, you are going to be really taken with Luke the doctor and John the poet. Doctors and poets notice.
And Luke is telling this story about Jesus and these 10 Lepers. Jesus is traveling on his way towards Jerusalem, somewhere on the border between Samaria and Galilee, one of Jesus’ favorite places, an in-between two tensions place, a third way in what seems to be a binary place. And he is walking here when 10 lepers approach him, now they would do this from a distance, lepers were not allowed to come close to non-lepers. And we are not talking masks and 6 feet here, this was even beyond that.
Like just close enough that screaming at the top of my lungs might just get your attention close. So not that close close.
And they get Jesus’ attention, Jesus simply looks at them and tells them to go show themselves to the priest. Which they do, which is good that they follow Jesus’ command because as they are following his words it’s then they become clean. Which means that their going to the priest was an act of faith when they had no reason to have faith. Jesus told them to go, they had faith in something and on the way there to the priest the miracle happened.
And when one of the ten realized what had happened, he turned around and came back and “shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet, so grateful -- he couldn’t thank him enough….”
Notice all the words of gratitude there… gratitude, glorifying, grateful, thanks… Luke is making this very clear, the man is thankful. And then notice what Luke notices -- “and he was Samaritan.”
As if this is a surprise, as if while traveling on the border of Samaria, it was shocking to come in contact with a Samaritan. This is the equivalent of going to Royal Stadium and being shocked you found a UT fan. This is expected. You find Samaritans in Samaria Luke, this should not take a doctor.
But Luke is really hung up on Samaritans… read his Gospel, he notices them. Probably because according to the world around him, Samaritans were a filthy people, no good, to be despised, the archenemy of his people. Now to be fair the Samaritans felt the same way about Jewish people, which is why the Good Samaritan parable is so poorly understood -- the point might not be to do good as much as to know that the person you despise the most might save your life so maybe broaden your view.
But Luke is still working on this, it takes time. Like most of our lives are spent learning to love and include everyone.
And in this story, when there is so much to notice, Luke notices that the one who returns to give thanks is the one who according to the world around them is the one who should have nothing to be thankful for.
Think about that… when the story of Jesus is told it gets noticed when people who should have nothing to be thankful for show gratitude. People notice that, it makes the Gospel.
People notice when people who they think should not be grateful are grateful.
Like, noticed enough that they make the Gospels.
Which means that one of the most formative and meaningful things you and I might do right now is to practice gratitude. Because when the Gospel of 2020 gets written, well I think it might be noticed when people who really don’t have much to be grateful for are actually deeply grateful.
And let’s be honest, 2020 might not be the easiest time to practice gratitude and the list of things we are upset and worried and anxious over will certainly come easier than the list of things we are grateful for this year.
Which makes it all the more important that we practice gratitude.
In the last few weeks I have been pondering this because I have to tell you that when I started working on this sermon my list of grief and grievances was way longer than my list of gratitudes. I was writing a lot more customer complaints about 2020 than thank you notes.
And I have to be honest and tell you that I am not a person who can just flip the script and see a grievance as a gratitude. I know so many people who have tried to do that or tried to help me do that, “Griff but being home is such a gift… time with family, not sitting in traffic, getting to work and be in one place all day...." And for me, the shelf life of that exercise is shorter than the shelf life of day old milk. It does not hold for me.
Instead I have been working with a few poets' exercises and wisdom….
It’s David Whyte, the poet who has this book Consolations where he redefines all the concepts we have missed and with gratitude he does it like this: “Gratitude arises from paying attention from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us….Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention."
I am working to pay attention to the little things that I am grateful for right now.
It’s the wisdom of another poet Ross Gay who has this incredible little book, The Book of Delights. This book is a collection of writings from his 42nd year of being alive, a tumultuous year where to challenge himself every day he wrote about something that gave him delight and why it brought him delight. In an interview with Krista Tippet he said that looking for delight, “it made me realize how often I am delighted.”
So I am working to pay attention to what delights me every day and how that happens so often when I look for it.
And then the wisdom of the great poet, Jesus himself. Who left us with some great lines about gratitude: consider the birds, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And if you think about that, the other two poets are really just offering riffs on what Jesus has already told us… pay attention, be thankful for what you find that brings you joy and life.
So I am trying to do just that. Offer gratitude for the first sip of coffee, for the times Blake and Jude come into the office to hug me each day, for the final season of Schitt’s Creek, for Brandi Carlile, for pistachio bark, for poetry, for a stack of good novels, for a midday walk, for dogs that love to snuggle too close….
So even though it is still so very much 2020, let’s be defiant. Let’s be the people who even though everything would say we should not be grateful, we are grateful. We are the ones who pay attention, who notice the things that delight us and restore us and offer gratitude to the Giver of all things.
Amen and Amen.
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