As a progressive, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to a loving God; this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
What a joy to have Rev. Alisan Rowland share an article. She was recently in San Diego visiting. She is currently the Senior Pastor at MCC New Orleans. Enjoy!
When I reflect on how I want to start this year, I know I want to start with gratitude. A wonderful woman who attends MCC in New Orleans is calling this her “Year of Yes” in which she will say yes to taking risks she hasn’t taken before and yes to her faith in new ways. Don’t you love it? I did. In fact, I’m thinking of making 2015 my Year of Gratitude in which I become more intentional about cultivating an attitude of gratitude.
In the gospel of Luke, Jesus provided compassion and healing for 10 people who were sick from leprosy. And of those 10, there was one person who returned to Jesus to express his gratitude. Have you ever wondered what that one person understood about gratitude that the other nine didn’t? Why was he more motivated to return to say thank you than the other nine were?
Most scholars agree that during the time Jesus was alive, people who had the condition of leprosy or any type of ailment that caused skin conditions, were ostracized from the rest of their communities. So, in addition to the fact that they had an illness that changed the appearance of their faces and bodies, they also found themselves isolated from their homes and separated from those they loved. I can’t even imagine how difficult daily life would have been for them having lost all they had because of their illness. It’s hardly surprising that they would call out to Jesus for mercy, and that they would be eager for any help they might receive.
And Jesus does not disappoint these people who are asking for his help. He does heal them. Yet, interestingly he doesn’t heal them right there, but instead sends them to see the priest. At that time, it would have been the priest who would verify that they were healed of their leprosy and free to return to their communities. In Pastor Jon Courson’s commentary, he noted that sometimes in our own lives we want God to offer us healing before we will start a journey, but that sometimes we have to start a journey first and then along the way we see that God is healing us.
All 10 of those that Jesus healed made the journey and were healed, and Jesus pointed out that the one who returned to say thank you was the one among them who was a foreigner from Samaria. And I wonder if that wasn’t the reason why he didn’t take his healing for granted. Don’t we often have to leave what we know to understand how much we appreciate it? It’s often only when we travel to other countries, that we truly appreciate what we have here, and the abundance we have daily that we often forget to appreciate.
As I was reflecting on today’s Scripture, there was one aspect of this story that impacted me the most, and that was Jesus’ words to the Samaritan who returned to say thank you. In the King James Version of this Scripture Jesus’ words are “thy faith hath made thee whole.” And some versions of the Scripture translate his words to “your faith has made you well” or “your faith has saved you.” But in every translation I have read, Jesus uses the word “faith.” And the traditional interpretation of this Scripture is that when Jesus said the word “faith” he was acknowledging the Samaritan’s belief that he had been healed by God. And yet, as I reflected on these words, I started to think about the connection between gratitude and faith. Was the Samaritan grateful because of his faith, or did his gratitude help him to have faith? I believe that when we cultivate gratitude in our lives it not only changes our perspective about what we believe and our lives, but it helps us to have more joy and better health as well.
When I worked as a hospice chaplain I used to visit a woman named Betty. Betty was living in a residential care facility and she had already lost her ability to walk and most of her independence. Her son would come to visit her occasionally but other than that her day consisted of sitting in a recliner for the most of the day, and then being moved back to her bed. But, in all the time that I visited Betty, she never really complained about her quality of life. She always greeted me with a huge smile and she loved sharing with me her stories of growing up on a farm, and then working as a beautician. One day when I complimented her for her smile and how good she always made me feel, she started singing “When you’re smiling, when you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you.” I learned a lot from Betty. She had made the choice to appreciate every good thing that happened in her day. She managed to be happy in circumstances that were less than ideal. She had managed to cultivate a practice of gratitude that allowed her to live out the last days of her life with grace and dignity.
I was recently reading an article in Total Health magazine, and the author Jacqueline Sussman, a professional counselor, had written an article called “The Power of Gratitude.” In it she was sharing about how she was providing counseling for a man who was unhappy in his marriage. He felt that his wife rarely gave him any attention and he responded by being critical of her which only drove them further apart. Sussman told this man that he needed to focus on what he loved about his wife and to spend more time thinking about how grateful he was for her positive qualities. As he began to think about what he loved about her, he naturally became more loving and less critical of her, and then her response was to be more attentive to him. When he began to focus on his gratitude for her, their entire relationship improved.
In this same article Sussman also wrote about the field of psychoneuroimmunology. She reported that scientists have been studying “the correlation between stress, negative thoughts, emotions, trauma, and physical illness.” And that “body and mind function as one continuous, interrelated flow of chemicals and electrical signals.” She shared that research has proven that our brains release stress chemicals in response to our negative and conflicting thoughts. These stress chemicals can negatively affect our bodies and our organs. And she explained that conversely our positive thoughts release healing chemicals throughout our bodies. Sussman concluded that “the way to health, it would seem, is through cultivating love, gratitude and reverence for all life.”
I’ve heard some Christian pastors claim that people haven’t been healed because there is some way in their life in which they are not in line with God’s will for their lives. I find it disappointing that anyone who is ill should be blamed for an illness. I don’t believe that God seeks to punish us through illness or in any other way. In our lives we sometimes face challenges and illnesses, and I believe that God is present for us in the ways that we receive hope, and healing, and support. There are times that we pray for healing, and our prayers are not answered in the way we most want. But that doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with us or with our prayers. Sometimes our prayers don’t change our circumstances, but they change our hearts instead. Just as it was for Betty, sometimes our prayers help us to seek and find gratitude. And that gratitude in turn supports us in having more faith and joy in our lives. I believe that when we do have more faith and more joy in our lives, then we naturally have a desire to share it with others in a way that can bring them healing.
As people who have sometimes been ostracized or stigmatized like those living with leprosy were, we can have a deeper compassion for those who find themselves in similar circumstances. Right now many people are afraid of Ebola and worried about how it could impact us here in the states. But those of us who lived through the AIDS crisis remember how people panicked from the fear that they too could become ill. We know that fear led people to treat those who were ill without dignity or compassion. And even today, people who are HIV+ continue to find themselves stigmatized. Many of us have an understanding of what it means to be the ones who are on the receiving end of people’s fears and misconceptions. And because of that I believe we have a responsibility to support people getting accurate information, and that we have a responsibility to be the voice of reason and compassion.
Ultimately the practice of gratitude can help us to counteract fear and negativity in our lives. It helps us to live healthier more joy filled lives. It helps us to strengthen our faith, and it can help us to reach out to others with God’s compassionate love. May we all be like the Samaritan, filled with gratitude and ready to thank God for the many ways that we are blessed. Amen.
