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Today, we arrive at the end of our annual appeal. And so, what I’d like to do with this sermon is first remind us of who our God is, and then, at the end, reflect on the role Epiphany plays in our relationship with this God.
I begin with this sound. Two thousand years ago it would cause someone to stop in their tracks because quickly thereafter they would have heard the words: “Unclean, unclean, unclean!” And as their heads snapped around in response, they’d see, somewhere, a little ways off, someone holding a dirty rag over their face. A rag that probably matched the rags on their body. A person, probably a few people actually, clumped together, because even lepers need community.
They were outcast not necessarily because of their disease, but because their leprosy represented an outward and visible sign of their sin. A sin, so it was believed, they committed, or maybe one their parents committed, and passed down to this them. To cry out unclean, unclean, unclean was to cry out shame, shame, shame.
Lepers were forced to carry their shame on the outside; forced to acknowledge it over and over and over again. Most of us don’t have to do that. We get to hide our shame. We hide it because we don’t want to be cast out. There’s something terrifying about the prospect. It’s visceral. The community makes rules and to break the rules is a sin. The punishment? Being cast out, with shame as the scar, the scarlet letter.
Sin sets boundaries, and those boundaries help people stick together so they can survive in a harsh world. The Old Testament is a series of stories about boundaries defined by law given, so said, by God. And when things go well, God is happy. And when things go poorly, God is angry. The first law, then, was to put God first: “you shall have no other gods before me” (Exo 20:3b). And indeed, it turned out, that when God was put first things were better, but the reasoning as to why was flawed.
It wasn’t because perfectly executed laws made God happy, but rather because when God was put first everything just worked better; not because of God’s predilection, but by God’s systemic design… because God is first and foremost, primarily and completely, a merciful God. And mercy always makes things better.
“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” the leper’s cry. Old Testament logic would have claimed them sinners, yet Jesus acknowledges them. He comes close to them. He steps through their circle of shame shattering it and saying: “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And the priests would examine them; have them strip down, lift their arms, turn their heads, checking behind their ears with a stick. If there was no leprosy, they could be reinstated into the community, because, according to Old Testament logic, God had gotten over whatever made God angry. That was the priest’s job: to determine who was in and who was out.
But one of them, a Samaritan, someone outside the Jewish community, realized that his healing was not about his leprosy, but about Jesus shattering his circle of shame. So, he turned around. He went back, not to a priest, but to the priest. The Great High Priest and knelt down to say… Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Jesus comes into the world, God incarnate, to show us that our God is a merciful God. I know that this is difficult to accept sometimes. We really want a fire-spitting god to right wrongs and to impose justice as we see fit. But it seems, for God’s reasons alone, that in this world, by God’s design, that is not the plan.
It seems our God is not overly concerned with sin; letting sin be an idiosyncratic, cultural phenomenon around boundary-setting for the tribe. It seems God is not overly concerned about the things we hide. God is not concerned with our shame. God is merciful, always, no matter what.
And our response? To sin as much as we want, because it doesn’t seem to matter? That is like trying to get to the moon by jumping. That is like trying to find happiness by beating your dog. Our response rather, first and foremost, is Thank you! And those words, Thank you God, are all it takes to put God first, to accept that the only boundary God sets is love. And we all sit within the circle.
And so, when we cry out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on me.” He does… always. Mercy is the point made by God’s incarnational presence in the world. Mercy is the story Jesus came to tell: it is the story of the Samaritan woman at the well; it is the story of the prodigal son; it is the story of the good Samaritan; it is a story we hear in the Gospel today; it is the story of a merciful God.
If the Old Testament is about freedom, the New Testament is about mercy, about a merciful God who loves us, who always loves us. Now we know this because of Jesus. But we also know this because of the evidence; because even in our dishonesty, in our sin, in our shame, we remain, we exist. We have not been disappeared by an all power, all knowing, eternal God. Our God allows us to be here irrespective of how we act because our God is a merciful god.
And so, gratitude is the reasonable response, particularly given that everything we have comes from this God. Everything: our life, our genes, our family, our skills, our culture, our luck, our timing… all from God. So, practically speaking, saying thank you seems reasonable. Not because God is needy or needs to be appeased, but because being in sync with the world as God designed it is as simple as being a person of gratitude.
Our biology is wired to express this reality. Studies in neuroscience show that gratitude activates the brain’s reward centers, increases well-being, lowers anxiety, and even improves heart health. Practicing gratitude improves sleep, strengthens relationships, and helps us process stress. (UCLA Health)
So, gratitude to God, it turns out, makes everything else better. It makes loving your dog better. It makes watching football better. It makes work better. It makes relationships better. Gratitude takes the pressure off, because if God is number one we don’t have to be, our children don’t have to be, our tribe doesn’t have to be. Gratitude to God liberates us from needing to control everything. That is by design. God loves us that much.
Which brings me to this final Sunday in our annual appeal. Now I want to remind us that Epiphany exists to foster gratitude as a practice that becomes a pattern that becomes a habit that becomes a way of life, so we become the kind of people who perpetually say… Thank you. That is what we come here to do Sunday morning, or Sunday afternoon, or Sunday evening… to say: Thank you to God. That is what the Eucharist means in Greek… Thank you.
Gratitude is the posture that enables us to follow the first commandment: “you shall have no other gods before me.” It is as simple as saying thank you God for creation, for our lives, for our work, family, recreation, blessing. Thank you for our abundance, for our wealth, for our resources. All things come from God and so, to give a little back in gratitude seems reasonable. The annual appeal is a thanksgiving offering to a merciful God.
A few weeks ago I used the same scripture text we are using today to articulate the value proposition of Epiphany. We did our due diligence to calculate the practical value of this church. Today we ask bigger questions: What is the value of every single thing we’ve ever experienced? What is the value of our life? What is the value of our eternal life?
And my response, for I can only speak for myself, is: “Jesus, Master, have mercy upon me.” And he does for me what he did for those ten lepers two thousand years ago. As with them, so too with me, the choice is to move on, or to take a moment and say thank you.
Today is that moment to look at our lives, and to ask what is the greatest thanksgiving offering I can make to this merciful God? As you bring your pledges and prayers forward to the altar today, as you walk around it, I encourage you to consider what God has given you. And as you do so, remember that gratitude doesn’t require being super holy, or sin-free, or shame-free.
God is not overly concerned with that stuff. Ours is a merciful God, a God who loves us, who really really loves us. That is what we celebrate every Sunday, and particularly today at the close of our annual appeal.