October 13, 2019 – Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Luke 17:11-19
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Luke 17:11-19
Grateful for One Another, Seeking One Another’s Well-Being
Lectionary 28C – October 13, 2019 [Thanksgiving Sunday]
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
About 600 years before Jesus, God’s people were taken into exile by the Babylonians.
Jerusalem was overrun and the people carted off to exile in Babylon.
They were victims of war – they were displaced peoples.
They were heartbroken and traumatized.
Their homes were lost to them and they were separated from family and friends.
Moreover, they wondered where God was.
They wondered: how could God let this happen to them?
And how could they worship God with no temple in a strange land?
You know what they wanted? They wanted to go home! Of course they did!
Here they were, surrounded by enemies in a strange country with strange food and
a strange language and strange customs.
They wanted to go home and they prayed to God to get them back home.
So the prophet Jeremiah writes them a letter, for he is still back in Jerusalem.
You expect him to say, “Hang in there! God will bring you home!”
And he does . . . but he also says something else.
Something very unexpected, very surprising, and very very challenging.
He says, “Yes: you will ultimately come home.
But not for a loooooooong time. In fact, not even in your own lifetimes.
So here is what God wants you to do: stay where you are.
Settle down. Build houses and plant gardens. Have families.
Make friends among the people there.
And above all work for the well-being of Babylon and its peoples and pray for them.
Ha! We often think love of enemies and
praying for enemies is an invention of the New Testament.
But it’s not! Here it is from the pen of Jeremiah 600 years before Jesus.
Jeremiah was a remarkable person.
But here is the thing: Jeremiah was simply reminding the people of their calling from God as
God’s people, as children of Abraham: he is reminding them that Abraham’s family was
simply called to be blessing to all the families of the earth.
Including the Babylonians.
His insight is just this:
the well-being of the people is bound up with the well-being of the Babylonians.
In fact, the Hebrew word translated “welfare” in our passage today is
the great biblical word shalom: peace, well-being, wholeness, safety, health.
In your enemy’s shalom you will find your shalom.
We are all human beings and we all share a common humanity.
Our destinies are all bound up together. It could not be plainer.
Wherever you are, you are called to be blessing. That is your job.
Be grateful for the people around you. Be grateful for where you find yourself.
And be blessing.
Flash forward 600 years.
The Samaritans are the enemies of the Jewish people.
Yet, who does Jesus bless?
Samaritans as well as Jews.
Jesus makes no distinctions between peoples.
He sees a group of ten lepers today and heals them all.
Only one returns to give thanks to Jesus – the lone Samaritan among them.
The enemy.
But here, thanks to grace, thanks to Jesus being blessing, an enemy becomes a friend.
The Samaritan comes to love Jesus and worship him.
When Jesus loves his enemy, he is doing no more than Jeremiah instructed the people
all those years ago.
He is being blessing to all the families of the earth, just as Abraham was called to do.
For our destiny, our shalom, our well-being as human beings, is all bound up together.
God is concerned for the well-being of all peoples.
God is concerned for the well-being of the Babylonians and
God is concerned for the well-being of the Samaritans.
In fact, everyone’s well-being is bound up together.
And the key in all of this, as in so much of Christian life, is gratefulness.
God would simply have us be grateful for one another.
Rather than seeing the Babylonians as enemies, God invites the Judeans to be grateful for them
and be blessing to them.
Rather than seeing the Samaritans as enemies, Jesus invites his followers to be grateful for them
and be blessing to them.
When the Samaritan returns and gives thanks, what does Jesus say?
Jesus says this action has made him well, but literally it says this action saves him.
Yah: nine people were cured – but only one was saved.
Saved from what, though, I wonder?
What does gratefulness save you from?
In the context of our readings, I would have to say that gratefulness saves you from bitterness.
Gratefulness saves you from vindictiveness.
Jeremiah invites the people in exile to put away their bitterness and vindictiveness.
Instead, look around you, find what there is to be grateful for in the people around you.
I am sure that was not easy – and yet it is what God calls them to do.
It sounds crazy – but that is often how you know it is what God wants.
The key is gratefulness – gratefulness especially for those you think are different from you.
Gratefulness is the key to friendship.
Gratitude is saving. Gratitude can save the world.
This week I’d like you to try a little experiment.
Turn to a person near you whom you don’t know or don’t know well and introduce yourselves.
I’d like you to pray for each other every day this week –
thank God for them and their presence here and then pray for their well-being.
That is all. Thank you! Take a moment and do that, please.
There is a map of Minneapolis from the 1930s.
It was a map that was used to keep people apart.
It divided the city up by where certain kinds of people lived.
One area is marked “slum.” Another is marked “middle class.”
Yet another is marked “foreign-born.” Really: I am not making this up.
Yet another is marked “negroes.”
It could well have shown the Lutheran churches in Minneapolis and
showed them marked “Icelandic,” “Norwegian,” “German,”
“Swedish,” “Danish,” “Finnish,” and so on.
This map?
It is the complete opposite of God’s big dream in Jeremiah today and in Luke’s Gospel.
And of God’s big dream way back in Genesis 12 where Abraham and his family
were called to be blessing to all the families of the earth.
God’s vision is a very inclusive one.
Jesus commands us to love one another.
God’s vision is a very diverse one.
For in diversity is great strength.
In an increasingly divided world, I think we are called to give thanks for one another.
For those who are different from us and even for our enemies.
We have so many gifts and so many blessings to share with one another.
Our shalom, our well-being is bound up with one another’s.
First Lutheran Church is leading the way with an increasingly diverse community.
When I look at our community I am so so very grateful – and I hope you are too.
My heart is very full these days – full of gratitude for new friends and old.
Grateful for the gifts we so freely share with one another.
Grateful for the gift of community.
Grateful to be able to see God’s dream becoming a reality here.
I am so grateful for you.
On this thanksgiving day, let us be grateful to God and grateful for one another.
Let us enjoy one another and be blessing to one another.
For in this, the shalom and well-being of our planet and its peoples is bound.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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