{"id":454,"date":"2019-10-13T19:50:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-13T19:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=454"},"modified":"2019-10-14T00:55:12","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T00:55:12","slug":"eighteenth-sunday-after-pentecost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/10\/13\/eighteenth-sunday-after-pentecost\/","title":{"rendered":"Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Psalm 111<\/strong>,\nLuke 17:11-19<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nare many challenges for us in life; I\u2019ve faced some real doozies. Early on, the\nhardest challenge for me was honesty; my wife\u2019s aunt described another of\nCathy\u2019s family as \u201callergic to the truth\u201d; well, as a kid I was allergic to the\ntruth. At one point in my life, I think when I was in college studying\nPhilosophy, I called lying, creative truth. With confidence and a little\ncourage, I grew to appreciate the truth. Challenges abound; I suffered the\nchallenges of seeing people I cared for die, personally and as a pastor; in\nmany ways\u2019 death was softened by my faith in a loving God who through Jesus\npromised new life; it seems the challenges of what to do next, after those I\nloved died, were what challenged me the most; how do I move on? Again,\nexperience and time have taught me that life goes on, people are never\nreplaced, but the roles that they played in my life and yours, get taken over,\nnot in the same way and maybe not as well, but they get taken over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nleads me to a challenge that will always remain with me; I struggle, though\nI\u2019ve gotten better with it, at recognizing my needs for help and then a\nwillingness to ask for help. It\u2019s almost a manhood thing as though I would be\nless of a man if I asked for help. I don\u2019t want this to be a man thing; I know\nplenty of women that also have a hard time asking for help. Again, I\u2019m getting\nbetter, and the more you agree to help me, the easier it will be for me to ask\nfor help. Sorry, I couldn\u2019t resist the opportunity to hit you with some\npersuasive guilt. <\/em>It\u2019s true that positive responses to my requests for help\nmake it easier for me to ask, but I don\u2019t want guilt to motivate you to help\nhere at St. Peter\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nchallenges before us are many; another one that has become much more evident in\nmy life, especially as I have learned to ask more and more for help, is to say\nthank you. Ten lepers approached Jesus asking for help, for healing. My guess\nis, they really didn\u2019t expect to walk away healed.  How many times had they already sought the\nhelp of doctors and healers of all kinds; how many times had they asked God, in\nprayer to heal them and (up until then) all of their requests had fallen on\ndeaf ears, either because the healers were without the power to heal them or in\nthe case of God, God was not willing to fulfill their request. It was too much\nto hope, that their lives would be restored to them, with good health. But if\nit should happen! If it should happen that they would be healed, there was so\nmuch for them to do; they would have to go to the priest and show themselves as\nhealed, before they, even, could go and see their families; they would need to\nperform the required rituals and make the proper sacrifices before they could go\nto their families;\u2019 and then they would need to figure out how they could put\ntheir lives back together. So much to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well,\nthe ten lepers were cured; nine of the ten, with a new lease on life, jumped\nright into to the process of putting their lives back together. One lone man\nreturned to find Jesus, his healer, in a way defying what Jesus had told him to\ndo, that is to show himself to the priests. That one lone man returned to thank\nJesus for his healing and all that the healing will mean for his life. Jesus\nasked him, \u201cWere not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was\nnone of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?\u201d As\nit turned out the only man to say thank you was a Samaritan, a Jew, but of a sect\nof Judaism that good Jews, those who worshiped in the Temple, looked down upon\nand were seen as inferior at best. But, on that day he stood head and shoulders\nabove the other nine, assumed to be Jews, as he bowed before Jesus in\nthanksgiving, praising God for his healing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\nmany of us, good Christians seem to find it a challenge to simply say thank\nyou, to those who help us, our family members, those who help our friends,\nthose who help out the church, those who help out organizations established to\nhelp needy people and those who help out those, unknown to us, but people who\nsuffer, We often just get too busy with the tasks of life to take the time to\nsay thank you. At the heart of the ever-changing article that I write each\nmonth for the herald, entitled \u201cIt seems I\u2019m always saying (thank you)\u201d is my\nrealization that I can\u2019t say thank you enough and that all too often I forget\nto say it. So, I make a concerted effort to thank all the people who have helped\nme, helped my family, helped my friends, helped out here at the church and helped\nothers, but I fall short of thanking everyone deserving. It is a challenge, so\nin that article, I try to thank those who, more often than not, do their good\nworks behind the scenes, or just get overlooked by those who should be thanking\nthem. Saying thank you sounds like such an easy thing so why do so many of us\nforget or avoid doing it. It is humbling; by saying thank you, we not only acknowledge\nour needing of help, we recognize this need in a public way; it is humbling. Someday,\nwhen I become a wise and mature man and fully comfortable with myself,\naccepting my strengths and weaknesses, I will thank everyone boldly; I pray\nthat I will live to see that day!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthere is more, as the Psalmist demonstrates that thanksgiving leads to the praise\nof the Lord. Note that not only did the leper return to Jesus to thank him for\nhealing him, he placed his face against the earth and praised God with a loud\nvoice. All good things come from the Lord! Any thanksgiving is incomplete\nunless we praise the one, the Lord our God, who is the source of all help and\ngood things. Now, your challenge, our challenge: can we as a congregation, find\nit in our hearts to thank each other, thanking those who set up for Communion, those\nwho generously give to the church, those who set up the fellowship hour, who\nteach our children, who maintain the church property, who take care of the\nchurch finances, who organize our outreach programs, who plan our worship and who\nplan and do the hundred other things, you and others do, to minister within the\ncongregation and out in the community. I\u2019ll start: thank you for all you do. And\nnot to be forgotten: thank you Lord, you have made all things good and are the\nsource of all of our joy. Now turn to your neighbor. All of you have done\nthings to benefit the church and each other. Tell your neighbor thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psalm 111, Luke 17:11-19 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ There are many challenges for us in life; I\u2019ve faced some real doozies. Early on, the hardest challenge for me was honesty; my wife\u2019s aunt described another of Cathy\u2019s family as \u201callergic Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}