October 11 ~ Gratitude is not a feeling. It is the act of noticing.

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Sermon by Pastor Joel

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

Psalm 65

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

Luke 17:11-19

Researchers have been studying gratitude for years now. And they keep finding the same thing. People who practice gratitude tend to be happier. Their relationships are stronger. They experience less anxiety and depression. Some studies even suggest they sleep better and may live longer.

Now, that sounds wonderful. But my first thought is not, "What a remarkable discovery." My first thought is, "My mother could have told you that for free."

Because every Thanksgiving, every birthday, every Christmas, every time anybody handed me anything, there was my mother: "What do you say?" And of course, we knew the answer: "Thank you."

Science spent about thirty years and several million dollars discovering generations of mothers and grandmothers were right. Which is comforting, I think.

The truly interesting question isn’t that gratitude is a happy gesture, but what it is about practicing gratitude that makes us happier.

One theory is that gratitude changes what we pay attention to. It helps shift our focus away from what's missing and toward what is already present. It makes us notice our connections to other people. It strengthens community and generosity.

In other words, gratitude teaches us to notice. Which is the story of the gospel this morning. Jesus heals ten people suffering from leprosy. They all leave to celebrate and meet up with their families. Only one returns to Jesus out of thankfulness. “Were not ten made clean?” Jesus asks. “Where are the other nine?”

Now I have a lot of sympathy for those other nine. It goes back to our challenge from last week when we read the gospel – to ask ourselves who are we in this story? If I’m honest, I think there's a good chance I wouldn’t have hustled back to express gratitude to Jesus either.

Think about it: You've been excluded from society, separated from family, diminished and abandoned. And suddenly your healed. You might have some people you’d like to see. Family to hug. Celebrations to enjoy. Those other nine, they just got busy.

And honestly, isn't that our problem too? I don't think most people are ungrateful. I think most people are busy, rushing from one thing to the next. And we stop noticing.

Moses understands that danger in Deuteronomy. But what’s worrying Moses isn't hard times. Hard times tend to make us aware of our dependence on each other. He's worried about success. He's worried about abundance. He's worried about the day when the crops are growing, the houses are built, the bank account is healthy, and life feels comfortable.

Because that's when we begin to tell ourselves a story. "My power and my strength got me here." Moses says: be careful. Be careful because that story isn't true. None of us got here alone.

Think about your Thanksgiving meal for a moment. Someone planted the grain, and harvested it. Someone drove the crop to the plant. Someone stocked the shelves at the grocery store. Someone cooked it and served it up at the table.

None of us are self-made, much as we’d like to tell that story. We like to imagine we did it ourselves. And then something goes wrong. And we remember how much we depend on each other. How many people carry us through life.

Paul understands this too. In the second lesson, he talks about generosity. But notice that it isn't really about money. It's about recognizing abundance. The more aware we are of what we have received, the more willing we are to share.

The grateful person becomes a generous person. Because gratitude reminds us that life is not a possession. It's a gift. Gratitude changes the way we see the world. It doesn’t make like perfect. It doesn’t spare us loss or stress. But it helps us see clearly. The friend who showed up. The stranger who helped.

The Samaritan in today's Gospel notices something the other nine miss. Not simply that he has been healed. But that someone healed him. And because he notices, he turns around. That is gratitude.

Gratitude is not a feeling. It is an act of noticing. The Psalm says: "You crown the year with your goodness." But then, we might say, well, some years are terrible. Some years contain heartbreak. Some years leave empty chairs around the Thanksgiving table. We know that. But somehow, even in those years, grace keeps showing up. God crowns the year with goodness, even when the year contains sorrow.

This then is the role of Thanksgiving. Be the one who turns back. Notice and remember the people who helped us get here. The blessings we have received. Remember the God who walked beside us, even when us couldn't see it.

Because the science says gratitude will probably make us happier. But the Gospel says something even better. Gratitude helps us see the world as it really is: A world held together by gifts, by grace, and by a God who never stops providing for us. Amen.

October 4 ~ Where am I in the story?

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Sermon by Pastor Joel

Isaiah 5:1-7

Psalm 80:7-15

Philippians 3:4b-14

Matthew 21:33-46

This week, we remembered our country’s difficult history with Truth and Reconciliation Day. We heard stories about the terrible toll of residential schools and the struggle for people to move on from that tragic policy.

At the same time many of us followed the developments around the Cornell University sexual assault case. There has been intense debate about what should have happened, and what didn’t. Who should have stepped up, and who didn’t. The more details unfold, the more we decide where we stand.

This happens so often – when we hear stories of sexual violence or racism or scandals by politicians. Our conversations focus on what we think really happened. Who was in the wrong? Who should pay? Whose side am I on?

But I’d argue there is a more important question – one with more potential to stop the same injustice from happening again and again.

This harder, more thoughtful question is: Who would I have been? Whistleblower? Activist? Defender of the status quo? Bystander?

Would I have demanded justice for my indigenous neighbors when I saw their children taken from them? Would I have asked questions when I knew the school was operating in my town?

Would I have believed the victim? Would I have challenged the group at the risk of being cast out? Would I have spoken up when everyone else was staying quiet? Or would I have convinced myself it wasn't my business?

In our world today, we see clearly how much one power-hungry or corrupt leader can change the course of history. They may start the injustice. But the uncomfortable truth is that throughout history most great social wrongs were only sustained by ordinary people who failed to see themselves clearly in the story.

Segregation. Residential schools. The exclusion of women from public life. The criminalization of 2SLGBTQI+ people.

Most people living through those moments did not think they were the bad guys. Most thought they were decent people. And that is precisely the problem.

Today's Gospel is about people who cannot see themselves in the story.

Jesus tells what seems at first like a simple, though grim and tragic, parable. A landowner carefully plants a vineyard. He builds a fence, with a watch tower and wine press and then leases the vineyards to his tenants. But when the harvest arrives, and servants come to collect the landowners share, they beat them and kill them. The landowner sends more servants, and they are also killed. The landowner then sends his son, for surely the tenants will respect the son. But they beat and kill the son as well.

Jesus then asks the religious leaders a question: "What should happen to these tenants?"

They don’t even hesitate - they know exactly what justice requires. They condemn the tenants. They identify the villains. They pass judgement.

And then slowly, it begins to dawn on them: The chief priests and the Pharisees realized that he was speaking about them. They are the tenants they have just condemned.

The trap that Jesus lays for the Pharisees, depends on one basic truth of human nature. We are very good at identifying sin in other people. But we are often blind to that same sin in ourselves. That is the genius of Jesus' storytelling.

That question is just as uncomfortable today as it was then. The temptation is always to place ourselves beside Jesus. But the Gospel tell us again and again to look at ourselves more honestly. Where are we really in all these stories?

When we read about homelessness, about Indigenous communities waiting for clean drinking water, about violence and exploitation, are we the person helping, the person noticing, the person passing by? Are we, in fact, part of the problem?

Martin Luther said, God’s law functions like a mirror. The mirror does not condemn us, it shows us the truth, and some truths are unpleasant.

In our second lesson, we hear Paul reconciling his own personal unpleasant truth. Paul was a respected, successful Pharisee. He had a list of shiny credentials. He was convinced he was doing God’s work. He considered himself the hero in his own story. Until he met Jesus and realized he was the opposite.

Many people would have continued to living a self-serving lie. But Paul made an incredibly brave choice: he chose to look at himself honestly, and own his mistakes. Staring into the mirror, he no longer saw a hero. And that honesty, not only allowed him to change, but helped him learn how to spread positive change to others. Where else does any transformation and any repair, any reconciliation, begin but with honesty. With truth.

Thankfully, discovering we are not the hero is not the end of the gospel, but the beginning.

Because once we truly recognize ourselves in the story, we have a choice. Just like Paul. Just like the Pharisees. We can become defensive. Or we can change.

God has not abandoned the vineyard. God is still tending and pruning and nurturing it, hoping for a good harvest. And that is the work of the gospel-led life as well. To have the courage to see when we have failed, when we remained silent or judged too quickly, when we benefited while others were harmed. And then, having looked in the mirror, to become better than we were yesterday.

When we read the Gospel, when we watch the news, when we encounter injustice in the world, let us not first ask, "Who is right?" or "Who is wrong?”

But instead: "Where am I in this story?"

Because the moment we can answer that honestly is the moment God can begin to change us. And changed people can change the world. Amen.

September 27 ~ Turn and Live

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Sermon by Pastor Joel

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32

Psalm 25:1-9

Philippians 2:1-13

Matthew 21:23-32

I was once told that the best parenting skill is a short memory. The mistakes our kids make when they are young – and for that matter, the momentary failures they experience - don’t define them. Address the mistakes, work through the failures, but don’t think they lock down who your child will be next week, or next year. Those mistakes and failures, just say they are on the path, in our usual human way, to becoming a person, hopefully their best self. Isn’t that a path we are all still on?

Our current round of readings are yet again addressing one of the most significant of human failings: judgement without empathy. This is the person who doubts apologies and questions motives, yet never seeks the answers that might build a more compassionate picture. They are the ones who say people never change, yet are the first to say how this life event or that experience was life-changing for them.

Because, here in our readings today we have stories about the ability of people to change.

In Ezekiel, the people are complaining that life is unfair. They are trapped by the past. Some blame their parents. Others blame circumstance. Some believe their mistakes have permanently defined them. They cannot change – they are trapped.

But God pushes back on this: those who know better and commit a gross injustice against another, they will suffer – either for their mistake itself, or for the loss of joy and community around them. But those who say sorry for their mistakes, God says, their lives be saved. In other words, don’t live in the past, don’t make excuses for wrongdoing, don’t sit in the mess of your own guilt and shame – own up to it, say sorry, and do better. Turn and live, God says. So much power and wisdom in those simple words: Turn and live.

The entire reading rests on this seemingly radical assumption that human beings can change. And an even more merciful suggestion that God seems far less interested in tallying our mistakes, than seeing what we accomplish when we move past them.

In the gospel, the chief priests approach Jesus with a question about authority. But Jesus, as he often does, offers a different question entirely. He tells a story about two sons. The first son refuses his father's request. The second son agrees. One looks righteous. The other looks rebellious.

But then we learn: the son who refused, changes his mind and does what he is asked. The son who said yes to the request right away, doesn’t do it. Who is right? Jesus asks. And of course, we all say – the son who said no but then did as asked. Because the answer is clear: both sons did the opposite of what they said. But the second son shrunk into a smaller person – someone who cannot be depended on, who talks a good talk but is unreliable. The first son started poorly or slowly, but turned things around in the end; and we sense that a lesson was learned along the way. His story, I imagine reminds us of times when we have misspoken, or jumped to conclusions that we then regretted, and the second chances we wished to have been given. Jesus talks about second chances, about change for the better, about paths not being predetermined.

And this is his long story to make a very clear point: the pharisees are like the people who believe themselves to be pious, yet do not act honorably. But the tax collectors and prostitutes will go to heaven before you, Jesus tells them. Not because they were perfect. Not because they were pious. Because they were willing to change. And tax collectors and prostitutes are all of us – flawed and careless, willing, trying to change, trying to figure things out.

The religious leaders, by contrast, saw themselves as experts. They already had everything figured out. So they could sit back and judge. Monitor. Evaluate. And Keep Score. They could say who was righteous and who was sinful. Who deserved grace and who didn’t.

The only thing they did not seem to notice was what was happening in their own hearts. Which is what always happens when we judge – locking people into one place. It feels like we have things figured out; but we have lost the opportunity to do the important work of looking inward, to figure out ourselves.

Jesus isn't criticizing the religious leaders because they care about morality. He's criticizing them because they are focused on everyone else's moral development and not their own. It's much easier to evaluate another person's soul than our own. Much easier to identify another person's flaws. Much easier to spot hypocrisy somewhere else.

Paul spells it out perhaps the most clearly. He offers a life lesson that is the opposite of sitting in judgement: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” He urges an outward approach to the world that requires a belief in the value and goodness of people. “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of others.” And for guidance, he recommends a mind modelled on the example set by Jesus.

Jesus who tells us, we can learn from our mistakes and grow. We can fix what we have broken. We can change and be better.

And thank goodness for that. Because every one of us has been wrong about something. Every one of us has hurt people. Every one of us has needed forgiveness. And every one of us has the power to learn and change, grow wiser and become kinder.

The Gospel assumes that transformation is possible. More than that, the gospel insists that we be transforming people, and transformational communities. While we are busy making mistakes or judging others for theirs, God is always extending the same invitation – to get ourselves, as Ezekiel says, "a new heart and a new spirit."

Turn and live. Amen.