Living Grateful

Gratitude is faith's first fruit.  Spoiler alert--that will be my theme for the weekend message!  And it is my theme for today.

The leper was the only one in Luke 17 who is commended for his faith.  That is because he is the only one who expresses gratitude.  This is, as Martin Luther might say, the First Commandment in action. Faith is more than the acknowledgment of God's existence.  It is the willingness to rely on God alone for all good things.  And the only healthy response to such goodness is gratitude.  As Luther says in his explanation of the Creed, therefore we ought to thank and praise, serve and obey God.  This is most certainly true.

When the leper returns to Jesus to give thanks, he acknowledges Jesus as the source of the good that has befallen him.  In a deeper sense than he may have known, he treats Jesus as God.  So Jesus commends his faith and sends him on his way.

Gratitude is a feeling put into action.  Today, I have the chance to live gratefully in a significant way.  I have been asked to be part of a re-accreditation conversation for the Bryan School of Nursing in Lincoln, Nebraska.  When my late first wife, Anne, was hospitalized at Bryan LGH East hospital, we were served in part by four student nurses from the Bryan School.  

All of the nursing staff, therapists and physicians were wonderful to us in a variety of ways.  But the nursing students were special to us.  Anne was their only patient, so they spent hours with us at her bedside.  We became acquainted with them quickly and deeply.  They told us that they learned a great deal from our care for Anne.  More than that, they told us that they learned a great deal from Anne as a courageous and determined participant in life.

When we prepared to take Anne home to die, the student nurses came to us one by one.  Each of them had tears in their eyes.  We had known them just ten days, but all of our lives were changed.  I think they are better nurses as a result of our time together.  And we are better people because of their care.

So I am honored to give thanks and to give back to the Bryan School.  We have been able to fund the education of some student nurses and future nurse educators with Anne's memorial money.  In fact, I was also honored to officiate at the wedding of one of those students not so long ago.  So the relationships have continued to some degree.  And gratitude is one of the ways that I am privileged to join the chapters of my life.  Brenda will be part of that conversation as well today.  Of all the people on earth, I often feel that I am the most fortunate.

Speaking our thanks is the beginning of gratitude.  Then living out our thanks in concrete ways is the real fullness of that gratitude.  In our readings this morning, we met the summary of this from Cicero: "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others."  This is most certainly true.