Tag Archives: bonhoeffer

October 13, 2010

Grateful

By Keith Anderson

One of my favorite Christian writers, Anne Lamott, says that the two very best prayers she knows are these: “Help me.  Help me.  Help me,” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”  Those two prayers are a perfect summary of our Gospel reading this morning.

In this morning’s Gospel, we find Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, passing through a small village in the region between Samaria and Galilee.  As he enters this village, ten lepers call to him from the outskirts of town.  Although today we now know leprosy as Hansen’s disease and know that 95% of people have a natural immunity to it and it is fully curable, in Jesus’ time, leprosy was a general term for anyone with a bad skin condition.  It was thought to be highly contagious.  According to religious law, lepers had to remain on the margins of villages and towns with other lepers and outcasts. Their possessions were thrown out. Fabrics from their home were burned for fear of infection. When people would approach them, lepers were obligated to yell, “Unclean! Unclean!” to ward people off.  They were required to wear tattered clothes to remind people of this uncleanliness and for people to stay away.  They were unclean, homeless, destitute, outcast.  From their exile on the outskirts of town and life, the ten lepers call out out to Jesus “Help us!  Help us!  Help us!”  He tells them to go show themselves to the priest.  Now, in Jesus’ time, being clean or unclean, whole or disabled, well or sick, were not only medical diagnoses, but more importantly at the time, religious categories, and therefore it was the priests that determined if one was healthy and whole and able enough to rejoin society.  So, although there is no talk of healing in our text, Jesus’ instruction indicates something is about to happen.  And happen it does.  As they go on their way, they are healed of their disease.

One of them, when he sees that he’s healed turns back praising God with a loud voice.  He prostrates himself at Jesus’ feet, crying, “Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.”  He was a Samaritan.  As with so many stories in the Gospels, it is an outsider that becomes the model of faith.  Jesus wonders where the other nine have gone.  He asks “Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

Then he turns to the Samaritan and says, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”  Not just healed, but made well, made whole.  The leper’s gratitude has brought about something more, something broader and deeper than just physical healing.

This story of Jesus and the Ten Lepers is about the importance, as well as the scarcity, of gratitude. In our own culture, as in our Gospel, gratitude is an often overlooked virtue.  Like the lepers in the Gospel, we rarely take time for it.  We get what we need and then we are off to the next thing.  We rarely take the time just to be grateful.  When we do, it is often reserved for certain times like Thanksgiving or Christmas.

To make that gratitude a little less scarce this morning, I’m going to ask you to do something.  I’m going to ask you to turn to someone beside you, or in front of you, or behind you – someone you aren’t related to.  And share one thing you are grateful for and why you are grateful for it.  We’ll take a few minutes; don’t rush; don’t worry about the time.  I’ll keep track and then I’ll call us back.  Let’s do that now.

~ Share one thing you are grateful for and why ~

~ What are some of the things you named?  Just call them out. ~ Continue reading

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in grace, gratitude, healing

September 5, 2010

Almost Christian

By Keith Anderson

A new book about youth ministry and the church is getting a lot of attention these days. It’s by Kendra Creasy Dean, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and a leading expert on youth ministry, and the book is entitled Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. (See additional links at the end of the post.)

The book is a summary of Dean’s research on the faith lives of teenagers, based on interviews with over 3,000 youth about their views on religion, faith, and God.

She found that, overwhelmingly, teenagers today practice what she calls a “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Dean explains that the teenagers she interviewed feel that “religion helps you [to] feel good and do good, but God pretty much stays out of the way. …you can call on God if you need God to solve a problem, but God’s track record on solving problems is pretty bad.” She says the primary images of God for these teens are as “cosmic therapist” that helps you feel good about yourself, and “divine butler”, someone who comes when called upon but otherwise stays away. She boils his belief system down into these five things:

  1. God exists, God created and watches over the world
  2. God wants us to be good, nice and fair to each other
  3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself
  4. God is not involved except when I need God to solve a problem
  5. Good people go to heaven when they die

Moralistic (do good) therapeutic (feel good) deism (a weak, distant, generalized idea of god).

However, Dean says that before we bemoan or somehow scapegoat our youth, we must first take a hard look at ourselves, because this is the faith that our youth are seeing and hearing from us – from churches and the adults in their lives. She writes, “If this is the God they’re seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust. Churches don’t give them enough to be passionate about.” “If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation.” Ouch.

This probably comes, in part, from our (sometimes desperate) attempt to keep teenagers (and adults) in church. We try to make faith nice and easy, we set the bar low, but youth actually want more. They want a more radical faith, something they can be passionate about, that will challenge them, something that they can grab hold of, something that will grab hold of them…something that could actually, profoundly, change their lives. They are longing for a faith worth living and dying for.

I think we adults want the same thing, don’t we? And yet, and, if we our honest, I think Dean is right, that most of us easily veer into this “moralistic therapeutic diesm,” this “gospel of niceness.” We want a God that makes us feel better, feel safe. And yes, our God does do this and it is a good thing…but not the only thing.

It is “almost Christian,” perhaps “partially Christian.” It is part of the picture, but not the whole thing, and not by far. Continue reading

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in cross, death, discipleship, resurrection, youth

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