Saying Grace

 

Luke 17:11-19

Proper 23 / Year C

Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean?  But the other nine, where are they?  Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ^{Luke 17:17-18}

Surely all ten lepers are elated when they recognize they have been healed.  Two things distinguish the one from the other nine.  First, he is a foreigner.  Perhaps the others, being local, rush home to reunite with loved ones while, because his family and friends are far away, his impulse to go back to Jesus does not have to compete with other options at hand.  And second, he takes the intentional step of returning to Jesus to express gratitude; not that the others aren’t grateful, they simply don’t convey it directly to Jesus.

I suppose most of us regularly give thanks to God in one of several distinct ways:

·       You come to church to be a part of the Great Thanksgiving.

·       You say prayers when you go to bed at night, giving thanks for the blessings of the day which is past.

·       If you are a morning person (and not a grouch like me), you offer thanksgiving for the beginning of a new day.

·       When you sit down to enjoy a meal; especially when you are at a dining table with family or friends.

This morning I want to focus on this last one.

A recent survey found almost 50% of us say a grace before a meal, a statistic which is higher than I imagined.  I’m not sure how it squares with the finding nearly 70% of all meals are eaten outside the home.  Another survey revealed 2/3^rds of parents indicate it is difficult to have family dinners because members are on different schedules and tend to eat at different times. 

When we do manage to sit at table with others, the focus of the grace we say has changed, even if the words “God is great, God is good.  Let us thank Him for our food” have not.  Up until modern times, when a family gathered at a dinner table the food they ate largely came from their own labor.  If a pestilence struck the crops, if a coyote got into the chicken house, if the rains never came, or if any one of a whole host of other calamities occurred, the family went hungry, perhaps all winter long.  It was natural to be thankful for food on the table because food on the table was not a given.

And while 17% of homes in our country live with food insecurity, most of us don’t have to worry if we will be able to eat dinner tonight.  In fact, most of us or more preoccupied with eating less than with having something at all to eat.  When food on the table (or the counter or the couch or the backseat of the car) is the daily norm, being grateful can be a challenge. 

And yet there still is something miraculous about it.  Over 10% of the American workforce is employed in the agricultural and food sectors.  Think about all the people whose labor allows farmers to farm and ranchers to ranch:

·       The people on the assembly line at John Deere, for example, who make the machinery used on farms. 

·       The hard-working folks who pick or process what is produced.

·       All those who package, transport, and put items on the shelves of our local groceries. 

·       Behind it all are the office personnel who manage the business end of the industry. 

The interconnectedness of our world truly is amazing.  Our well-being is intricately tied to the work of others.  We are every bit as dependent on them as our ancestors were on seasonal rain.  Perhaps an appropriate table grace today might be this:

God is great.  God is good.

  So too the labors of our food.

Through their work, we are fed.

  Without them we’d not have bread.

As we dine we keep in mind,

  the community of which this is a sign.

For all You do and for their part,

  we give thanks with all our heart.

May we add to this world what we can

strengthened by the food at hand.

God created us in such a way that we react to the events of life with deep emotion.  Every day we experience things which give rise to a wide array of responses – such as fear, anger, frustration, grief, regret, apprehension.  And while we cannot control how we naturally react to all that happens in a given day, we have complete command over how we respond.  The wisdom of the Prayer of St. Francis is rooted in this truth (“where there is hatred, we can sow love”).

Gratitude is a choice.  And when we choose to be grateful, we tap into God’s power to transform how we experience life.  Appreciating all those who have a hand in providing the food we eat can help us to recognize how the totality of our lives is made so much better through the labor of others.  A rare few opt to live “off the grid” – isolated and completely dependent on self alone.  The rest of us live in a village and thus rely on others as we do what we can to contribute to the common good.

Gratitude is also a spiritual discipline; an exercise you undertake to fashion your soul.  Like all spiritual disciplines, the more you do it, the more you become it, and it becomes you.  A good place to start is saying grace at the beginning of meal.  Use it as an act of mindfulness which will shape you to become grateful for all the blessings of this life.