Worship
Service for October 12, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth!
P: Sing to the glory of God’s name.
L: All of creation worships, singing praise
to God.
P: Sing to the glory of God’s name.
L: Let us give glory to God.
Opening Hymn – Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee #464/90
Prayer of Confession
Holy God,
when we are in need, we cry out for Your mercy and healing. Yet, we confess that too often, we are
confident in our own strength. We take
the blessings to which we feel entitled, and continue on our way, rather than
returning to You in worship and praise.
Jesus, have mercy on us! It is
easy to take for granted the ease of life we so often experience, while failing
to question why others are pushed to the margins and excluded. It is tempting to take pride in our health
and strength rather than confronting ableism in all its forms. Jesus, have mercy on us! Help us to grow in compassion for all
people. Redirect our paths so that we
return to You, offering our praise and gratitude, now and always. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: The saying is sure: If we have died with
Christ, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with
him. We are clothed with the
righteousness of Christ.
P: By God’s mercy, our sins are
forgiven. Thanks be to God.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Compassionate God, You are God of all creation. Only You know the expanse of the cosmos and
every small and hidden corner of creation.
You have created us in love, and we join all of creation in singing to
the glory of Your name.
We give thanks for Your generous provisions. Thank You for the basic elements that sustain
life, and the joy and beauty that enrich it.
We give thanks for Your works of healing. While we live in a world still marked by pain
and suffering, we acknowledge gifts of health and strength. For prayers answered, bodies healed,
relationships restored, and hope that displaces despair, we give You thanks.
We give thanks for Your diverse creation. While we often get mired in our own
particular lives, Your care and concern cross all boundaries and borders. We are grateful for all of the different
people in the world, each created in and reflecting Your image. May we always return to You in gratitude and
praise.
We pray for the many needs in our world. We pray for those living in war zones, and
all who have been displaced by violence, disaster, and trauma. Bring Your peace and healing to the nations,
and make us all ready to receive and support siblings in need. Help us to see our shared humanity which is
greater than the divisions we create and uphold.
We pray for your most vulnerable children, especially those who are
pushed to the margins, neglected, and worse.
It can be easy to keep them out of sight and out of mind, to hold them
at arm’s length as the perpetual “other,’ or to look at their situations and
simply give thanks they are not our own.
We ask for miracles that change the difficult and deadly circumstances
so many face, and that you ignite our own compassion. Give us wisdom to know how to respond and the
courage to act.
We pray for all who are hurting, in body, mind or spirit. Jesus, have mercy and heal what is broken. We
pray for broken bodies, broken hearts, broken relationships, and broken spirits. Creator of all, re-create this world, so we
can live in shalom together.
We offer the prayer of our hearts for those we’ve named aloud…
We offer the prayer of our hearts in this time of silence…
All of these we offer to you, including those that are known only to
you in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray saying….
Our Father, who art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – Ye
Servants of God #477/38
Scripture Reading(s):
OT – Jeremiah 29:1,4-7
NT – Luke 17:11-19
Sermon – And One
Gave Thanks
(based on Luke 17:11-19)
When
my son was young, I used to print out premade Thank You cards for him to send
out at Christmas and for his Birthday, which had most of the information
already printed, he just had to fill in the person’s name and what he received
to make it easier for him. He reluctantly
did it. He always rebelled against any
kind of writing. As he got older, I
stopped printing out premade Thank You cards, and instead just purchased the
generic Thank You notes from the store, and made sure that he thanked people
for the specific gifts they sent at Christmas and Birthdays. As he got older still, I simply reminded him
to do it. Over time, he stopped doing it
altogether even when I reminded him.
One
day, after another year of not receiving a thank you note from him, his
grandmother asked me why Tyler didn’t send her thank you notes anymore. She complained about it and sounded quite
hurt by his lack of gratitude.
“I’m
thinking of not sending him a gift this year,” she said, “I wonder how he’d
feel about that?” I remained
silent. “Well, I wouldn’t actually do
that.”
“So,”
I replied, “you don’t send gifts to get notes? Why do you send them?”
“Because
I love him,” she replied. “Thank you notes would be nice, but I guess receiving
one isn’t necessary for me to continue to give him gifts.”
To
be quite frank, I’m terrible about sending thank you notes, too. Sometimes, I just call and tell people
thanks, or in passing remember to thank them.
But, unfortunately, sometimes…amidst the busyness of the holiday and
life in general, it just doesn’t get done.
But then, I also don’t expect thank you notes from people I send gifts
to, but it’s always nice to receive them.
And
that’s today’s lesson from Luke.
In
this story, Jesus heals ten lepers. They
are healed. All of them. But only one
went back to Jesus and said thank you. He’s
an outsider, a Samaritan, perhaps one not accustomed to being the recipient of
a divine gift like healing, a spiritual blessing conferred in this instance by only
priests, for he was a leper. For
whatever reason, this one leper didn’t take the gift for granted and chose to
return to Jesus to express his gratitude. In response, Jesus thanks him —
and sends him on his way.
This
is a rich story for what it says about Jesus and the Samaritan leper. And it is an intriguing one for what it
doesn’t say about the nine lepers who didn’t return to say thank you.
There’s
no indication that their lack of gratitude affected the gift.
Jesus
didn’t take the gift back. He didn’t
threaten or warn the nine. He didn’t
send the disease to reinfect the ingrates. He didn’t direct the temple authorities to
arrest them and return them to the leper colony.
Saying
thank you — or not — had nothing to do with the gift.
Ultimately,
this story is about the generosity of God. The gift of healing is free. Christian theology calls that grace — a gift
with no strings attached, a gift that comes from the nature of God, a gift of
love. God is the Ever-Gifting One. Extravagantly, endlessly, without condition or
expectation of response. All of creation
is a gift; every day we are surrounded by gifts. The gifts never stop, are never taken back,
not in any way contingent on the recipient. The gifts just are.
Only
sometimes do we notice. Only
occasionally do we turn back, fall on our knees with gratitude, and say thank
you.
However,
gratefulness isn’t what heals us. At the
end of the story, Jesus says it is faith — meaning, in this
case, TRUST (not “belief” or “doctrine,” but a disposition of
“trust”) that makes us well.
In
effect, gratitude is an expression of trust. Sometimes, we take gifts for granted because
we trust that they will always come.
Perhaps not sending
a thank you note is an odd expression of that confidence — we trust the
dependable, loving grandmother, other relative or friend to never forget a
holiday or birthday. But, sometimes, a
gift is so enormous, so unexpected that we do notice. And that’s when we turn around and fall on our
knees in wonder to offer thanks, finally understanding that gracious gifts
surround us every day and have always attended our way.
The
small phrase in this exchange about the Samaritan leper who, “turned back,” is
actually quite important. In other
places in the New Testament, conversion is referred to as a “turning” of one’s
heart or mind toward God. In this story,
the one man not only trusts but he turns. He has more than an internal change of trust;
his is a literal action — a physical turning toward Jesus. There are a few places in scripture — like
this story — where a turning of heart is accompanied and completed by a turning
in one’s actions.
Your
heart may, indeed, be full of gratitude. And yet, somehow, the inner experience is not
quite complete without an outward expression — the change in one’s actions.
When
gratitude becomes an action, it can change everything — it transforms our
ability to see the giftedness of our lives, to stop taking the great generosity
of the Gifter for granted, and to freely respond with attentive, active trust.
You
don’t ever have to say thank you. God’s
love never ceases; the gifts never end. And yet, it is good to notice how
extraordinary it truly is — this gracious love, this gifted life. Trusting that, being attentive to it, makes us
whole.
Trusting
it and acting upon it might just change everything, turn
everything around.
This
story also reminds us that it is easy to overlook gifts.
That
includes gifts of both nature and neighbor. Gifts of ground, water, and sky — the
fruitfulness of the earth, the generosity of this gorgeous planet. Gifts of friendship, care, and the common good
— the safety and freedoms strengthened in community, the plenty provided by
wise governance.
Without
these gifts, we would’ve never even existed. Neither God nor creation nor our own
carelessness takes those gifts away — and never would or can they. The gifts that sustain us are always with us,
even if ignored or abused to the point of crisis.
We’ve
done a lot of ignoring and abusing. It
has been our choice to take many of these gifts for granted. We’re often more like the nine than the one.
We
don’t know what happened to the nine. We
only know that they went on. Perhaps
they stewarded the gift of new health well, put themselves on a new pathway of health
and healing, sharing their story with others, helping others by leading them to
healing; but, then again, perhaps not. Probably
not. Unfortunately, for most of us, it is
all too easy to assume that things will go on as they are, as they always have.
In
today’s story, the full circle of gifting was not complete until one person
recognized the gift, turned around, and said thank you. In
effect, gratitude rejected assumption. Saying thank
you changed the attitude and disposition of the beneficiary, the
person who received the gift, not the giver.
Jesus’
final words were “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you
well.” The Greek word for “well” is sózó. That word
doesn’t just mean to be cured from an illness. It’s a much stronger word. Rather, it means to be saved, rescued, or
delivered — healed body and soul. The
one man, who freely responded and returned with thanks, was truly transformed
as Jesus himself affirmed: Your trust in this circle of gifts and
gratitude has made you whole. Not just
well, but whole, complete. The Samaritan
wasn’t just returned to health, but he was made wholly body and soul, well.
And
then Jesus returned his gratitude with a reciprocal thank you. Thank
you for understanding that all these gifts, even when given with love by a
trustworthy giver, are precious, and carry with them some moral responsibility
— to pass them on, to share your gift with others, to care for and steward what
has been given. To receive a gift is a
wonder and a joy — and an invitation to be delivered from indifference.
Current
threats to the climate, to world peace, to democracy itself obscure God’s gifts
— and they remind us that we have, indeed, been very careless with the gifts of
both nature and neighbor. It is easy to
be overwhelmed.
But
today’s lesson from Luke leans away from judgment toward hope. The Earth, all
of creation, still gives her gifts. The
fabric of community may be frayed and worn, but the threads of freedom still
stir our imaginations and fuel action. Healing
continues, even in our deeply wounded world.
What
would it be like if, instead of going on our way, we turned around and
said thank you? To God, to creation itself? To one another when we experience kindness,
help, goodness, and generosity? Would we
find ourselves growing in trust that we’ve not been deserted
in this diseased place, in a spiral of death?
This
story and thinking about it has definitely inspired in me a need to be more outwardly
thankful. To take the time to say
thanks, to be more ambitious in writing thank you notes.
Perhaps
healing is closer than we think. Closer
than we know. And if we receive a gift,
even one as great as being made well, will we just take it for granted — again?
What
if we completed the circle of gifts and gratitude by responding with
thankfulness and praise? If gratefulness
can save a Samaritan leper, then surely it can save us.
Remember
the gifts. Don’t take them for granted. Trust. And
then do something about it.
That’s
what will make us whole.
Thanks
be to God. AMEN.
Offertory -
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication
Holy
and generous God, use the gifts we bring for healing and reconciliation in the
world, to the glory of your name. AMEN
Closing Hymn – The Church’s One Foundation #444/401
Benediction
Get up, go on your way!
Go from this place to be builders of God’s beloved community. See the face of Christ in each person you
meet. Follow the Spirit, wherever the
Spirit leads. Go in peace. AMEN.
Postlude
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