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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">You can even be thankful during the most difficult of circumstances in life. It's true! We see an especially inspiring example of a brave and thankful heart in the story behind one of the church's most popular hymns, "Now Thank We All Our God." This particularly hymn was written during the Thirty Years War in Germany, in the early 1600s. Its author was Martin Rinkart, a Lutheran pastor in the town of Eilenburg in Saxony.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Now, Eilenburg was a walled city, so it became a haven for refugees seeking safety from the fighting. But soon, the city became too crowded and food was in short supply. Then, a famine hit and a terrible plague and Eilenburg became a giant morgue.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In one year alone, Pastor Rinkart conducted funerals for 4,500 people, including his own wife. The war dragged on; the suffering continued. Yet through it all, he never lost courage or faith and even during the darkest days of Eilenburg's agony, he was able to write this hymn:</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Now thank we all our God,</SPAN></div>
<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">with hearts and hands and voices,</SPAN></div>
<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Who wondrous things hath done,</SPAN></div>
<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In whom the world rejoices</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">... keep us in His grace,</SPAN></div>
<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">and guide us when perplexed,</SPAN></div>
<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">and free us from all ills,</SPAN></div>
<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">in this world and the next.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Even when he was waist deep in destruction, Pastor Rinkart was able to lift his sights to a higher plane. He kept his mind on God's love when the world was filled with hate. He kept his mind on God's promises of heaven when the earth was a living hell. Can we not do the same - we whose lives are almost trouble-free, compared with the man who wrote that hymn?</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Whom can you say "thank you" to?</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Erskine White, Together in Christ, CSS Publishing Company</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Overwhelmed by the Gift</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">When did you first notice that some people are more thankful than others are? When I was a young father, I remember taking my little children out on Halloween to go “trick-or-treating.” They were very young, perhaps three and five, and were appropriately costumed in garb which thrilled us as parents. As they toddled to the front doors, I stood back and watched. I noticed that after they bravely mustered their “trick or treat,” and took the candy, they didn’t say “thank you.” It then became my mission to explain that after they received the candy, they should always say “thank you.” </SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">After many attempts to encourage a grateful behavior pattern, in some frustration I came to understand that they were far more overwhelmed with the idea that when a door opens in the darkness two people with candy appear, than they were overwhelmed with the idea that they were being graced with an unwarranted gift. It dawned on me that gratitude needs a touchstone in the heart, a place or moment when someone recognizes that this didn’t have to happen: What I am receiving is pure gift! I neither earned nor deserved this! Such an insight is too profound for little children on Halloween night—and perhaps for many of us on any night. </SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">David Zersen, What Is Grace Calling You to Be?</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Humor: Does Everyone Do That?</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The story is told of a farmer who went into town for a little breakfast. As his meal was set before him, he bowed his head and offered a silent prayer. The man at the next table derided him, "Hey, does everybody do that where you come from?" "No," said the farmer. "The pigs don't."</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Frank Lyman, Collected Sermons, <A href="http://www.sermons.com/" target=_blank>www.Sermons.com</A></SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">A Letter of Appreciation</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In the book "A Window on the Mountain," Winston Pierce tells of his high school class reunion. A group of the old classmates were reminiscing about things and persons they were grateful for. One man mentioned that he was particularly thankful for Mrs. Wendt, for she more than anyone had introduced him to Tennyson and the beauty of poetry. Acting on a suggestion, the man wrote a letter of appreciation to Mrs. Wendt and addressed it to the high school. The note was forwarded and eventually found the old teacher. About a month later the man received a response. It was written in a feeble longhand and read as follows: “My dear Willie, I can’t tell you how much your letter meant to me. I am now in my nineties, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely, and like the last leaf of fall lingering behind. You will be interested to know that I taught school for forty years and yours is the first letter of appreciation I ever received. It came on a blue, cold morning and it cheered me as nothing has for years. Willie, you have made my day.”</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Staff, <A href="http://www.esermons.com/" target=_blank>www.eSermons.com</A></SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">________________________</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The Old Farmer's Feelings</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Perhaps you have heard the story of the old farmer who, with his wife, was celebrating fifty years of married life. Life on a farm can be tough; commitment is required. And you have to be frugal.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Their children gave them a party during which lots of friends congratulated the honored couple. They looked at old pictures, brought out old phonograph records. The fifty-year couple even danced a bit to the old, familiar music. When the party was over and all had gone home the happy couple found themselves alone. It was a tender moment. The old farmer, who was careful with his money and even more frugal with his words, felt moved to speak.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">"You know, Ma, over these fifty years, sometimes I've loved you so much that I could hardly keep from telling you." She reached for a hankie, dabbed her eyes and said: "Thank ya', Pa."</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Why are we so reluctant to let others know how we feel? Why are we so stingy and so slow to speak words that others long to hear, so private in saying things that cry out to be said?</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Traditional</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">To Be Sure!</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">I am always impressed with the litany-like phrases Martin Luther uses in The Small Catechism as petition by petition he explains the Lord's Prayer:</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">To be sure, God's name is holy itself ...To be sure, the kingdom of God comes of itself, without our prayers ...To be sure, the good and gracious will of God is done without our prayer ...To be sure, God provides daily bread, even to the wicked, without our prayer...</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">To be sure, to be sure, to be sure! God's gifts come to us despite our unfaithfulness and often without our prayers. Paul quotes an ancient Christian hymn in his second letter to Timothy: "If we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13)." Our faithlessness and ingratitude cannot make of God something that he is not. To be sure!</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">All of which brings us to the heart of today's gospel. Rudolph Bultmann is quite correct when he notes that the emphasis of Luke's story is not the miracle of 10 lepers cleansed, but rather the contrast of gratitude and ingratitude depicted on the same dramatic canvas.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Luke draws the contrast all the more boldly when he notes that the man returning to give thanks was a Samaritan, a "foreigner." Always the master storyteller among the four evangelists, Luke, having already given us the story of the "Good Samaritan," now gives us the story of the "Thankful Samaritan."</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Theodore F. Schneider, United the King Comes, CSS Publishing Company</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The First Billionaire</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The very first person to reach the status of billionaire was a man who knew how to set goals and follow through. At the age of 23, he had become a millionaire, by the age of 50 a billionaire. Every decision, attitude, and relationship was tailored to create his personal power and wealth. But three years later at the age of 53 he became ill.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">His entire body became racked with pain and he lost all the hair on his head. In complete agony, the world's only billionaire could buy anything he wanted, but he could only digest milk and crackers. An associate wrote, "He could not sleep, would not smile and nothing in life meant anything to him." His personal, highly skilled physicians predicted he would die within a year.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">That year passed agonizingly slow. As he approached death he awoke one morning with the vague remembrances of a dream. He could barely recall the dream but knew it had something to do with not being able to take any of his successes with him into the next world. The man who could control the business world suddenly realized he was not in control of his own life. He was left with a choice…</SPAN></div>
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<div style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for the Proper 23 can be accessed at <A href="http://www.sermons.com/" target=_blank>www.Sermons.com</A>. </SPAN></div>
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