Sermon "Returning to Give Thanks" - Noan Van Niel

7/27/2019 Sermon "Returning to Give Thanks" - Noan Van Niel

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Noah Van Niel

Sermon at Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia PA

October 13, 2013

Proper 23

Good morning! Its good to be back with you. In these past 16 months Melinda and I

have often thought about you all and you remain in the center of our prayers, so I cannot begin to

tell you what a pleasure it is to be back with you today. Thank you to Alan, for reaching andinviting me, and thank you to you all for allowing me the chance to share a few words with you

today.

Earlier this week as I was pondering the readings for today, waiting for todays sermon

topic to reveal itself, I got a phone call out of the blue. I was from my old college thesis advisor.

He had seen my name on a poster on campus and realized I must be back in town, so he went all

the way through his records (and typical of many academics, he was not an organized man) andeventually found my parents home telephone number which he unabashedly called, leaving a

message to see how I was doing, which was then passed on to me by my mother. This professor

and I used to meet weekly to discuss my work, and eventually ended up talking more sports andpolitics than about English literature and drama. So by the time we parted we were more friends

than student/teacher. Yet I must admit that my first reaction to his phone call not one of joy or

happiness, but of profound embarrassment, and guilt. In the year and a half since I have beenback on campus I must have walked by the building where his office is two dozen times, often

thinking about him and even debating whether I should stop in and see him. But I never did. I

never went back to see how he was doing, to thank him for all his help, or to update him onwhere life had taken me.

I tell you this because, apparently I am not the only one who neglects to go back to thosepeople or places that have profoundly influenced their lives: the Gospel reading from Luke tells

us that for some reason, 9 out of the ten lepers that Jesus healed neglected to go back and pay

homage to him. The only one who did was a Samaritan, Foreigner, of whom no undue

faithfulness was to be expected, but who nonetheless received Jesus blessing. These 9 menwhose lives had been profoundly changed by Jesus healing powers could not find it within

themselves to go back and muster even the smallest word of thanks. And as I got that message

from my old professor, I couldnt help but feel an uneasy kinship with them.

That act of returning to pay homage is present in our Old Testament reading for this

morning as well. In fact I find it the one redeemable quality of Naaman, the Aramean warrior.

For, though he comes off as a rather snotty, difficult man, he does find it within himself to returnto Elisha after his healing in the Jordan and confess that Now I know that there is no God in all

the earth except in Israel. It is in his return that this healing story becomes a conversion story.

And this got me thinking: why dont we go back? Why is it so hard for us return to those

people or places who have influenced us so greatly in our lives? Now I can understand that we

are not inclined to relive moments of pain and hurt from our past, that seems logical and fairenough. But I cant be the only one who repeatedly says, I really should give her a call. Or Oh


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I wonder how he is doing. And then do nothing to follow up on it. Perhaps it is because we are

often quick to forget from whence we have come, too quick to credit ourselves, and not others,

with whatever success we have had. Perhaps those 9 lepers perhaps thought it by their owninitiative that they were healed and thus were unwilling to honor the place from which their

healing came.

Its true we are often quick to forget and all too often quick to give ourselves undue

credit. But I wonder if it doesnt go deeper than that. As life moves along we grow and change,

sometimes in good ways, sometimes in bad. It can be hard to look backwards, even for goodthings. We are too busy looking ahead, or around to recognize how it is we got where we are.

Perhaps we are a little ashamed to go back: I am not who you thought I would be; I have not

lived up to the dreams you helped me to dream. Or perhaps we are embarrassed that we have let

it go so long since we talked to that person. Perhaps we are worried that if we return to thatrelationship, to that place as our present selves, it will turn out to be less happy, less idealized

than we remember it to be, so we rather keep moving forward holding that person or place frozen

in time, safe from complexification of reality. Or perhaps were resistant to the raw emotionalityof what it might mean to see this person again, or to walk in that place one more time.

Friends I cant definitively tell you why we dont go back, but I do believe that we haveto. There is great virtue in doing so. We dont have to live in the past (that can be severely

damaging), but we have to go back to those moments or people or events which have shaped us

because going back gives us the chance to pay homage to what that person, or that place hasdone for us andallows us to make meaning from them. Going back, remembering, honoring and

paying tribute helps us to recognize what role those moments have played in the formation of

where we find ourselves at present. And doing so reveals how in those moments, in that person,

in that place, God was present to us and working on us.

And, if we can step outside ourselves for a moment, imagine the blessing you will grant

to the person or persons for whom you do this act of tribute. Perhaps you have been luckyenough in your life to have had someone do this for you. There are few joys greater than hearing

the difference you have made in someones life. By not doing this for the people who have

greatly influenced you, you are withholding that joy from them.

As necessary as it is to do this in our lives, it is even more important to do this in our

lives of Faith. In this we can take a lesson from our Jewish brothers and sisters for much of the

Old Testament is an act of remembering and honoring the ways in which God has proven faithfulto the people of Israel. Large swaths of text are used to recite the saving acts of God and keep

them ever present in the minds of the Israelites and their offspring. The Lord makes his

marvelous works to be remembered, the Psalmist tells us today. Friends I know most of youhere and I am willing to bet that at some point in your history there was a moment when you fell

in love with Jesus. Or maybe it was a series of moments, a slowly warming friendship if you

will, which eventually brought you to a powerful understanding of the gospel of Christ which inturn brought you to the church. We dont talk much about conversion in the Episcopal Church

but there must have been something about Jesus that called you to be here and continues to call

you this day. Remember that time. Give thanks for it. Dont forget it and move on, never goingback to it.


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This is especially important if, like the Israelites wandering in the desert, you find yourself in a

dry period of your faith; where coming to church is a habit more than a choice; where prayer

comes haltingly to your lips; where you find yourself less and less able to swallow the inherentmysteries of our faith. In those moments it is all the more important to go back to that moment

when you fell in love with Jesus and celebrate that anniversary. Go back in your heart to that

time when Jesus first moved in and took up residence. Hes ready, always ready, for you toacknowledge that moment of grace and to allow him to be reanimated for you.

My friends we must not tarry. We must stop making excuses. Now is the time to go back and paytribute. I began by saying how excited I was to be back here today and I hope now you can

understand why. Being here today I get the chance to pay tribute to, honor, and reflect on all the

ways in which you helped reveal to me my calling to the priesthood. You, this place, were the

turning point in my life and for that I am and always will be grateful. So I am back like thatSamaritan leper at the feet of Jesus, to prostrate myself before you and thank you with a loud

voice for having healed me. I am especially thankful for this opportunity because one can never

be sure that they will get these moments. As time wears on, those people, those places fadeaway; we will lose our chance to tell them how much they meant to us. The person dies; The

place is torn down; taking with them our chance to pay homage. We live in a world of

impermanence which makes it all the more important to act now, and not delay. To bless and beblessed by the opportunity for thanksgiving.

Lucky for us though, when it comes to our lives of faith, we can take heart in the fact thatJesus never fades. Unlike the things of this world he does not change. He does not die for he has

overcome death. And He will never leave you or forsake you even until the end of the age. If we

are faithless, the epistle tells us, he remains faithful; for he is faithfulness personified. Im not

saying we should delay in returning to him, rather I am saying that no matter how far you arefrom that moment when you first gave yourself to him, hell still be there waiting. It might not

easy to go back. It might call into stark relief the ways in which you have changed or drifted

from who you first came to know him. But it is essential. We have to go back. To pay tribute toGod for the myriad ways he has blessed us. And to be reminded what it was like when his light

first shined in your life; to rekindle the embers into a roaring flame. And having done so, to Get

up and go on our way, (as Jesus Tells us) renewed in spirit, our hearts full of thanks, and ourlife and our labor committed anew to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

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Sermon "Returning to Give Thanks" - Noan Van Niel