A Pot Luck Thanksgiving

A Pot Luck Thanksgiving
Luke 17:11-19
A few years ago our extended family of 3 generations had a pot luck Thanksgiving. Everyone was supposed to bring a dish. I offered to bring mashed potatoes. After all, how hard can it be to peel, cut, boil, and mash potatoes? But I didn’t want to be preparing my dish at the last minute, so I found a recipe for a mashed potato casserole.
Of course, I needed to do a trial run of the recipe before Thanksgiving. And when I did, it went well and tasted pretty good. I began thinking about an empty casserole dish on Thanksgiving Day and lots of compliments. The dish would be a big hit.
But then I thought about some of the things that could go wrong. What if there was so much food that little of my casserole dish was eaten? Or what if another dish was the favorite and not my dish? Or suppose someone didn’t bring a dish and do their share of the work? These were all things that could keep us from being thankful on Thanksgiving Day.

There is a story about being thankful in Luke’s Gospel. Ten lepers were healed by Jesus, but only one of them returned to Jesus and said, “Thank you.” The other nine may have had good excuses. They may have been so excited that they went and told their families and friends and forgot to say “Thank you.” Or they may have thought it was not fair that the others had been healed and they hadn’t had leprosy as long as they had. Or, they may have thought that they deserved to be healed and that they shouldn’t have ever had the disease. Whatever their reasons, only one of the ten who were healed returned to Jesus and told him “Thank you.”
During the season of Thanksgiving, we may want to watch out for those things that may keep us from begin thankful. Sometimes we can take what we have for granted and even think that we deserve more than we have. Or, we may see what other have and be frustrated and jealous because we don’t have as much as they have. Or, we may just be so busy with our own activities that we fail to take at least a moment to say “Thank you.”
The story of the ten lepers reminds us that God has blessed us and given us everything that we have. When we remember that, then we will do what one of the ten lepers did. We too can say “Than you.” because we are thankful for all that we have and because all of it is a gift from God.