Deuteronomy 28:1-14 & Luke 17:11-19

Grateful Trust

Wouldn’t be great if we could control the weather. I mean, I don’t wish to cast doubt on God’s wisdom, but sometimes I think that I could organise things much better if I were in charge. And I’m not just talking about the tropical storms that have brought such chaos to various countries over the last few weeks. Trying to get control was what the whole idol worship thing was all about in Old Testament times. People knew full well that they couldn’t control the weather. They had been farmers for generations. They knew about planting times and harvest times. They knew about tilling the soil, fertilising it, weeding it, which crops to plant when. They didn’t have all the technology that modern agriculture uses, but they had their oxen and ploughs, their scythes and sickles.

But they didn’t have control over the weather, and that was critical. That could be the difference between starving before the next harvest and not. They didn’t have any defence against the locusts, which could strip a field bare in minutes. They would be harried by marauding raiders from neighbouring countries, who would come and steal their livestock. They couldn’t control any of these. People through out the ages and around the world have faced these problems, and the solutions they have come up with have looked remarkably similar. They could not face the possibility that nobody was in control, so they believed that there were gods who were in control, and who must be sacrificed to, placated, persuaded, to arrange the weather, prevent the plagues, defeat the enemies.

Now, the Christian belief is that there is a God who is trustworthy, and works all things for the good of those who love God. But this God is not one who can be manipulated or who needs placating, the one true God is not like that. This morning, Nick was sharing with us about how God shaped the people of God after they left Egypt. And God did this by showing them what God is like, and calling them to be more Godly in the way that they lived.

They had been moulded into the shape of slaves by the brutality and cruelty of Pharaoh. Now they were free but did not know how to live free. So God shows them that, in contrast to Pharaoh, God listens and gives food, and wants to be listened to. God begins to reshape them as a grateful, listening, people that God can speak with.

The reading we heard from Deuteronomy, continues this process of reshaping of the people of God, by showing more of what God is like. God is the God of the whole of creation, of fields and flocks, of seas and oceans, of harvest and home. God is God who loves to bless.

If is a really important word, but it’s quite small and sometimes it gets lost.

We’ve already seen that there are lots of lovely things in this passage, fruitful fields, bulging barns, copious crops, all blessings that we want and which we celebrate at harvest time. They take up the majority of the passage. If we’re not careful, however, we can miss the conditions.
They take up much less room, are much shorter, and the risk is that we skip over them in our desire to get to the good stuff. There are three phrases in the passage with an “if”

If you obey the voice of the Lord your God

If you keep the commandments of the Lord your God

If you do not go after other gods to serve them.

All three of these pick up on different aspects of the reshaping of the people of God into a people that more faithfully represents God to the world.

God is a God who speaks, unlike idols of wood or stone, this is a living God with a voice. A voice that calls creation into being, that has spoken, and continues to speak to us. The people of God are shaped by the things that God says to us, through Scripture, by the Holy Spirit, through our conversations with each other. As we listen and hear God’s voice, so it shapes us as we are obedient to it.

God is a God who commands, who directs the way that we should live. Now, we might think that this is back to slavery, God as tyrant setting arbitrary rules for people to live by for no good reason. But this is not what God is like. The two great commands are to love God and to love each other. All the rest flow from these. God created everything, and is rightful sovereign over us. God has given us the freedom to choose whether or not to recognise that sovereignty, whether or not to obey God. We have a decision to make, each day, whether or not we will.

God is uncontrollable and is not a means to an end to gain control over things that are otherwise out of our control. People throughout the ages have turned to things that they called god, in order to try and regain control. Through sacrifice and ritual they have tried to bring the chaos into order. In this age we try to do it with technology rather than altars and the blood of bulls, but the underlying drive is the same. But this is not to be the basis of our relationship with God. Our relationship with God is one of love, not of control. God does not seek to control us, but speaks to us, and yes commands us, but then allows us to choose how we will live, making clear the consequences of our choices.

So, what does all this mean for us, today, in our lives, at harvest. Well, as Nick said this morning, listening to what God is saying to us is vital to our lives as followers of Jesus. We read the Bible, we listen to sermons, we pray, we ask God to speak. And then, we need to do what we hear.

I wonder if you remember learning to drive, or maybe teaching someone to drive. However much my driving instructor told me stuff about how to change gear smoothly, steer sensibly, drive safely, he only knew I’d got it when I did it. I couldn’t claim that I was driving fine if it was clear to everybody else on the road that I wasn’t. I could say “yes,yes” but if he was still having to use the dual controls then I wasn’t doing it right. The final step of true listening is to put into practice what we have heard.

So, if one of the core commandments is to love God, how do we do that? One of the best ways of showing that we love someone is by showing gratitude. By saying thank you. We know this, because we know that one of the most difficult things to deal with in a family is when we get the sense that we are being taken for granted.

The account we heard from the life of Jesus illustrates this. Jesus was demonstrating what love of neighbour might look like. He was reaching out to those on the edges of society, even beyond the edge. People who no one else would touch for fear of contamination and disease. Even today, to describe someone as a leper carries the message that they are outcast, unwanted, maybe even dangerous. Jesus doesn’t seem to see these people like that, he listens to them and gives them what they ask for, and sends them off to see the priests. Why did he do this? Because only the priests could examine them, declare that they were well, and allow them to return to their homes and family lives. He wants them to be free, not only of the disease, but also of the social stigma associated with it.

All ten of them face a choice. They’ve been listened to, God has worked in their lives miraculously, beyond their control, they’ve been loved. How are they going to love God?
Only one of them does so by returning and saying thank you, by showing how grateful he is, by refusing to take God for granted.

I wonder if we ever take God for granted?

Harvest is a fantastic opportunity to come to God and to say thank you. Not to take the good things we have for granted, but to acknowledge that they have been given to us by God and to say thank you, and so express our love for God, and our dependence on God. I would like to encourage us to take that harvest spirit of gratitude and to cultivate it in every season of our lives. When things are going as we want them to, and when things are not going so well. We are not always in control, but God is always trustworthy, listening to us, and loving us. Will we always listen to God, trust and be thankful?

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