“What a Wonderful World: Lois Armstrong and Samaritan Gratitude”

(If you prefer to watch a video version of this sermon, click here.)

I wrote the first draft of this sermon while sitting in a chair on the world famous 7-Mile beach in Negril, Jamaica. Rough life, I know…  

As I sat there, looking out at the crystal blue waters, which are remarkably still along this beach due to a coral reef a little ways out blocking all the larger ocean waves, I felt my whole body filled to the brim with a particular emotion. It wasn’t peace, although I did feel peaceful. It wasn’t joy, although I did feel joyful. It was a bigger emotion - one from which all the other emotions I was feeling seemed to radiate. Gratitude. Gratitude for life. Gratitude for family. Grateful for friendships. Gratitude for the beauty and splendor of God’s awesome creation. There were a couple of moments in the past week when this sense of gratitude became so big, that it would simply have to escape - either in a smile, or a laugh, or sometimes even in my uttering the words aloud, “Thank you, God.”

What is remarkable to me is that this overwhelming gratitude didn’t mean the absence of other emotions, even negative ones. There were still sunburns, and bug bites, and the cries of overly-tired kiddos. There were still thunderstorms and injuries and the battles with disappointment over it being time to go inside and get out of the sun even though we were having a grand, old time. But the existence of those realities did not at all diminish the experience of overwhelming gratitude, and the omnipresence of God in my feeling that emotion. 

In 1967, Bob Thiele and George David Weiss must have had an experience something like mine, when they wrote a song called, “What a Wonderful World.” Thiele said the following regarding his inspiration for the song: "In the mid-1960s during the deepening national traumas of the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, racial strife, and turmoil everywhere, my co-writer George David Weiss and I had an idea to write a 'different' song specifically for Louis Armstrong that would be called 'What a Wonderful World.' Kind of sounds like the reality we find ourselves in today, doesn’t it? Assassinations. Political turmoil and violence. Global wars, racial strife, division, chronic tension…. Devastating headlines at every turn. Perhaps this is why the feeling of gratitude was so overwhelming to me this past week. It’s a radically counter-cultural emotion to feel in these troubling times.  

So in 1967, Armstrong records the song in a middle of the night session following a gig in Las Vegas. And here’s an interesting fact, when first released, the song did not perform well in the United States. The president of ABC Records, who Armstrong had recently signed with, did not like the song. This guy, Larry Newton, wanted Armstrong’s next single to be another swingy, poppy song, like his hit, “Hello Dolly!” Because of this, he refused to promote the song in the U.S. So even though this song went to number one in the UK, it only made it to number 116 in the U.S. It wasn’t until 20 years later, when the song was featured in the film, Good Morning Vietnam, that the song performed well as a single in the U.S.

And because we always share this fact in this Songs and Scripture series, in 2021, this song was ranked at No. 171 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Best Songs of All Time."

The song is simple. No complex lyrics. Just a song about being gratitude for the things we see around us: Clouds, trees, flowers, friends holding hands…

While there are no deep layers of meaning in this iconic song, it does ask some questions to the listeners…

Do you see these things? Are you noticing the beauty around you? When you see the beauty around you, is it inspiring the kind of hope that brings you gratitude? When you take the time to notice the everyday beauty that is all around you, how does that change your experience of being alive in this complicated world? These are the questions that greet us in this song.

In our lesson from the Gospel of Luke today, we see the encounter where Jesus heals the 10 lepers. Now let’s just pause a minute to acknowledge some realities about leprosy. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae or Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damage may result in a lack of ability to feel pain, which can lead to the loss of parts of a person's extremities from repeated injuries or infection through unnoticed wounds. An infected person may also experience muscle weakness and poor eyesight.

Nowadays, this disease can be cured through medication, but in the time of Jesus, it was a disease of social stigma. A disease that often included physical disfigurement, which added to the stigma. A disease then and now that is associated with poverty. An interesting fact is that leprosy is not super contagious. 95 percent of people exposed will not contract the disease. It requires prolonged contact to transmit the disease, so the fact that lepors are so often seen on the edges of town, kicked out of society, tells us that the stigma was so very much rooted in the fear and physical appearance of the disease, and not out of necessity to prevent spread.

Jesus’ encounter with these lepers takes place in the “region between Samaria and Galilee,” which we think was a hostile region at the border, neither inside nor outside Jewish territory. So these lepers kind of represent a double marginalization – they are marginalized people at the margins. Possibly a triple marginalization, because we know at least one of these men is a Samaritan, who were the despised outcasts among the Jewish people. So these were people in a bad way. They were outcasts in a wilderness. Invisible ones in a no man’s land.

So when they see Jesus, recognize him and call out to him to see them and have pity on them. He does see them, and calls back, presumably from a distance, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” As they begin walking, they are made well. At the realization of being made well, one of these men, the one we know is a Samaritan, comes running back to Jesus – singing praises and dropping at his feet thanking him for what he has done.

Jesus then asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” This is the piece of text that many have studied to try to discern what the meaning is in this series of events. Why does only one come back? Why does Jesus wonder why only one came back to express gratitude? Were they all supposed to come back and say thank you – like their mothers probably taught them? If Jesus wanted them to come to him, why did he send them to the priests? After all, the ones that didn’t come back to him were just doing what he told them to do!

Notice how when Jesus asks the three questions - “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” – he doesn’t scold. Was he angry? I don’t think so. We can usually tell when Jesus is angry in the Bible. Maybe he was disappointed that only 10% of the ones who had received a miracle from God stopped and took the time to feel the immense gratitude in that moment. Maybe he was surprised by the one that came back because his gratitude simply could not be contained, but then also surprised that the overflow of gratitude was a solo experience, rather than a communal one. 

You know, we’ve spent a lot of time talking in recent years about the declining statistics of church attendance, and how congregations all across this nation are closing as people have found “other” ways to experience God. Some would rather go for a walk in the woods to fill their spiritual cup. Some would rather exercise. Some would rather watch church on their porch while sipping a cup of freshly-brewed coffee.  

I’ve had people ask me what it feels like to be a pastor in this shifting landscape of religious practices. While I don’t think that our faith is facing extinction, I wonder if, like Jesus asking questions to that lone worshipper, I am a little sad. A little disappointed.  

When gratitude for all that God has made and all that God has done overflows from us, isn’t it so much better to have someone else there to witness that overflow? When we break into singing God’s praises because something so wonderful has happened, don’t we want someone to hear that song?

The church needs to evolve with the times, this I know, and we have been very slow and stubborn about doing that. But one of the biggest values of showing up to a worshipping communities on Sunday mornings is the experience of shared gratitude. Yes, we want churches there as a community to catch us when we fall. We want our faith family to help when struggle. But we also need each other for the experience of gratitude. Part of the way the Gospel lives and moves in this world is through the witness of gratitude for all that God has done for us. Sure, I can drop to me knees in privacy and praise God for what God has done in my life, but how much more powerful is it for me to do that with all of you! My overflow of gratitude can invigorate your faith! Your songs of praise can deepen my relationship with God,

That is the reminder in the story of the healing of the ten lepers and it’s also the reminder in Lois Armstrong’s singing of What A Wonderful World. Jesus points out that the experience of praise is diminished when no one else is there. Armstrong points out that there is value in us collectively naming all that is good and beautiful and wondrous in this world together, especially in the midst of turbulent and divisive times. Sure he sings “and I think to myself,” but he is telling the millions and millions of people hearing that song about what pausing to take in gratitude for the beauty of the world does for him. He is created a shared experience through the song.  

Both the Biblical story and this iconic song are a commentary on how community is essential in fully experiencing gratitude. They tell us that gratitude can be contagious – more contagious than leprosy based on what I have learned! 

In a time when anxiety, fear, anger and grief seem to overshadow other emotions, gratitude is a counter-cultural, even radically rebellious emotion to have. And yet… God continues to do miraculous things in our lives for which I am overcome with gratitude. I do see trees, and clouds, red roses, bright blessed day, dark sacred night… I do see the colors of the rainbow – in the sky, and on the faces of every beloved child of God. I do hear babies cry – sometimes in this sanctuary. And I a am grateful that they will grow to know more than I know.    

So, how about this… I’ll show you mine and you show me yours! I will show you my overflow of uncontainable gratitude for all that is still good in this complicated world. And you show me your overflow of uncontainable gratitude for the wondrous ways that you experience God moving and working in this world. And in this way, we will feed each other’s faith. As our gratitudes join together, growing larger and louder, until they join the chorus all of the ones who find themselves laying prostrate at the feet of the God who saves, saying, “THANK YOU!”

And, with God’s help, we will see through the clouds of these heavy days and we’ll think to ourselves, what a wonderful world….

And all of God’s children who could said, AMEN!