Thanking God for Green Beans
Luke 17.11-19
Six green beans sat on his daughter’s plate, untouched. Mike Benson says that sort of thing usually didn’t bother him, but that night it did. “Eat your green beans,” he told the eight-year-old.
“Dad, I’m full to the top.”
“You won’t pop,” he responded.
“Yes, I will pop!” she said.
“Risk it!” he said. “It will be okay.”
“Dad, I could not eat another bite.”
Mike knew they were having her favorite dessert, so he asked, “How would you like a double helping of pumpkin pie with two scoops of whipped cream on top?”
“That sounds great!” She responded as she pushed her plate back, ready for dessert.
“How can you have room for a double helping of pumpkin pie with two scoops of whipped cream, and not have room for six measly green beans?”
She stood up from her chair and pointing to one side of her belly said, “This is my vegetable stomach. Over here is my meat stomach. They are both full. Here (pointing to the other side) is my desert stomach. It is empty. I am ready for dessert!”
Life is a lot like eating green beans and pumpkin pie.
We would love so much to enjoy the deserts in life, and there’s probably not anyone in here that loves deserts as much as I do –
But then there are the things in life which we don’t much care for, like green beans, which we have to eat whether we like it or not.
I am talking about those things that are distasteful to our taste buds— the green beans of life we all share, such as:
The death of someone dear to you
An illness that requires hospitalization.
A loss of job that leaves you worrying about paying bills.
A marital disagreement, which leads to separation and sometimes even divorce.
And most times green beans come to you unexpectedly.
This morning, I would like to make a prediction:
Every one of you will have many helpings of green beans before your life is over.
Question: And what should our reaction be?
The Apostle Paul had eaten his share of green beans in life, and he uses some strange words to characterize the believers’ response to them:
1 Thessalonians 5:18
18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Question: Give thanks in all circumstances?
That’s impossible – if you only knew what I’ve been through!!!
No, I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I do know what I have felt like when eating green beans, and sadly, my immediate attitude has not always been to thank God.
I believe the best preparation for thanking God for green beans is to begin thanking God now for pumpkin pie.
Thanking God when things are going well, when everything’s coming up roses, when there’s not a cloud in the sky, will prepare us for the thorns that come our way, for those stormy nights that are in the future.
In Luke’s Gospel, chapter 17, there’s an incident in the life of our Lord, which shows the importance of giving thanks. It is Jesus’ encounter with twelve lepers.
We pick up the story in verse 12. Jesus is traveling alone the border of Galilee and Samaria to a village when he hears pleading from afar.
Luke 17:12
12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance
These men were affected with leprosy, the most dreaded disease in the Ancient world.
The lepers were required by law to be isolated outside the community because it was thought to be highly contagious. God told Moses:
Leviticus 13:45-46
45 “The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’
46 As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.
The leper’s only fellowship was with other lepers,
Every night, these ten lepers would sit around the supper table eating green beans, while in the backs of their minds, wishing they could have just a small sliver of pumpkin pie.
Luke 17:12-13
12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
As Jesus and the crowds that followed were making their way into the village, these ten lepers cried out hoping to be heard.
They called out, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’ Literally “Mercy us!”
They had hoped for pumpkin pie, and perhaps Jesus, the miracle worker, could free them from their leprosy.
God hears us when we pray.
God knows our hearts.
Sometimes God answers our prayers when we are eating green beans, but sometimes it seems our prayers don’t get past the ceiling.
Why is that? Why can’t God help us out when we’re stuck eating green beans?
Because eating green beans produces character in our lives. God is in the business of making you and I like Himself.
And sometimes He wants us to eat green beans to strengthen our spiritual muscles.
James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote a letter to persecuted Christians scattered across the Roman Empire. After greeting them, his first words were:
James 1:2-4
2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.4 And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Not answering our prayer can many time be an answered prayer, for God is in the business of producing endurance in us and bringing us to completion
But Jesus does answer the leper’s request by healing them.
.
Luke 17:14a
14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”
After answering them, Jesus goes on into the village, leaving the lepers standing there, questioning what Jesus commanded.
These lepers look at each other. They had been eating green beans so long – and now they hear Jesus tell them to go show themselves to the priests!
Question: Where were the priests? In Jerusalem, at the temple – a two-day’s journey.
Question: Did Jesus really mean what he said?
At this point, one of the lepers perhaps reminded the other nine about how weeks earlier, Jesus had healed their friend, Sam.
Luke 5:12-13
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.
Then I can only imagine one leper speaking up, “But Jesus never commanded Sam to go to Jerusalem! That’s a long trip!”
But the ten were hopeful. They had eaten green beans long enough. They wanted to be healed. So off they went . . .
Luke 17:14b
14. . . And as they went, they were cleansed.
They hadn’t gotten far when suddenly, their bodies are changed in a twinkle of an eye. They are healed instantly!!
They are at once cleansed of the leprosy that had ravaged their bodies.
I believe they threw a party right on the spot. They feasted on all the pumpkin pie their bellies could handle.
Yet while the former lepers marveled about their new bodies, and filling their bellies with pumpkin pie, they never stopped to reflect, and to realize, spiritually speaking, they still had leprosy -- of the heart.
You and I are not made of just the shell on the outside – that’s just one part of it. We have a body, a soul, and a mind.
There is more to a person than just his or her outward appearance.
-- Clarice Lukenbill of Spencer, Ind tells about overhearing two men discuss their health problems at church.
"My new doctor doesn’t just treat the symptoms, he treats both the mind and the body."
"Hmm," the second man grunted and thought for a moment; then he asked, "Does he give a discount if the mind is already gone?"
Yes, the leprosy was gone, but the spiritual condition of the men needed to be fixed.
And only one of the ten realized that he needed not just a body makeover – but a heart transplant.
I believe this one leper came to realize Jesus was not just a great miracle worker, but Almighty God who alone can work a miracle inside one’s soul.
John 5:24
Jesus insists, 24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
Question: Have you made that discovery, too?
Luke 17:15
15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.
All the lepers were healed physically, but he was the only one healed spiritually when he returned, and the only thing that could come out of his mouth was praises to God!
Luke 17:16
16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
This man fell to his knees before Jesus, and thanked him with all his being, not just for physical healing, but more importantly for spiritual healing – he was now a child of God’s.
And for those of us who have been given spiritual life – we can’t help but fall to our knees in grateful thanks to God for His gift of life.
The greatness of God is indeed shown everyday in the greatest miracle – that God could choose anyone of us, ravished by the leprosy of sin – give us a complete heart transplant – to which our complete focus in life now should be to glorify and give thanks to Him for both pumpkin pie and green beans.
An African Proverb reminds us of who praise is to be given--
Even the hen lifteth her head toward heaven when swallowing her grain.
Luke 17:17
17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?
“But the nine – where?”
With sadness of heart, and longing, Jesus wonders out loud why people don’t accept Him, or even give Him thanks for the miracles performed in lives.
Luke 17:18
18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
The personal work of Jesus was first intended for God’s people, the Jews.
On one occasion when speaking to a Canaanite woman, Jesus insisted,
Matthew 15:24
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
Hundreds of years earlier, the Psalmist, David would declare --
Psalm 100:4 -- Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
And why did David want the children of Israel to thank God and praise Him in His courts?
Because God is our Creator and longs for thankful hearts.
Psalm 100:3 --3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Yet here, what sorrow, that not one of the nine children of Israel came back to thank Jesus, only the Samaritan.
The best way you and I can glorify God is to renew our thankful hearts to God for everything in our existence!
Robert Fulghum
Listen to the prayer of Emily, a five-year-old, as told by Robert Fulghum:
Hello. This is Emily. I’m fine, how are you? Thanks for the sky and birds and stuff. Actually I’m having a pretty good week. And thanks for the mash potatoes, but not for the lima beans. I thank you really much for the meatloaf. And thanks for the chairs, and the tables, and the doors, and the couch and the television and the walls and the roof and the bed and the bathroom and the towels and the grass and the clouds and the street and . . .
Friends, you need to thank for God for large portions of pumpkin pie—don’t be choosy in you thankfulness. Don’t forget to thank him for the green beans in life.
Missionary Nathan Snow
Missionary Nathan Snow said while trying to adjust to the rather curious food on his Asian mission field: Where He leads me, I will follow. What he feeds me, I will swallow.
Luke 17:19
19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
“Your faith has made you well.” You are indeed a new believer – go and tell the world.
Question: Have you discovered that the circumstances of life, both green beans and pumpkin pie, mean little to the Lord?
The Lord is more interesting in what is going on inside you. Accepting the good and the bad means nothing if you don’t have faith in the Lord Jesus.
Elisa Morgan writes in Christian Parenting Today:
One night my 11-year-old daughter Eva noticed I was distracted as I tucked her in to bed. I told her about a friend’s teenage daughter whose hair was mysteriously falling out and I encouraged Eva to pray for Amy.
Her simple words, "Jesus, please hold Amy’s hair on her head," touched me.
As the doctors experimented with different treatments, Amy continued to lose her hair. Eva continued to pray the same prayer.
After six weeks the doctors determined Amy had alopecia, an extremely rare disorder where hair loss is unpredictable but can be complete and permanent.
When I told Eva, she took my hand and closed her eyes. This time her prayer was different. "Dear Jesus, if you won’t hold Amy’s hair on her head, would you please hold Amy?" Tearfully, I realized how sometimes God doesn’t move mountains; he moves us.
Eating green beans with a thankful heart, while difficult, becomes easier when you realize that God is helping us hold the spoon. He sometimes doesn’t move mountains, He moves us!
