This is a translation of the homily for the Constitution Day (year III) in Øve Church and Varaldsøy Church in Kvinnherad, Norway, Saturday 17th May, 2025. The readings are as follows: Deuteronomy 8:11-14; 1 Corinthians 4:7; and Luke 17:11-19. When quoting Scripture, I will use the Revised Standard Version (RSV), unless otherwise noted.
Collect of the day (translated by yours truly):
Let us Pray:
God of grace, thank you for the country in which we love, for our constitution and our freedom. We pray: Let your name be holy amongst us. Watch over our land, protect us from arrogance and teach us to be hospitable. Give all people and nations on earth a dignified life in freedom and peace through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one true God, world without end. Amen.
“For who sees anything different in you? What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” This verse, from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, puts into words something very important: everything we have, we have because we have received it as a gift from God. We express this especially when we give our offering here in church, which we often collect to give to a good cause. And when we collect it, we say this prayer: “Eternal God, yours is the earth and all that is in it. Everything we have belongs to you. Of your own, we return to you. Receive us and our gifts in Jesus’s name.” Everything in the world belongs to God, from His wealth, we give. So we are really just giving back what he already owns. I think this is important, because it helps to bring us down a bit, especially those of us who live in a country that in many ways is overflowing with wealth. We are sixth in the world in GDP per capita, beaten only by Singapore, Luxembourg, Qatar, Ireland and Macau. USA is in ninth place, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland are respectively in 11th, 13th, 20th, and 24th place. But then we must remember that we have not created this wealth it in a vacuum. Much of our wealth comes from natural resources such as oil, gas, water and, wind. We did not create these ourselves. These are gifts that God has given us. For He is the Creator of heaven and earth. Yes, what do we have, that we did not receive? And if we received it, why do we boast as if it were not a gift?
I believe that on a day like today, when we celebrate the Constitution, we must take this message to heart. We must remember to give thanks for what we have received, because we did not create it ourselves, in a vacuum. As humans, we have a calling to praise God for who He is and thank Him for what He has done. We just read in the Gospel about Jesus meeting ten lepers. If you had leprosy, you had a serious, contagious disease. You could not live with others, also because of fear among the people. You were completely outside of society. When Jesus came, these men cried out to him in desperation: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Here, they used the same words we use in practically all Divine Services, eleison (as in Kyrie, eleison), “have mercy on us.” And Jesus said that they should go and show themselves to the priests. The reason for this was that the priests had a responsibility that we today give to doctors and health workers. They were tasked with examining people to see if they were healthy, and thus ritually and religiously pure. And while they were on their way there, they became clean, they regained their status among the people. But only one of them returned to Jesus, to give thanks. It says that he “turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.” Jesus then asked: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” The message of this story is simple: We should thank God for what He has done for us, because it expresses faith in Him as Savior. The Samaritan leper was saved because he believed in Jesus. It was not thanksgiving that saved him, but thanksgiving was an expression of his faith in Jesus, of his recognition of what Paul says, that we only have what we have received.
We also see this in the Old Testament reading. There we read an excerpt from one of the last speeches Moses gave to the people of Israel, where he reminded the people to follow God’s law, God’s will. But one thing is important, and we see that clearly in the text. Moses calls the people to keep the laws, but not because they are so clever and pious, or to obtain benefits from God, but as a response to God, in thanksgiving and worship. He says: “Take heed lest you forget the Lord your God” and do not “forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The laws were not given so that the people could work their way to salvation, or so that they could show how good they were. Keeping the laws was a response to the salvation God had already provided. The people were to do God’s will because He had brought them out of Egypt and into freedom, not to achieve this.
Moses exhorted the people, who had been saved from Egypt by God, to worship God, to praise God, to keep His commandments, and not to forget Him in all His goodness. But they became haughty when they ate and were full, when built goodly houses and lived in them, when their herds and flocks multiplied, when their silver and gold multiplied, and when all that they had multiplied. We see the same thing in the time after the Babylonian exile: The people were saved from captivity, but they forgot God. And we see that here in today’s Gospel: When the lepers were cured of their disease, when they gained better health and a new social position, only one remembered that it was Jesus who had healed him. And he did as he should: He “turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.”
These texts serve as a kick in the behind for us in Norway, on Constitution Day. The text continues that we must keep the commandments, and remember the Lord when we have food, houses, money, and possessions. The key point here is that everything we own is only on loan. Everything belongs to God, the Creator and Lord. As I said, we pray: “Eternal God, yours is the earth and all that is in it. Everything we have belongs to you. Of your own, we return to you…” God is the Lord and everything has been given to us by Him. To quote Paul again: “For who sees anything different in you? What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?”
But what about us, what about me? As a student, I already had a TV, Xbox, Mac, iPad, iPhone and Apple TV, and now I also have a car and more loans than I would like. There are quite a few people in the world who have less than the average Norwegian. It is not wrong to be rich, but it is important not to let things and wealth own us. God calls us not to think first of ourselves, but to remember God, to remember the worship and thanksgiving He deserves, and to remember the people we meet.
My hope is that God will be the first priority, the one who owns everything, the one who has given us the freedom we have, the one who has the right to thanks, praise, and worship, and that we can take from the gifts he has given us to do something for other people. Jesus tells us what the first and greatest commandment is, in Matthew 22:37-40:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.
Seek first God and His kingdom, then your neighbor, and then yourself. But what if you cannot do this? I often fail, but that is where Jesus comes in. Through a life of obedience, He gave Himself fully and completely to God in thanksgiving, in worship, in praise. By giving Himself for us, he transformed His life, death, and resurrection into a loving act of worship, a sacrifice to God. And this is then given back to us, in word and sacrament, for salvation and peace.
When I fail to live up to God’s commandments, when I do what I should not do, when I fail to do what I should, yes, when I sin, when I think first and foremost about myself, then Jesus is there and offers me salvation and forgiveness, as we read in 1 John 2:1-2: “My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” I live in the hope that Jesus always intercedes for me, always stands ready to receive me, and that through Him, I can always come before God, in thanksgiving, in worship, in praise.
When we now, together with family, friends and neighbours, go out to celebrate Constitution Day, celebrate the nation, with hot dogs, ice cream, and soda, we must not forget who we are, and who should be our first priority, who is the Lord, who owns the earth and all that is in it. We must not let our wealth blind us. We must remember God, the one who has given us everything; our life, our wealth, our health, our salvation, and let this be the headline for the day: “Thank your great God!”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, who was, is, and will remain, one true God, world without end. Amen.