Thanksgiving

Romans 1:18-21
Ephesians 5:15-20

November 23, 2003

The Guilt of Humankind

¹⁸For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. ¹⁹For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; ²¹for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.

¹⁵Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, ¹⁶making the most of the time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is…be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, ²⁰giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Back during the dark days of 1929, a group of ministers in the Northeast, all graduates of the Boston School of Theology, gathered to discuss how they should conduct their Thanksgiving Sunday services. Things were about as bad as they could get, with no sign of relief. The bread lines were depressingly long, the stock market had plummeted, and the term Great Depression seemed an apt description for the mood of the country. The ministers thought they should only lightly touch upon the subject of Thanksgiving in deference to the human misery all about them. After all, there wasn’t much to be thankful for. But one pastor of a large congregation in the city rallied the group. This was not the time, he suggested, to give mere passing mention to Thanksgiving, just the opposite. This was the time for the nation to get matters in perspective and thank God even more.

This minister had struck upon something. Historically the most intense moments of thankfulness have not been found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abounded.

Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number dead, they were men, women and children without a country, deserted on a large continent with little support and surrounded by hostile influences, but still there was thanksgiving to God.

The future must have seemed just as bleak in the days when Abraham Lincoln led the nation to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day.  It was during the Civil War, when the list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival.[1]

But how is that possible?  If we were to dissect the human soul and mind and heart and examine what laid there, how would we explain thanksgiving?  What prompts pastors to lead folks to give thanks during the Great Depression, a president to give thanks when his nation seems to be collapsing and a group of refugees who should be afraid of the dim prospects of their future to celebrate?

In the book of Romans, Paul the evangelist Apostle writes to the community of Christians in Rome about a great many things.  His letter to the Romans is in many ways a great outpouring of the theology of Paul.  Early in the book Paul writes about sin.  And he speaks about the origin of sin.

²¹for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.

With these words, the Apostle Paul spins off into a great progression of awful and evil things that draw folks into sin…foolishness, idolatry, impurity, degradation, lies, debased minds, envy, jealousy, malice, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossip, slander, haughtiness, boastfulness, rebellion, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness. 

And where does all this come from?  The source of it all is not honoring God, forgetting God, and not giving thanks to God.

Does this explain thanksgiving?  No, it doesn’t tell us why, when, or how to give thanks, but it tells us that the stakes are high for those who play with their relationship to God and who don’t engage in thanksgiving.  Not giving thanks to God, says the Apostle Paul, draws us into a downward spiral of what is the worst about human life.

So our question is made even more important.  What is thanksgiving?  That is: When is it appropriate?  Why give thanks and how do you do it?  And why do people find it appropriate to give thanks in the most unlikely times?

In a book he wrote the Rev. John R. Ramsey tells how in one church a certain person provided him with a rose boutonniere for the lapel of his suit every Sunday. At first he really appreciated it but then it sort of became routine. Then one Sunday it became very special. As he was leaving the Sunday Service a young boy walked up to him and said, "Sir, what are you going to do with your flower?" At first the preacher didn't know what the boy was talking about. When it sank in, he pointed to the rose on his lapel and asked the boy, "Do you mean this?"

The boy said, "Yes, sir. If you're just going to throw it away, I would like it."

The preacher smiled and told him he could have the flower and then casually asked what he was going to do with it. The boy, who was probably no more than 10 years old, looked up at the preacher and said, "Sir, I'm going to give it to my grandmother. My mother and father divorced last year. I was living with my mother, but she married again, and wanted me to live with my father. I lived with him for a while, but he said I couldn't stay, so he sent me to live with my grandmother. She is so good to me. She cooks for me and takes care of me. She has been so good to me that I wanted to give her that pretty flower for loving me."

When the little boy finished, the preacher could hardly speak. His eyes filled with tears and he knew he had been touched by God. He reached up and unpinned the rose. With the flower in his hand, he looked at the boy and said, "Son, that is the nicest thing that I've ever heard but you can't have this flower because it's not enough. If you'll look in front of the pulpit, you'll see a big bouquet of flowers. Different families buy them for the Church each week. Please take those flowers to your grandmother because she deserves the very best."

Then the boy made one last statement which Rev. Ramsey said he will always treasure. The boy said, "What a wonderful day! I asked for one flower but got a beautiful bouquet."[2]

This is the primary reason, we give thanks to God.  Not because we are afraid of what will happen to us if we don’t, because we are afraide of falling into sin.  But because God is so good.   We ask for a single worn out boutonniere and God provides a bouquet of flowers.  Even before the little boy knew he would be taking home a bouquet for his grandmother he had hope, hope that prompted him to go ask the pastor a silly question and make perhaps an embarrassing request.  Hope that had been born of a grandmother who loved him deeply, cared for his every need and who found a way to get him to church.   Hope that was rewarded by an awestruck pastor, floored by the gesture of gratitude coming from a young boy.  God is good. And even if this ten-year-old boy couldn’t voice this truth, he knew it, somehow, deep down.  The knowledge gave him hope.  The knowledge gave him gratitude.  The experience gave him a reason to give thanks.

We give thanks to God not out of fear of what might happen to us, or strictly by rote and obligation, but because we know that God is good and that God’s grace is real, that when we have nobody left, grandma  is there, that when we ask for a flower, God surprises us with a bouquet.

Another reason to give thanks is for what it does to us…

Do you remember that great Dr. Seuss classic "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?"  If you do, you'll recall in the story how the Grinch enters all the homes by way of their chimneys disguised as Santa Clause. He takes all the presents and ornaments, the trees and stockings, and even their food down to the last morsel. He drags his loot up to his mountain and then looks down upon Whoville with a sinister grin. He is listening for the cries and wailings of the people to start as they wake up on Christmas morning to discover a Christmas lost. What he hears instead surprises him. Up from the town of the Whos comes a joyful Christmas carol. They are singing. "Why?" he asks. It is because, he learns, Christmas resides not in things but in the thankful heart.  He could not steal their gratitude.[3]

Thanksgiving transforms our lives.  Rather than spin us into sinful awfulness, as the Apostle Paul claims the absence of thanks does, thanksgiving gives gets us singing.  If we experience gratitude for our lives, and not just in what we have, even despite losing all, we don’t lose hope and joy, but somewhere buried deep in our hearts remains a force for life, for gladness and for meaningful existence.

OK, so how do we experience thanksgiving?  How do we evoke it, or remember the gratitude that may be buried in our hearts?

A man tells a story of his very first job in a small town general store.  This was the day before mails and supermarket chains.  At age thirteen he was hired as a handy boy. He would sweep the flour, bag items for customers, and put up stock. On one particular Saturday, he recalled., he heard the owner say to one of the clerks “It’s that time of the year again, it’s time to take inventory."

For the boy, this was a word that had not yet entered into his vocabulary. When an opportune moment arrived, he went up to the kindly owner and asked, Sir, what is an inventory? Patiently the man explained that it was a time when you made a list of everything that you had--from groceries on the shelves to wrapping paper and string. Still somewhat puzzled, the boy then asked, Why?

“Well, responded the owner, its easy to forget exactly how much you have each year. Every now and then you have to take an inventory just to see what all you have."[4]

This week a group of three and four year olds at the Chapel School in Methuen Massachusetts was asked by their teachers what they were thankful for.  Here was their inventory of what they are thankful for:

  Food  Bed  Books  Backyard  Pizza  Candy   Dogs  Daddy  Birthdays  Heart  Pie   Family  Teachers(Ms. Bajor and Ms Oullette)

Mommy, Daddy, Sister & Brother, too

And one little boy, who shall remain nameless, confessed that he is thankful for God.

By reminding ourselves or being reminded of what gives our lives joy and meaning and value, by taking a meaningful inventory, we harvest up all the gratitude we have in our hearts.  We’re not just talking about making a simple inventory of our possessions like that storeowner wanted the stock boy to do.  What I mean is to slow down for a moment and really remember what’s important for you.  Like those poor folks we see on television sometimes who lose everything in a natural disaster like a fire or a flood.  They’ll sometimes say, “We’ve lost everything, but we’re alive and my family’s all right.  So we’re just going to rebuild.”  Yes they’ve lost much, but there’s a great deal, that by God’s grace has remained and that redeems the situation.  Such a person is forced to take a deeper more profound inventory.  Car – gone.  Wife – alive.  House – gone.  Children – alive.  And on and on.

We lose things and experience pain with each moment that we live.  This is human life, that we experience a moment of death with every breath.  Yet with each passing moment, it is impossible that all could be lost, for no matter what slips away, God is good and God is eternal.  And for this we give thanks.

In any great inventory of our lives, no matter how long or short it comes out.  The fact that God is on our list make our list worthy of gratitude.  The sense that God is pulling for us, that God is good and shows us grace, brings us to give thanks. 

So how do we give thanks?  We begin by making an inventory and we harvest our gratitude.  Then what?  We celebrate our gratitude.

The apostle Paul writes these words about how to give thanks,

“be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, ²⁰giving thanks to God the Father”

Be filled with the Spirit he says.  He means the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.  But to be filled with the Spirit of God is to be filled will a spirit of gratitude, like we’ve been saying.  And once you’ve harvested your gratitude, you’ve begun to experience the spirit of gratitude, you’ve begun to experience the presence of God in your heart, then you will sing.  Like the imaginary people of Whoville, who begin to sing despite having lost all their articles of Christmas fun.  Their song cannot be stolen.  The Apostle Paul says start with this song from your heart.

What kind of song?  That’s up to you.  You can sing a Psalm like Psalm 100,

¹                  Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.

²                  Worship the LORD with gladness;

                   come into his presence with singing.

³                  Know that the LORD is God.

                   It is he that made us, and we are his;^£

                   we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

⁴                  Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

                   and his courts with praise.

                   Give thanks to him, bless his name.

Or a song like the one we just sang,

Give thanks with a grateful heart, Give thanks to the Holy One, Give thanks because he’s given Jesus Christ the Son.

Or a song that has meaning only to your own heart.  And as you sing that song in your heart, maybe it will lead you to places you didn’t expect you’d go.

During a harvest festival in India, an old widow arrived at her church with an extraordinarily large offering of rice - far more than the poor woman could be expected to afford. The itinerant pastor of the church did not know the widow well. But he did know that she was very poor and so he asked her if she were making the offering in gratitude for some unusual blessing. "Yes," replied the woman. "My son was sick and I promised a large gift to God if he got well." "And your son has recovered?" asked the pastor. The widow paused. "No," she said. "He died last week. But I know that he is in God's care; for that I am especially thankful."[5]

This story brings us back to our original question of when its appropriate to give thanks.  The answer is always.  Not just when things are going well, not just when the calendar reads November twenty-something.  Not just when someone sends us a gift and we owe a card.  Always.

A fellow pastor wrote this month in the newsletter of the church he serves, that when we encounter these passages from Ephesians which we’ve been considering this morning,

¹⁹as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves…giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

…they sound like they’re describing a worship service.  But as we’ve mentioned today, these verses refer not just to Sunday mornings or when Christian people get together with an organ and open up their hymnbooks.  They refer to each moment of our lives. 

And moments in which we take inventory, we harvest all our gratitude, we allow our hearts to be filled with the spirit of gratitude, together with God’s Holy Spirit, can often be unusual and unexpected, like in the throes of the Great Depression or the Civil War, in the aftermath of a natural disaster or even personal tragedy.  God is eternal and God is Good.  The way God moves and reveals himself to us cannot be squelched.   We can experience gratitude any time.  And we can give thanks anytime.

I pray that in this season of thanksgiving, the Holy Spirit and the spirit of gratitude might find you as well, placing a song and hymn of praise in your heart and transform your life as well.

Amen