Thanksgiving in July

Rev. Craig N. Goodrich – July 6, 2003

Psalm 136

Colossians 3 12-17

As we get started I want you to know that no matter what happens today, it is going to be a great day! The reason I know this is that at seven o’clock this morning as I was walking down the driveway to get the newspaper, I saw what I thought was a piece of trash on the lawn. What I found was this. Can you see it? A remnant of a red balloon. It has a note attached in the handwriting of a child. It says, “Hi! Whoever finds this baloon [sic] is lucky. I live in Atlanta, Georgia. Call me.” On the back there is a stick figure with a big smile. And there is a phone number, but I am not going to read that since you might make the call first! Who knows what lies ahead for me? At a minimum I may meet or talk to a human being, a child, who still has a sense of wonder.

Do you remember that? The sense of wonder you had as a child? Do you ever ask yourself, “Where did it go?”

As a child did you have a special prayer?

When I was a boy, living with my two brothers and parents at 6003 Corbin Road in Bethesda, Maryland our nighttime ritual was bath time, stories, then prayer. My brothers and I would kneel on floor with hands folded and elbows on bed. The prayer was this:

Thank you God for the world so sweet

Thank you God for the food we eat

Thank you God for the birds that sing

Thank you God for everything.

It went on,” thank you for our happy home and family. God bless Mom, Dad, Skip, Craig, Tom.” Then followed the pets, Bess the dog and Tiger and Lilly the cats, then grandparents and then a summary catch all “and God bless all our relatives and friends. Amen” We rushed through that last phrase “all ourrelativesandfriendsamen” and jumped into bed. That was it and we repeated it night after night, whether we felt like it or not.

And, of course, we have passed it on to our own children.

But I must confess there was a time, many years actually, in teenage and young adult life, when I did not like that prayer very much. I found it trite, childish, and in my cynicism wondered, “How can anyone call this world sweet” and “what kind of person would say a prayer of thanks for everything.” Everything? Come on? How naive can you get?

Well as years have passed and I have grown older, I have come to think that maybe that prayer in all its simplicity has it right after all, and that maybe we should be thanking God in and for everything.

What do you think?

In the Old Testament lesson today, the psalmist declares, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good and his steadfast love endures forever.” He goes on to describe God who spread out the earth, who gave the sun for the day and the moon and the stars for night, who delivered the people from bondage, who gives food to all flesh. He concludes, “O give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.”

This morning in this worship service we have already sung the doxology, “Praise God from whom all blessing flow, praise him all creatures here below (By the way that’s us), praise him above the heavenly hosts, Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost”. A whole section of our bulletin, a segment of worship, is entitled “Thanksgiving”.

We have received the assurance that our sins are forgiven and we responded, “Thanks be to God” and we have sung together after the offering,” All things are thine, no gift have we, Lord of all gifts to offer thee; And hence with grateful hearts today thine own before thy feet we lay.

Are we paying attention?

In the letter to the Colossians Paul writes “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts… and be thankful Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms and hymn and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

“And whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Do you see it? It’s hard to miss isn’t it? Give thanks, be thankful, with thanksgiving.

You see, for the Christian, ingratitude is not an option. We are to be thankful.

So why would so few of us describe ourselves that way, as thankful? Why is it so hard to be grateful and so easy to give into complaint and dissatisfaction? Don’t we measure life and “how we are doing” by what we achieve or fail to achieve or by our high expectations which we never meet. Many of us spend much of our days worried, restless, agitated or irritated. And we wait ….we wait until everything is just right before we even think about giving thanks. But of course, that day never comes. There is always something else isn’t there?

The market is down again today. Sally only got a “B” on her test. We are spending too much money again; the nagging health concerns.

How can I be grateful when I have so many problems?

And so it goes, doesn’t it?

Philip Yancey writes, “Rarely do I wake up in the morning full of faith.”

It’s true isn’t it? It is for me. Often I have early morning anxiety, worry, fear… the never ending “to do” list on a fresh page on the yellow legal pad (or for you who are more technologically savvy, the screen on the palm pilot or computer).

Annie Lamont has said there are really only two prayers. The first is “help me, help me, help me” and the second is “thank you, thank you, thank you.” I often wake up saying the first. I want more and more to move to the second, to pray “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Virginia Stem Owens writes: “You must be willing to give thanks at all times… Thanksgiving, thanksgiving. All must be thanksgiving.” She goes on, “Thanksgiving is not the result of perception; thanksgiving is the access to perception.”

Thomas Merton said “To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything… Every breath we draw is a gift of His love; every moment of existence is a gift of grace...”

Can you see it? The love of God in everything?

In his sermon entitled “Gratitude and Ambiguity” John Claypool writes that in every situation of ambiguity, we have the choice of focusing on the negative or on the positive, on what is going against us or on what is going for us. He tells the story of the first Thanksgiving in 1621 where on the year anniversary of their arrival in New England the settlers debated how to mark the date.

The first suggestion was that they have a day of mourning. After all in that year they had lost one half of their company, over fifty dead from disease and exposure. Every family had suffered a loss. Certainly a day of mourning would have been appropriate. But then came the second suggestion… yes we have suffered, but there is a lot for which to be grateful, we have survived, the land is good the natives friendly, let’s have a day of thanksgiving. And so they did --in spite of the circumstances.

Claypool concludes that in every situation of ambiguity, the wisest choice is always gratitude.

Alan Jones and John O’Neil have written a book entitled “Seasons of Grace – the Life-giving Practice of Gratitude” Put it on your summer reading list, right next to “Seabiscuit.” They say this:

“Practicing gratitude both feeds our need for wonder and frames ways we can get out of ourselves (off the treadmill of me, me, me) and risk appropriately and courageously. We can then dare to love. We can risk openness to others and the world. We can be less attached to material things. We can see how absurd our mentality of scarcity is in light of our relative wealth. In short we can stop playing dead and become fully alive.”

They go on to tell this story.

For our friend Henry, dying was an epic journey from knowing everything to knowing nothing, from self-love to true love, from isolation to communion. Watching Henry let go was painful. There he was, in his late eighties, still trying to run the world from his hospital bed. You could see the confusion and frustration in his eyes. He was a kind of spiritual con man: he had fooled death all his life and now there it was, staring at him from the foot of the bed. He wasn’t, after all, an exception. He was going to die just like everyone else.

Henry was a shrewd businessman, capable of being ruthless or sentimental as best served his needs. He had made a lot of money with what he called his “lucky strike.”…

Henry’s friends were few but his wives were many: four marriages produced five estranged children. His current wife, half his age, tried to love him but somehow did everything wrong. She dragged him to opera and symphony openings from which, angry and sleepy, he insisted on leaving early. Mainly, she couldn’t perform the miracle of making him immortal. Henry’s life in retirement was trips to the office “to keep his hand in” (and be a nuisance to his colleagues), rounds of golf, and lunches at his clubs. In short, he had “everything” and was terminally sour and unhappy.

Henry, however, became witness to his own diminishment. One day he collapsed over lunch, and suddenly he was in hospital with a badly damaged heart and a terrible prognosis. Tubes everywhere, and “those idiot” doctors not knowing what to do.

Henry’s luck just then was in having one friend who saw through his bluster and bonhomie to the struggling human soul beneath. This was George…[an] old gent with advanced prostate cancer but the best attitude of anyone we know. George had known Henry since their college days—though since he’d fallen on hard times, he hadn’t heard much from his old buddy.

“He wasn’t always like this,” George recalled. “In college, we were inseparable, and everyone wanted to be with us. We hardly went to class and had a ball. I’m amazed we graduated. Henry was always driven, though. His dad worked for the phone company and Henry was determined not to follow in his father’s footsteps. And he made it. But no matter how successful he got, it was never quite enough.”

When George learned about Henry’s heart attack, he sent him, for old times’ sake, a card depicting their alma mater. His note read, “Henry, what times we had! I love you. I know you’re having a rough time. As they say in the old melodramas, Come home! All is forgiven.”

Henry was puzzled by this at first, then a little annoyed. Then he burst out laughing and, before he knew it, had begun to cry. A place in his heart suddenly gaped wide. It was a place of great pain compounded of regret and shame. His wife, Janet, was in his room when the breakthrough came. He let the tears flow, and the pain gradually gave way to acceptance of what was happening to him, and gratitude for the love of his wife and George. “I’ve been a fool,” he told her. “I love you so much.”

Henry and Janet had three months after that, a remarkable time for them and anyone who saw them then. He talked and talked, at least while he had strength enough, seemingly wanting to make up for all the time he’d never really conversed but only barked orders. Later, he did a lot of listening, smiling gently as Janet read to him, relayed ordinary news, or assured him of her love. Henry died at home, holding George’s card in one hand and Janet’s hand in the other.

Gratitude… forgiveness… thanksgiving…

Well, what about you this morning? All is forgiven. Will you choose gratitude? Don’t wait to get life just right. That day will never come. Receive the gift of life today; receive God’s many blessings and the love of God in Jesus Christ. Give and receive the love of family and friends. Open your eyes, open your heart. And be thankful…Thank God…Thank God for everything.

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his steadfast love endures forever.

Alleluia. Amen.