Thanksgiving Eve (B)
November 25, 2015
When I was a
kid, my favorite holidays were Christmas, Halloween, and my birthday (yes, I
considered my birthday to be a holiday) because those were the days that I got
stuff. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve grown more and more fond of Thanksgiving. Though
I know the busy-ness of the Christmas season is quickly overtaking this day of
thanks, in my family we aim to keep Thanksgiving as a day that is purely about
giving thanks, being grateful for the abundant blessings we already enjoy. I
think it is pretty darn cool that there is a day on our calendar set aside
specifically for this. God knows, we need it in this culture so interested in
acquiring more and more!
As much as I
like having a dedicated day for giving thanks, I also know that gratitude is
something that should be practiced more than one day a year; it should be a way
of life. This is certainly true for us as people of faith; that’s why the Bible
is full of imperatives and expressions of thanks and praise. And I believe
these repeated imperatives to “Thank the Lord!” are less about God’s need to be
thanked, and more because God knows how life-changing gratitude can be.
In his book, The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs, who self-identifies as
agnostic, tries to follow every single biblical commandment for one whole year,
and that includes giving thanks at meals. He recalls one day, while giving
thanks for his hummus lunch, that he got carried away, thanking God for the
land, and all the people who contributed to the hummus, from the farmers, to
the truckers, to the people who designed the label, to the Italian lady in the
deli where he bought it. He concludes, “The prayers are helpful. They remind me
that the food didn’t spontaneously generate in my fridge. They make me feel
more connected, more grateful, more grounded, more aware of my place in this
complicated hummus cycle. They remind me to taste
the hummus instead of shoveling it into my maw like it’s a nutrition pill. And
they remind me that I’m lucky to have food at all. Basically, they help me get
outside of my self-obsessed cranium.” By the end of the year, there are a few
practices Jacobs wants to keep up, and gratitude is one of them.
Well,
gratitude is all well and good, especially when your life is full of joy, when you’re
surrounded by people who make you happy, when there is nothing heavy weighing
on your heart. But what about when you’re not in a grateful mood? We know all too
well that life isn’t always rosy or joyful. Practicing gratitude isn’t so easy
or fun for the recent widow, who is celebrating her first Thanksgiving without
her longtime husband, nor for the family whose sole bread-winner has just lost
his job, nor for the couple whose marriage is in shambles but the rest of the
family doesn’t know it yet, so they have to put on their happy faces and fake
their way through dinner with the extended family. Being grateful can seem an
impossible task when your life is overcome not with joy, but with worry,
sadness, and fear.
Researcher
Brené Brown discusses in her book, TheGifts of Imperfection, how worry is the enemy of joy. In a moment of
vulnerability, she confesses to some fellow parents how sometimes her feelings
of joy over her young daughter are “ripped out” by her worry that something
will happen to her daughter. To her surprise, her fears are affirmed by the
other parents – they also feel their worry ripping out their joy. How powerful
worry is! How easy it is for worry to creep in and make us forget all about
being grateful, in exchange for being afraid.
The danger
of this is no news to Jesus; that is why he addresses it directly in his Sermon
on the Mount, which we heard a moment ago. Here he makes it sound so easy,
“Don’t worry about your life,” he says. “See, the birds aren’t worried, and the
lilies of the field aren’t concerned. What have you got to worry about?” I hate
to say it, but for me, this simply isn’t enough. If it were that easy just to
not worry, then the world would be a very happy place. But it is not easy
simply to turn off those strong feelings of worry and fear.
This, then,
is where gratitude makes its entrance once again. In response to her moment of
vulnerability about her daughter’s well-being, Brené Brown goes on to say that
by practicing gratitude, she is able to know joy, and this is what keeps worry
at bay and sustains her during the hard times. Other research agrees with her
assertion: studies have shown that people who regularly practice gratitude have
greater life satisfaction. It turns out that joy doesn’t lead to gratitude;
rather, gratitude leads to joy. In other words, gratitude is the antidote to
worry.
How, then,
do we learn to be grateful amidst the worries and struggles of life? David Steindl, a Benedictine monk who has written volumes on gratitude and joy, has
some practical advice. He acknowledges that it is not possible to be grateful for everything – there are many things
in life that do cause us and the world pain, suffering, and sadness. But, he
goes on, it is possible to be grateful in
any given moment, and we can do this in the same manner that we learned how to
cross the street: first we stop, then we look, then we go.
The first
part, stopping, is very important and often overlooked as we go about our
high-powered, high productivity lives. We have learned to applaud
accomplishment, and accomplishment doesn’t happen if we stop! And so as a
result, we miss things to be thankful for. Brother Steindl recalls how when he
returned home after spending some time living in Africa, he marveled every
Once you
have stopped, Brother Steindl says, you must look. Open all your senses to take
in the marvelous world around you, and enjoy what is given to us. My mom tells
about her Grandma Nita, saying she was always giving thanks for everything
around her. She would see a lovely tree and say, “Oh, just look at that tree.
Jesus put that tree there for me. Thank you Jesus, for that tree!” It’s no
surprise that in every picture we have of Grandma Nita, her face is alight with
joy. She took in the world with all her senses, and gave thanks for it.
Finally,
says Brother Steindl, after stopping and looking, we have the opportunity to go and do. It is a challenge to rise to
the opportunity, especially when we are in the midst of our worry and fear, but
being grateful makes it possible. So what do we do? Whatever life offers you in
that particular moment! Often it is simply to enjoy, to notice what God has
done in your life, what joy God has brought. Or, this gratitude may also propel
us toward actions of love and service. It may move us toward making a
difference in the world, or in the life of one individual, or it may just move
us closer to God. Whatever the case, this third part, this “going” part of
gratitude, is what can revolutionize the world.
And this,
finally, is what Jesus is getting at in that last line of our Gospel reading:
“Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things will be given to you as well.” This simple gratitude formula – stop,
look, go – is also a formula for seeking the kingdom of God. Gratitude is what
draws us toward joy, it is what focuses us on the great Giver, and it is what
moves us toward seeking justice, peace, and love – all marks of God’s kingdom
and its righteousness. So do not worry about your life. Seek instead to stop, look at the many gifts around you, and go seek God’s love and goodness in the world. Be grateful, and all
these things will be given to you as well.
Let
us pray… God of all goodness, it is
sometimes hard to be grateful when we are overcome with worry. But you have
shown us through your Son that you are more powerful than all our worries. Help
us to stop and see your goodness, to look around for signs of your kingdom, and
to go out in trust and good faith that your kingdom is at hand. In the name of
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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