Trinity Sermons trinity@iglobal.net Kent C. Miller, Pastor

Title                   "Giving Thanks--Living Thankfully"

 TEXT :  Malachi 3:8-10; 2 Cor. 6-9; Luke 17:11-19

Preparation for Worship
                                        The Attitude of Gratitude
    Gratitude come easily when our lives are in order--when the bills are paid, the children are behaving, our health is good.  But our challenges are what bring the chance for transformation.  And it is during our deepest pain that we can be most grateful, because we know our hardship will deliver a lesson that refines our character....and when you can give thanks in the midst of your trial, know that you are becoming your finest.
    I live in the space of thankfulness--and I have been rewarded a million times over for it.  I started out giving thanks for small things, and the more thanful I became, the more my bounty was increased.  That's because what you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it.   (Oprah Winfry in The Oprah Magaizne, November, 2000)
 

Many of you have heard me many times before speak of the "attitude of gratitude" as being the basic posture of a Presbyterian.  And even more, you know that we have spoken about how our giving flows out of our gratitude to God.  So, you can imagine my surprise and delight to see this month's edition of The Oprah Magaizine where the focus of the magazine is on the "attitude of gratitude," and to read Oprah's statement.  I didn't know she was Presbyterian!

With Thanksgiving coming up, one of my colleagues posted the following on the internet:(1)
I am thankful for...
     the mess to clean up after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends.
     the taxes I pay because it means that I'm employed.
     the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough to eat. ine.
     a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it  means that I have a home.
     all the complaining I hear about our Government because it means we have freedom of speech.
     my huge heating bill because it means I am warm.
     the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means that I am alive.

Wow.  What a list. A bit unusual, don't you think.  I would probably not come up with a list like that, but they are good things--and I could affirm them all.

Thanksgiving is one of our most interesting celebrations.  It celebrates neither a savage battle nor the fall of a  great city. It does not mark the anniversary of a  great conqueror or the birthday of a famous  statesman. It does not commemorate the writing of a    historic public document or the launching of a new  constitution. The American Thanksgiving Day is the expression of a deep feeling of gratitude by our   people for the rich productivity of the land, a  memorial of the dangers and hardships through which we have safely passed, and a fitting  recognition of all that God in His goodness has   bestowed upon us.
        (Bliss Forbush, writing in  WORSHIP RESOURCES FOR THE CHRISTIAN  YEAR, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954,   p.351.)

This year, more than ever before, we celebrate the holiday in a time of plenty.  We have an abundance of almost everything.  Our grain fields produced a record harvest.  The unemployment rate is at its lowest point ever.  Even our national election produced more votes than ever before (and the number keeps growing in Florida).

There is so much for which we have to be thankful.
Most of us know what it means to be thankful.
Many of us find it is not hard to be thankful when  we have a THEREFORE....
    Life has been good  this year….therefore I will thank God.
    Business has been good this year, therefore I am grateful.
    My operation was successful, therefore I am thankful to God.

It is what  Oprah talks about in the first lines of her thoughts on gratitude.

Gratitude comes easy when our lives are in order—when the bills are paid, the children are behaving, our health is good.

When life is good, gratitude is easy.
God has been good to me, THEREFORE…I will give thanks to God.

But what happens to gratitude when things are tough?

What about those Aggie parents this weekend who are remembering last year’s bonfire?  And the sons that are missing around their thanksgiving table again this year.  My heart goes out to the parents of those college students who died.  How hard it must be to gather around the Thanksgiving tables in those homes where there is one extra empty chair.

 But, we don’t have to go to Aggie-land to find people who are going through tough times.  That is true for some of our own congregation.
    Some of our members have had serious accidents that have changed their lives.
    Some of you  have had a diagnosis of illness that is very difficult--it is life changing.
    Some of  you have suffered the loss of loved ones, and face the pain of this season without them.
    And some of you have lost of jobs that have meant reorganizing your life.
People in this congregation has people who know what it means to live during tough times.

This morning we opened worship with the words The Psalmist sings,

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

But, for some families, those words may choke as they speak them this year.
When life is tough, how hard is it to be thankful?

It was tough for Martin Rinkert.  Martin Rinkert was a minister in the little town of Eilenburg in Germany some 350 years ago.  He was the son of a poor coppersmith, but managed to work his way through an education.  Finally, in the year 1617, he was offered the post of Archdeacon in his hometown parish.  A year later, what has come to be known as the Thirty-Years-War broke out.  His town was caught right in the middle.  In 1637, the massive Bubonic plague that swept across the continent hit Eilenburg... people died at the rate of fifty a day and the man called upon to bury most of them was Martin Rinkert.

In all, over 8,000 people died, including Martin's own wife.  His labors finally came to an end about 11 years later, just one year after the conclusion of the war.  His ministry spanned 32 years, all but the first and the last overwhelmed by the great tragedy that conflict that engulfed his town.  It was tough for Martin Rinkert to be thankful.

But he managed.  He wrote the words to the hymn we sang a few moments ago::
                    Now thank we all our God  With heart and hands and voices;
                 Who wondrous things hath done, In whom his world rejoices.

This magnificent spirit came through in the midst of times of virtually constant devastation!
Martin Rinkert discovered that Gratitude doesn’t just flow from the Therefore.
No, it even flows from a NEVERTHELESS.
        Life has been tough this year, NEVERTHELESS I will be thankful.
        Life has been tough this year, NEVERTHELESS,
        I have known suffering this year, NEVERTHELESS....

             Now Thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices.

There is a great lesson there. How do we  go about being thankful even while surrounded by such tremendous adversity?  This is the same point that Oprah  is making when she talks about being thankful in the midst of challenges in life.  You already have read her words.

 But our challenges bring about our transformation.  And it is during our deepest pain that we can be most grateful, because we know our hardship will deliver a lesson that refines our character. ..and when you can give thanks in the midst of your trial, you know that you are becoming your finest.

Life has been tough, NEVERTHELESS we Thank God...with heart and hand and voices.

Do you remember the story of  that first Thanksgiving celebrated by the pilgrims. Those folks had had an exceedingly difficult time. They had begun their journey full of hope for a new life of religious freedom in a warm and welcoming land - Virginia.  Instead they landed at  Plymouth Rock on December 21, 1620, winter in Massachusetts. Until such time as they could build houses and establish themselves on the land, they made their home on board the Mayflower, the vessel in which they had sailed.(2) The men went ashore every morning to work, returning to the little ship at night. They built a "common house" to which the sick and dying were transferred, placed their four little cannon in a fort, which they built on a hill close by, built two rows of houses with a wide street between and  finally landed their stores and provisions. Then the whole company came ashore toward the last of March, and in April the Mayflower sailed away.

The winter was hard and bitter. At one time all but six or seven of the Pilgrims were sick. Eighteen women denied themselves food so that their children could eat. Thirteen of them died. Half of the 102 Pilgrims died of malnourishment, disease, and exposure. Only about 30 of those who survived were over the age of 16. Those who died were buried in unmarked graves because the pilgrims did not want the natives to know how small their numbers had become.

In the spring they planted three crops; English Peas, Barley, and Indian Corn. The peas were planted too late - though they came up beautifully, the hot sun parched the blossoms and the plants died. One of the Pilgrims described their barley crops as "indifferent." Apparently the barley was not worth harvesting either. Only the corn survived. Of course, not the corn we are used to with big, plump yellow kernels; this was "Indian Corn" with ears only two to three inches long and kernels of different colors. The Pilgrims harvested only twenty acres. And to top it all off, a second shipload of thirty- five settlers arrived without any provisions because they expected to live off the crops the first settlers had raised. By the end of their second winter in Plymouth, food had to be rationed again: five kernels of corn for each person per day.(3)

A hard life. In fact, some proposed a Day of Mourning to honor all those who had perished. But the others said no, a Day of Thanksgiving would be more appropriate. After all, even though half had died, half had NOT. That is reason to give thanks.

For whatever reason, a Thanksgiving observance in our nation did not become an annual event until a most persistent lady, Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of a prominent magazine for women, the author of the poem, "Mary Had a Little Lamb, a widow with five children, began a campaign in 1846. It took seventeen years for her dream to be realized, but in 1863, in the midst of the most devastating war our nation has ever encountered, President Abraham Lincoln issued the following:

     "...I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our  benficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or   sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently  implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to  restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of  peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union..."(5)

Gratitude. Not out of a THEREFORE, of good things.  But out of the NEVERTHELESS of tough times.  Lincoln could have us give thanks not for all the awfulness in the world, but for the fact that we know in our heart of hearts that awfulness is not the end of the story

This year some of you are giving thanks out of a THEREFORE.  Life has been fine.  and you are thankful to God.

And some of you this week are giving thanks out of a NEVERTHELESS.  Life has not been easy, Nevertheless, you are thankful to God.

As we give thanks this morning, we  also have the opportunity to give our current offerings and  tithes, and our pledges for the work of the church in the year 2001.  In a moment each of you will be invited to come forward and place your offering and pledges in the basket on the table.    Most of you know the work of this church, and I hope you can embrace this work as your ministry in Christ's name.  We have much to do to educate our children and each other; to reach out into the community in service and with the good news of God's love. What you pledge will make a difference in how we do that.  I hope your pledge for the next year  flows out of your gratitude to God.

A church was having a financial campaign just like we are. In the campaign the pastor suggested that husbands and wives pray separately about how much to give. He suggested that God would give each of them a figure and in most cases, they would be very, very similar. Later that week, a guy who was known for being a bit of a tightwad came up to the pastor just totally amazed. "You know, Preacher, you were right. My wife and I prayed about how much to give each week for this next year and it turned out there was only one dollar's difference between us. She wants to give a dollar and I don't want to give anything."

Now, I know that was not a Presbyterian Church.  None of you would never give or never want to give nothing to the work of the Church and the ministry of Jesus Christ.. I've seen your generosity. . If you have'nt already, take a few minutes to consider what response is appropriate for you to make as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Pray. Let God lead you in your decision.
 

1. Carlos Wilton, via PresbyNet, "Bottom Drawer," #4004, 11/18/99 originally found in Family Circle Magazine 2. "Thanksgiving in America" by May Lowe from the book, Thanksgiving, Copyright (c) 1907 by Dodd, Mead, & Company
3. Graham Fowler, sermon via PresbyNet, "In Everything Give Thanks," 11/25/92
4. Excerpt from Presidential Proclamation, October 3, 1789 5. Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863 
 Albert Curry Winn, A Christian Primer, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), pp. 79-80  uses the notions of  "Therefore, and Nevertheless" from which this was taken.

Kent C. Miller

Copyright ã 1999, 2000
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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