Cultivating Thanksgiving in a Forgetful World

Sermon for Oxford-Orion Area Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service
22 November 2009
OT Reading: Deuteronomy 6:4-15 (16), 20-25
NT Reading: Colossians 3:1-17
Psalter Reading: Psalm 107

“When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He brought us out from there in order to bring us in…” (Deuteronomy 6:10-12, 23a)

Every year at this time Christians from Oxford and Orion come together to give thanks. In a divided and divisive world we come together to celebrate the unity that we share through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. In a hostile and violent world we come together to give honor to the One who took up the cross to reconcile us all to God and to one another and bring true peace to the world. In a broken and fractured world we come together to rejoice that God’s new creation is breaking in and healing a creation that groans for redemption.

We come to celebrate the strange generosity of God’s provision that abides with us in the loving and serving help of a stranger, the warm smile and greeting of a neighbor, and both the simplest meal and most lavish spread on our tables, shared with family and friends. We come together to give thanks, so we come together to remember because our thanksgiving to God is always rooted in memories.
We come tonight to remember and give thanks to the faithful, generous, sustaining, nourishing work of the Creator… But if we honest with one another tonight, it can be hard to give thanks, for we’re far too prone to forget God’s faithfulness. It seems that everything in our society conspires against thanksgiving because, whether in want or plenty, whether in good times or bad, we have little space in our lives to cultivate and nurture our memories of God’s faithfulness.

SCARCITY:
It’s hard to give thanks when things are bad, when it seems that we are wandering in a wilderness wasteland…. It’s hard to give thanks when things are bad, for we’re far too prone to forget.

Sometimes we are like the Israelites at Massah and Meribah. We long for water to drink. Sometimes, even while our hands are still gathering an omer of manna and catching quail, we wonder if the Lord is among us or not. We quarrel and complain and test the One who delivers us, who sates our hunger and quenches our thirst….”(Exodus 16-17)…. It’s hard to give thanks when things are bad; we’re far too prone to forget.
Sometimes the fig tree does not blossom, no fruit is on the vine, the produce of the olive fails, and the fields struggle to yield their crop under mild temperatures and overcast skies. Sometimes the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls (Habakkuk 3: 17ff.)…. It’s hard to give thanks when things are bad, for we’re far too prone to forget.

Sometimes the stability of our world seems to give way… The economic empires we’ve come to trust crumble and our homes and our retirement accounts, our “hope for the future,” swiftly shrink away. Our jobs hang in the balance, not because of our performance but on the whim of forces that are constantly out of our control. We stand for hours in lines to receive food, baby formula, and Christmas gifts for our children. Our lives are riddled by sickness and disease. We sit beside the beds of loved ones, helpless but longing to help, as they are victimized by disease and old age. When we are pounded by death and despair, when we are shaken by war, terror, and fear, when our families disintegrating, or when lavish thanksgiving feasts become simple, humble meals, it can be hard to give thanks….

It’s hard to give thanks when things are bad, for we’re far too prone to forget.

ABUNDANCE:
But it’s also hard to give thanks when things are good, when milk and honey flow freely and the grape clusters are too large to carry. It’s hard to give thanks when things are good, for we’re far too prone to forget.

Sometimes we find ourselves living in a rich, new land filled with unthinkable resources, a land of great promise, with large cities that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, we did not build, with houses filled with all sorts of goods that we did not provide, hewn cisterns that we did not hew, plump vineyards and olive groves that we did not plant…. It’s hard to give thanks when things are good, for we’re far too prone to forget.

Sometimes we suffer from the “complacency of success.” We forget God, thinking that we don’t need him. We build bigger and bigger barns to hold our banner crops. We watch as promotions come, our houses grow, our bank accounts thrive, and our anxiety about life seems to pass away. We have a tendency toward self-reliance, toward self-sufficiency, toward self-congratulation and praise. Our cups overflow; our tables are filled with a rich feast, but we exalt ourselves rather than the God who is the source of all good gifts…. It’s hard to give thanks when things are good; we’re far too prone to forget.
Sometimes we suffer under discontentment. It’s hard to remember rightly in a culture that manufactures desire and demands instant gratification. Instead of gratitude for our blessings, we are trained to see and want what we don’t have, the newer, the flashier, the latest…. We already see signs of the holiday sales madness that begins right on the cusp of this Thanksgiving season. Long before we sit at our tables on Thursday to give thanks for God’s faithfulness and provision, we have already devised our shopping plans for “Black Friday”….

It’s hard to give thanks when things are good, for we’re far too prone to forget.

CULTIVATING THANKSGIVING:
But today we do come to give thanks, and thanksgiving is always ground in remembering rightly. Our gratitude and our reverence spring from an awareness of something that reminds us of our human limitations, of something that is beyond our full comprehension, of something that can’t be controlled or changed by our manipulation, of something that is transcendent. We must realize that we are neither the source nor the cause, but the recipients of life through Divine grace. We must remember that God is with us, and God has taken the initiative to provide and care for us.

To cultivate thanksgiving in a forgetful world, we must remember. We remember by telling and listening to stories: stories of God’s faithfulness, stories of God’s provision, stories of God’s grace. This is one of the gifts of children. They love to ask the questions that inspire our memories, and they love to listen to the stories we share. We tell the stories of the God who delivers us, who fills the hungry with manna that blankets the wilderness ground and satisfies the thirsty with life-giving water that flows from a rock. We tell the stories of the God who brings us out of darkness and gloom, who breaks our bonds asunder. We remember the God who sends out his word and heals our sickness, who delivers us from destruction. We remember the one who calms the chaotic waters of our lives and, with just a word, hushes the waves of the sea.

As we remember rightly, our thanksgiving flows freely, and that thanksgiving inspires both hope and humility. Hope in the faithful God who is at the heart of our stories and humility as those who have received graciously from him. Hope and humility empower us to live in trust and faithfulness. Faithfulness and trust cultivate an awareness of God’s work in the world and in our own lives, his strange but always faithful, generous, sustaining, and nourishing work. And that awareness of God’s generous provision gives us new stories to remember, stories that overflow in thanksgiving….
And so the cycle starts all over again: our memories flow into thanksgiving, which inspires hope and humility, which empowers trust and faithfulness, which cultivates an awareness of God’s gracious provision, which flows into new stories about God.…

At times we can forget that our stories really are not about ourselves but God. God is the heart of our lives and our stories. So let us start, now, to cultivate hearts of thanksgiving by telling stories of God. Let us recite them to our children and talk about them when we lie down and when we rise. Let us share them with one another when we are at home and when we are walking and driving about.

And maybe we can start this week by sharing our stories with one another at the table. In this season of food, family, and football, may we gather around our tables and remember. May we tell the stories that keep us grounded securely in God’s faithfulness throughout history, but may we also celebrate our smaller, more personal encounters with God’s steadfast love and faithfulness in our families and in our own lives…. May we remember the God who sees us, the God who is always present with us, the God who provides… and as we remember, may the Spirit make us people who give thanks!

“(Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.) And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:15b-17).