Bible Text:

The late theologian Lewis Smedes wrote, “I have never met a grateful person who was an unhappy person.” Another writer says, “Gratitude is the essence of Christian practice.” 

We have so much to learn about being grateful, especially in America. We as believers have much to learn. One Thanksgiving an extended family invited two Native Americans to the Thanksgiving dinner feast. The two guests looked over the table loaded with the turkey fattened with hormones, vegetables fertilized with chemicals, gravy topped with pools of fat, white bread, refined sugar and artificially flavored cider. One looked at the other and whispered, “No wonder they look so pale.” 

Sometimes our expressions of Thanksgiving are pretty pale. 

I read a sermon in a magazine this week called “Thanks for Nothing.” Here are the key words from that message: “The real blessings of life cannot be touched, purchased or possessed. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” 

It’s not cars or houses or boats or jewelry or food or clothing. We have so many things. Someone said if you have a bank account, money in your wallet, and some spare change in a dish at home, you are better off than 92% of the world today. We do have things. But we are dissatisfied. All of the things pass away. Again, these words: “It is the unseen that is eternal. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” 

Helen Keller once said, “The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or even touched: They must be felt with the heart.” 

Gratitude is felt with the heart. This may sound a bit like gratitude in the abstract; but it’s essential to the people of faith. We need to understand faith-based gratitude. 

GRATITUDE IS UPLIFTING 

First, we need to remember that gratitude is uplifting. Real, heartfelt gratitude brings a buoyancy to life. That buoyancy has the capacity to flip despair on its back. That buoyancy says each morning, “I will not be robbed of this day.” 

I watched Katie Couric interview Elizabeth Edwards on the “Today” show Wednesday morning of this past week. Elizabeth Edwards is the wife of the failed candidate for Vice President. She is battling breast cancer. But she had an upbeat spirit. She said, “You have to be thankful for today.” 

That level of buoyancy brings healing. A doctor tells of seeing a lot of depressed and unhappy patients. The prescription he gave was what he called a “thank you” cure. He asked each patient for 6 weeks to give thanks for every good thing that happened. He asked them to keep a journal of each incident. The cure rate was remarkable. Gratitude beats all. Gratitude is uplifting. Gratitude brings a buoyancy to life. 

John Buchanan is the editor of “The Christian Century.” He writes, “When I was a boy, my parents took me to the community Thanksgiving service. I was an unhappy and unwilling participant. I didn’t much like them. There were not many people there. The people who were there I didn’t know. And I surely didn’t care for the preaching.” 

Finally he said to his mother, “Mother, why do we have to attend these services every year?” She replied quickly, “Because of the hymns. They are the best in the book!” 

She was right.

   Come, ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest

    home. 

   We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing. 

   Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices. 

Someone says of that last hymn, it is the best all-purpose hymn in our book, suitable for every important occasion. 

Karl Barth was once asked, “What else can we say to what God gives us but to stammer praise?” Gratitude brings a remarkable buoyancy to life. 

GRATITUDE CENTERS US 

Gratitude also centers us and reminds us of our Center. 

Unfortunately the Thanksgiving holiday is generally glossed over in our culture. It comes as a couple of days off between Halloween and Christmas. This Friday upcoming is known as “Black Friday.” Do you know why it’s called that? Because retailers say it’s the day when their red ink turns to black. 

Thanksgiving is crucial. We must not let it slide. For the community of believers, Thanksgiving is a centering opportunity. 

In 1621 a small band of pilgrims held a feast of thanksgiving. Most if not all of them had buried at least one family member over their first year together in the new world. But they gave thanks to the God before whom life was lived. 

In 1863 Abraham Lincoln ordered a national day of thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. What was going on in 1863? The country was in the midst of the worst war in memory—the Civil War. But Abraham Lincoln was very clear. He said, “We must give thanks to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” 

In 1941 Thanksgiving was made an official American holiday. What was happening in 1941? War in Europe, and about to be war in the Pacific. 

Interestingly, all of these are rooted in 3000 years of faith history. The seeds for Thanksgiving were planted in the history of Israel. Read the opening verses of Deuteronomy 26. Here is a powerful rendering expressing how God was at the center of their thanksgiving. 

We are in danger of losing our sense of Providential Presence. Someone suggests that God may be saying to us, “You should pray every day, not in supplication but in gratitude for all you have been given. Hey, I’m just like everybody else, I like a little appreciation now and then. Nothing big, no plaques, just a nice '’Hey God, good job today.’” 

We live in a time when many people no longer understand that life is lived before God. What does it mean to say that? What does it mean to model that? For us, gratitude is not generic. Gratitude is centered in a gracious God. 

GRATITUDE IS COMMUNAL 

Furthermore, gratitude is communal. It is not private. It is an expression of a community. 

More and more of life seems to be private and personal. Our technology facilitates that transition: cell phones, camera phones, text messaging, e-mail, instant mail and the like. Are we becoming prisoners of our technology? It has been suggested that a high tech world tends to separate individuals from God’s creation. It is almost like we are alone with our technology. 

Our oldest son works for a company that sells home entertainment centers. I’m not just talking about a television set and a few boxes on either side of it. I’m talking about the whole combination of components: plasma screens, sound coming from all directions, acoustical material on the walls, remotely controlled lighting—even the couches and chairs in which to sit. He sold one a week or so ago for $34,000. A man had refinished a game room in his basement. He bought a complete setup for that room. I guess he wanted to be alone with his stuff! 

We can create settings where God seems once or twice removed from life. But Thanksgiving is communal. Remember the hymns: “We gather together…” or “Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices.” 

Gratitude is communal. Listen again to Psalm 111:1: “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.” 

DIFFICULT DAYS AHEAD? 

We may be looking at some very difficult days ahead—difficult days for America. We are distracted by a war in Iraq—where we understand very little about Islam, and where there is no endgame. We have a vacillating economy, and we’re not quite sure where it’s headed. We’re coming off a very polarizing election and we’re not quite sure what that means for the country. We are in serious debt as a nation. Healthcare is in crisis. We have more poverty in America than in any other industrialized nation on earth. 

Now comes Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving can help us through some of this. Yes, Thanksgiving is blurred by Christmas promotions and sales. Gratitude often gets the short end of life’s stick. But gratitude right now is essential. 

A family was at the Thanksgiving table and asked little Bobby to return thanks. He gave thanks for all the members of the family, mother, father, sisters, grandparents, uncles and aunts. Then he started to give thanks for all that was on the table—the turkey, the potatoes and gravy, the cranberry sauce, the pumpkin pie. All of a sudden he stopped. He paused. It was a long pause. One by one, eyes popped open around the table. They heard little Bobby say to his mother, “If I thank God for the broccoli, God will know I’m lying.” 

Can you thank God for the broccoli moments of life? Can you thank God in the midst of some major uncertainties? 

We simply must get hold of gratitude. We must steep ourselves in gratitude. It’s the buoyant, healthy, centering, communal thing to do. It is the way to be as a believer and as a follower of Jesus.