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| "Thank You" by Katharina Friederike, on Flickr |
This is a re-worked version of my reflection from last year's Thanksgiving Eve service. It is my submission for this week's religion column in our local newspaper. Even though the first draft of this was written a year ago, the heart of the matter is just as relevant this year, perhaps moreso.
My parents taught me to say "thank you" in response to any gift I was given. If it was a great gift or if it was weird. If it didn't fit. If I hated it or if I loved it. If I planned to exchange it the next day. It didn't matter. You always said "thank you," and you always meant it. It was a small learning for us as kids, but the bigger lessons are profound: that gratitude transcends our own desires; that thankfulness is a disposition, not just a reaction; that we are gracious as a sign of love, compassion, and relationship to the giver.
Psalm 126:5-6 says, "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves." Here, the Psalmist challenges the people to rejoice and give thanks to God, the giver, both in times of exile and in times of restoration; in good times and in bad. For the Psalmist, rejoicing and giving thanks is a sign of faith. God has restored their fortunes before, and they can trust that God will restore their fortunes again. Therefore, they can rejoice over God’s faithfulness and give thanks. God is their creator - all life and blessings are gifts.
This is echoed in Paul’s words in Thessalonians 5 when he says: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
The post-election fallout has left many people feeling wounded, vulnerable, and scared. We are a country divided and angry. We are staring our hopes, our fears, and our flaws square in the eye. The world remains in conflict. Violence and terror have become part of our daily vocabulary. None of this is new, of course. Even Paul knew a life of political conflict, of the threats of empire, of imprisonment for speaking the truth, the rise and the fall of nations.
And yet still he says: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances.
In all circumstances. It is easy to give thanks when the world is going well, when it feels like God has everything under control, and we feel safe, happy, and fulfilled. But to give thanks when things are difficult? To rejoice amidst the pain in our world? To be grateful even in the midst of hunger and fear and loss?
That is a much harder task.
We are broken people living in a broken world. For some of us, we face the first holiday season without a dear loved one. Some of us are unemployed or underemployed. Some of us are lonely. Some of us struggle with body image or envy or chronic illness. Some of us feel our hearts break in two every time we turn on the news.
Being grateful doesn’t mean that we ignore the suffering in our world, or pretend that our brokenness doesn’t matter. In fact, Paul’s call to rejoice and give thanks comes right after he urges believers to encourage the fainthearted, to help the week, to be patient, not to repay evil with evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all, and to pray without ceasing.
Paul and the Psalmist alike remind us that it is because of our grateful hearts - because we are humbled by the blessings we have been given! - that we can care for refugees and we feed the hungry. We can weep with those who weep. We can bear one another’s burdens. We can give thanks in all circumstances, and rejoice, because we have faith that pain and suffering and death and darkness will all pass away. We can give thanks in all circumstances because we hope and trust in God to bring lasting peace and light to our world.
May those who today sow in tears one day reap with shouts of joy. May those who now go out weeping come home again with shouts of joy. May we be thankful and rejoice, in all circumstances. For God in Christ is faithful. And we, in faith, have hope. May we live each day in gratitude toward God and generosity of spirit toward one another, for the sake of Christ our Lord.