Thanksgiving 2007 “Thanks in All Circumstances”

“In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Familiar words from Paul’s letter to the Philippians—and poignant words, since he was writing them from prison. Paul truly seems to have learned the secret of being thankful in all circumstances.

I suspect we have a harder time learning that lesson. We were talking in the office this week about how much more cheerful we feel when the sun is shining—there’s just something in the sunlight that makes us happier. As I look back over the past 24 Thanksgiving Days in Nevada County, I realize that it has almost always been a beautiful day; and that helps me be thankful.

And it’s like that in life, isn’t it? Thanksgiving is pretty attainable when things are going well, when the sun is shining and life seems generally good.

But of course it isn’t always like that. Sometimes life deals us a more difficult hand—illness, trouble, sorrow. That’s when our ability to give thanks is tested, sometimes to the breaking point. And yet that is also just when the lesson from Paul becomes important; for if we can only be thankful when things are going well, then we haven’t really learned what thanksgiving is all about in the Christian sense of the word.

A friend and colleague of mine, Pastor Russ Saltzman, has written a remarkable reflection on the mystery of thanksgiving, and I’d like to share portions of it with you. He begins by remembering a terrible experience: I was living in Charleston, South Carolina in 1989 when Hurricane Hugo hit the city. After three weeks of living in that place of twisted or missing trees, broken homes and debris, we packed up for Savannah, Georgia — just a weekend to be some place where the trees weren’t broken and the electricity worked. Savannah had been on Hugo’s hit list, dead center, until that hurricane shifted a half-degree, edged over a bit, and aimed at Charleston.

So, I’m driving through Savannah. And there I see a huge sign in the front yard of a major church at a downtown intersection.  “Thank you God for sparing Savannah.” I was instantly angry. You cannot know how badly I reacted to that sign. To me, it was like saying, “Thank you, God, for creaming those other guys [instead of us].”

Let me stop there for a moment and say that this is sometimes, I’m afraid, how our thanksgivings get framed. Thank you, God, for the way you’ve blessed us—not like those poor people who are the hurricane victims, or the fire victims; not like those who struggle with family problems, or serious illness. We often, even if things aren’t entirely wonderful, find ourselves giving thanks that they aren’t worse! I don’t really think that’s what Paul had in mind when he spoke of giving thanks in all circumstances!

But back to my friend. If there is reason to give thanks in the midst of all our troubles, he writes, then it must be a reason that is located in places where we never think to look. This is not an altogether happy world, and we are not a universally pleasant people. If we give thanks for our abundance, does that not in some way diminish someone else’s suffering? If there is a reason [for Christians] to give thanks, then it must be a reason that does not cheapen someone else’s misfortune.

And as Pastor Saltzman reflected on this, another verse from Paul came to him, from Romans 14: “No one of us lives to himself, and no one of us dies to himself. If we live, it is to the Lord that we live. And if we die, it is to the Lord that we die. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

And then Pastor Saltzman confesses, There are lots of things for which I do not thank God. My list is pretty lengthy. But there is one great thing for which to always give thanks: Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.  It means there is reason for real thanks even in terrible pain. It means there is reason for real thanks even when the “real” world looks hopeless. It even means we can give thanks even when we’re not feeling particularly thankful. We give thanks — not because a hurricane missed Savannah and smashed Charleston — but because in all times, and in all circumstances, and in all places, come what may, we are the Lord’s.

And that, it seems to me, is the key to thanksgiving for Christians, the thing that enables Paul to say that we always pray with thanksgiving. We are the Lord’s, and nothing can change that. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We are, as we say in the baptismal liturgy, “marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

And of course, as Paul goes on to say in our passage this morning, when we understand thanksgiving in this way, then we know the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. If thanksgiving is rooted in the abiding and constant love that Christ has for us, then we are content—whatever the external circumstances of life may be, whatever the storms, whatever the trouble. We are giving thanks for something that is deep within us, something the storms and the trouble cannot reach.

To go back to my friend one more time, he closes his reflection by observing that each Sunday, in the communion liturgy, we begin in this way. The pastor says, “The Lord be with you,” and the congregation responds, “And also with you.” “Lift up your hearts.” “We lift them to the Lord.” “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” “It is right to give him thanks and praise.” It has always struck me, he writes, that the ancient words say, “Lift up your hearts.” They do not say, “C’mon get happy.” So we will offer our hearts this Thanksgiving. And of the hearts we offer up, well, some will be joyful, some will be sad; some broken, others mending. But whatever their condition, we lift our hearts up, all in thankfulness to the Lord to whom we belong — whether we live or whether we die.

Now that is a remarkable statement. We lift up our hearts—broken or mending, joyful or sad—lift them up in thanksgiving to the One to whom we belong. He is the One, of course, who made these hearts for us; the One who has given and still preserves our body and soul with all their powers.

And he is the One who, with great love, has stooped to us and embrace our feeble, sinful, and not always grateful humanity. I’ve been reading the recent book of excerpts from the private writings of Mother Teresa, entitled Come Be My Light. If you’ve read the reviews, you know this is a book that exposes her deepest doubts and struggles, and those parts of the book are quite moving. But here’s a passage of a different sort from a letter she wrote: His ways are so beautiful—to think that we have God almighty to stoop so low as to love you & me & make use of us—& make us feel that He really needs us—As I grow older my wonder at His humility grows not for what He gives but for what He is—the Bread of Life.

The deepest thanksgiving, you see, is not for what God gives, but for what God is, and who God is. He is the One who stoops to us and loves us and makes use of us in all our weakness, all our sorrow, all our sinful failures to love him as we ought—the One to Whom we belong, come what may. Therefore we surely ought to thank and praise, serve and adore him. This is most certainly true.