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Sermon – "Forever Thankful" – Philippians 4:4-7
November 22, 2020
Chris Coon, PBPC
I remember an evening several years ago when I was driving across town, lost in my thoughts, letting my own natural autopilot take me to my destination across familiar streets and intersections. At one traffic signal the light turned red as I approached and I stopped, the first car at the intersection. It was a long signal, and I became restless to get going, but for some reason, when the light changed to green, I hesitated for an extra moment. Then, just as I was about to press the accelerator, a large sedan came speeding into the intersection from the left, running through red light and careening from side to side. Clearly, anything that had been in its path would have been decimated. As it reached the other side of the intersection, it hit the curb on one side and blew out both left tires, then careened over to the other side of the road and hit the other curb, blowing out both right tires. It continued speeding down the street on its rims, sparks flying, as two police cars came following through the intersection in hot pursuit. The cars disappeared from view, and I and the other cars around me sat there, stunned at what we had just seen. Finally, we moved on, wondering if this surreal experience had actually just happened. One thing I knew right away: if I had pulled into that intersection a second sooner, I would have been seriously injured, and likely dead.
Many of you have had near-death experiences like this, or from something else like a serious illness. These experiences can make us suddenly look at our lives differently, noticing the smallest beautiful details of life, counting our blessings, and making us realize how precious life is. In this way, a near-death experience can actually be a very real blessing. We can all use a shift in our perspective, and hopefully it won't always take a potentially traumatic experience to bring it about. Thanksgiving is a moment for all of us, but especially Christians, I believe, to have a renewed perspective on our lives.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:4-7
The Popularity of Thanksgiving
We have now arrived at the "holiday season," the time from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. This is certainly a different holiday season for our country than any other I've experienced. Most of us are looking at much smaller gatherings than we are used to, and the dire warnings from health officials about the potential danger of coronavirus spread during the holidays actually serves to highlight the cultural value of these gatherings. Maybe the greatest indication of how important holiday gatherings are is in the pushback we see on the news; it seems that large numbers of Americans place a greater value on being together with loved ones and maintaining holiday traditions than they do keeping themselves and their loved ones safe.
Thanksgiving is ranked right up there with Christmas as the most popular holiday in the U.S., and its popularity is understandable because it doesn't all the baggage, stress and expense of Christmas – unless, of course, you're the one doing the cooking. In terms of meaning, while for the non-religious Christmas is filled with the cartoon mythology of Santa and elves and gifts, Thanksgiving maintains its simple meaningfulness as an opportunity to stop and be thankful. After all, anyone can be thankful; being thankful doesn't imply that we are thanking anyone in particular. Whereas the Thanksgiving celebration was originally an explicit recognition of God's blessings, now there is not necessarily an object of our gratitude – at least not a divine one.
Thanksgiving is not a church holiday and there is really nothing explicitly Christian about it. But Christian churches in the U.S. have often treated it as a holy day because expressing our gratitude to God seems inherently and appropriately Christian. And I believe it is important for us as Christ-followers to be people of gratitude, especially in trying times such as we're in. There are three things in particular that I believe we need to be especially thankful for right now.
The Gift of Life
Our lives were not automatic, and we didn't happen by accident. Scripture tells us that God made a choice to create us. God knit us together in our mother's womb. We did not pre-exist; we came into existence because God wanted to share life with others and created us in His own image for this purpose. This is a fact that we so easily overlook in the regularity and challenges of our life. We would not exist if God had not chosen to give us life. Life itself has its source in God, and He has shared it with us. The fact that we are in this moment thinking, feeling, hearing, reading, interacting – whatever it is that you're doing, you're doing it because God has given you life. While we often treat God as one compartment or relationship among many in our busy schedules, our whole being has its source and its continuing existence in God. To recognize this miracle and say thank you to God for the gift of life helps to begin to put the rest of our lives into perspective.
The Gift of Love
Scripture teaches us that God is both transcendent and immanent; in other words, God is simultaneously above and beyond creation and not bound by it, while at the same time being present in the midst of what He has created. This means that God's presence is all around us. Saint Ignatius emphasized that God could be found in all things. By this, he did not mean that everything is God (pantheism, or panentheism), but that there is no aspect of our life that God is not involved in and that He does not care about. If we take the time to slow down and listen and reflect, we can begin to be aware that God is working in the midst of the details and experiences of our lives. We can begin to see the ways that God loves us. The air that we breathe, the sound of the bird or cricket, the changing colors of the leaves – these are signs of God's love for us. The cup of coffee I enjoy in the morning, the sweater I'm wearing, the book in my hand – signs of God's love. My dog's wagging tail, the unexpected greeting from the passer-by in the park, the phone call from an old friend – all of these are signs of God's love.
The Gift of Jesus
As Christians, the greatest gift is the gift of Jesus Christ. As we head into Advent season, we'll be reflecting on this gift quite a bit – what it means that God became human for us. But for now, we can say that all of our gifts come together in Jesus. The book of Acts calls Jesus the Author of Life – Jesus played a central role in the creation of the world and in the creation of you and me. In Jesus we see the most tangible expression of God's love – in the way that he interacted with people, showed compassion to those on the margins, and gave his life for us. In Jesus we not only see what God is like in a way we can understand, we also can see the way to live our own lives. And Jesus' continuing promise to be with us through the Holy Spirit means that we can live each day with Jesus as our friend. And because we belong to him, we can trust that we are connected to the eternal source of life, the life that lasts beyond death.
Grace – All Is Gift
Now these three things may have been totally predictable coming from your pastor – we should be thankful for life, love, and Jesus. Okay, I don't claim to have original or necessarily profound insights here. But we need reminders, and we often lose our uniquely Christian perspective. Many of the psalms were written to remind Israel to remember all that God had done for them, and to call them to thanksgiving. As Christians, this is even more important, because we have a deeper reason to be thankful – and that deeper reason is grace.
We obviously did nothing to deserve the gift of life in the first place. But scripture also tells us that God does not love us because we deserve it – God's loves us deeply before we can deserve it, and even after we've done things that would make us not deserve it, God still loves us deeply. God continues to be with us and to bless us in innumerable ways, even when we've turned our back on Him. And God gave Jesus as the ultimate expression of grace to show God's love to world and to save us. Jesus is the ultimate gift, the gift of God's self to us.
When we can begin to fathom how much God loves us, then we can begin to see that all is grace, that all is gift. Gratitude takes on new meaning, becoming more powerful and deep, as well as becoming more common. As cliché as it sounds, every day becomes Thanksgiving, because we learn to recognize the gifts of God all around us throughout our day, and the appropriate response is gratitude.
Some of you I know keep or have kept "gratitude journals," taking a few minutes each day to write down at least one thing that you are thankful for that day. I highly recommend this, at least for a season, to develop the ongoing habit of thanksgiving in our lives. We don't say thank you often enough; this is true in all of our relationships, but it is especially true in our relationship with God. I encourage you to take time each day to reflect on the gifts of the day, signs and expressions of God's love, and to say thank you.
Gratitude changes our hearts, turning our thoughts and attention away from ourselves and toward the One who is the true giver. As we give our thanks to God, not only are we growing in our understanding of how God loves us and blesses us, but we are also deepening our capacity to be filled with God's love and to live in God's grace.