The Paradox of Giving Thanks

For Thanksgiving, the sermon I preached this past Sunday evening at a Tallmadge ecumenical Thanksgiving service.

Scripture Reading - Deuteronomy 8:7-18

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, ⁸a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, ⁹a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. ¹⁰You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you. ¹¹ Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. ¹²When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, ¹³and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, ¹⁵who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous- snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, ¹⁶and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. ¹⁷Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’  (NRSV)

Sermon

Oscar Wilde wrote that there are two tragedies in life.

            The first is not getting what you want.

            The second is getting it.

Getting what we want can be a tragedy.  God was bringing the Hebrew people into the promised land that would be their home, out of slavery in Egypt, and out of the hardship of the forty year wilderness journey.  At this defining moment, God gives them a message for them to remember in the years to follow.  There will come a time when life will be wonderful, when all good gifts will be full and abundant.  They will have all you want of grains and fruit, streams and wells for fresh water, shelter and security in a land of plenty.  And when that happens, they start to think that they did it all for themselves and it is no big deal.

When God freed them from slavery, and when they depended on God for water and manna to eat in the wilderness, they were as close to God as an infant to a mother, knowingly dependent and thankful for God’s constant care.  But when the days of crisis end, their dependence on God becomes more subtle, less obvious and desperate.  When that happens, it is harder to remember that these gifts are given by God.  The paradox of thanksgiving is that sometimes the more we have to be thankful for, the less thankful we are.  “Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God” the scripture says, to them and to us.

I wonder.  Is it really harder to remember God and to give thanks to God when our lives get better and better?  It would seem to me that when life is wonderful is when I would be more conscious of God, giving thanks to God when my health is good, when I have good work, when those I love are safe and well, when I have no worries for income, when the food I eat is savory, and the weather is beautiful.

I know that I’m not alone in feeling close to God in the beauty of nature, the fall leaves above a forest trail, with the warm autumn sun shining through the leaves, or in the beauty of music and voices singing strong words that stir my soul.  When life is good, don’t we experience God’s glory, God’s protection, and give thanks?

And when life is hard, don’t we feel as thought God is distant?  When a crisis strikes, when people are hurt, when we worry for ourselves and our loved ones but can do nothing to make us feel secure, isn’t it harder to remember God, except to wonder where God is?

There was a study that followed up with people who had won the lottery, those big lottery wins that turn people into millionaires.  The study found that they were a lot happier in their lives for about six months, and then they got used to everything, and they were no happier than if they’d never won. In fact, they now took less pleasure in simple every day experiences because the bar for enjoyment had been raised so high.  They lost the capacity to enjoy the regular goodness of the world.

Psychological studies have shown that people become habituated to goodness.  That’s why the first taste of a good meal is always the best one.  When something very good becomes the normal state of things, we stop being amazed by it.  We get used to it, the way that lottery winner gets used to steak for breakfast.  You start at “Mmm…Steak!  For breakfast!”  but soon you get to “ugh, it’s a little tough this morning.”

The tragedy of getting what we want.

Two months ago, I fractured a bone in my thumb.  Not a terrible injury, but it had to be reset, and I couldn’t use it for about five weeks.  Couldn’t grab or hold anything.  Couldn’t turn the car key in the ignition, or open a tight jar lid, or hold my guitar pick.  I was surprised how many things I had to do differently.  And the injury didn’t make me angry so much as it made me thankful: thankful for the support I had in my wife, my doctor, my church.  Thankful that the injury will heal, and ever more thankful now for all the things I’m starting to do again.  What a gift to write words on paper.

I don’t believe that God ever causes bad things to happen for the purpose of helping us to treat life preciously, to be thankful for it, to remember that it is a gift from God.  God is in the business of blessing our lives.

The Hebrews were finally being given a home of safety and abundance, but there was the danger of moving from the first tragedy of life to the second, from not having what they wanted, to having it, and being miserable.  God gave them one more gift.  In addition to the land, the grains and fruit, the deep wells of water, the home of homes, God also gave them a covenantal relationship that would save them from the second tragedy.  God gave them the practice of worship, and thanksgiving for gifts.  The act of thanksgiving is a sacred space that allows us to step back from the middle of our lives and see our little corner of the world with fresh eyes.  The practice of thanksgiving is God’s gift that brings us deep joy, deep connection to each other, and love for God and neighbor.

And that’s not because God is waiting around for the credit.  God is not fishing for compliments.  God doesn’t need our thanks, so much as we need to give it.  Remembering God and being thankful for all that is good is for our sakes.  It’s important for us.

A.J. Jacobs found out what thanksgiving can do, even if you aren’t sure that the God you’re giving thanks to is there.  Jacobs came from a non-practicing Jewish family, and hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about God, but he is also a writer who had the idea to write about the Bible by trying to follow all its teachings, in the most literal way, for one year.  He even found a sinner he could throw some pebbles at to fulfill the old commands on stoning, so a lot of the book is humorous.  At the beginning of the year, he begins to follow teachings about giving thanks to God.  He doesn’t quite know how to think about God, but he prays to God just the same.  Here’s how he describes it.

Thanksgiving, that I’m getting into. Today, before tasting my lunch of hummus and pita bread, I stand up from my seat at the kitchen table, close my eyes, and say in a hushed tone: “I’d like to thank God for the land that he provided so that this food might be grown.”  Technically, that’s enough.  That fulfulls the Bible’s commandment.  But while in thanksgiving mode, I decide to spread the gratitude around.  “I’d like to thank the farmer who grew the chickpeas for this hummus.  And the workers who picked the chickpeas.  And the truckers who drove them to the store. And the old Italian lady who sold the hummus to me and told me ‘Lots of love.’ Thank you.

The prayers are helpful.  They remind me that the food didn’t spontaneously generate in my fridge.  They make me feel more connected, more grateful, more grounded, more aware of my place in this complicated hummus cycle.  They remind me to taste the hummus instead of shoveling it into my maw like it’s a nutrition pill.  And they remind me that I’m lucky to have food at all.  Basically, they help me get outside of my self-obsessed cranium.  (from The Year of Living Biblically)

The tragedy of getting what we want can isolate us from the goodness of the world, and the people we share the world with.

Isn’t that the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, which will be retold many times in this next month because it can’t be told enough?  Scrooge became isolated by wealth, bitter and mean, while his nephew spread cheer and warmth with less to be happy about, and Bob Cratchit, in his poverty was gracious and kind.  How many times do we need to hear that story, how many psychological studies do we need to tell us that our level of joy is not equal to how much we have?  The feeling of thanksgiving is not affected by how much we have to be thankful for.  Thanksgiving is a practice that brings warmth and joy and love that reaches out to others.  God knew the danger of people getting what they wanted, and God gave them the cure.  .

And this is why I love the practice of thanksgiving.  Whether it is the American holiday that we celebrate this week, or the regular practice of giving thanks in worship and prayer, when we give thanks, we are rediscovering the goodness of God’s creation.  When we give thanks, we step back from all of the things we are used to, and we say “wait a minute, this is amazing!  This is wonderful!  Life is good, and God is good! Thank you.

In the beginning, in the first chapter of Genesis, God creates the world, the heavens, the land and sky, and all the plants and animals that live.  And after every act of creation, God takes time to appreciate how wonderful it is.  God saw that it was good.  God saw that it was good.  And when God creates humankind, we are created in God’s image.  We are created in the image of the one who took time to see that the world is good.  I want to leave you with this.  When we give thanks to God for our lives and all that is good in this world, we are acting in God’s image.  We are doing what God created us to do.  Give thanks, and see that the world is good.  See that it is a gift, a gift to be enjoyed and shared with others.   God’s gifts pull us out of our isolation and into the grand celebration with all of God’s children.  It is good.  It is good.  It is good.  And we give thanks.