Grown-up gratitude
Commentary
Every parent has been through it. As your child gets bigger and learns to talk, it becomes time for her to learn to say "thank you." So Mom and Dad gently urge their toddler to thank Grandma for the birthday present, and everybody gets a kick out of her young tongue stumbling over the words. As the child grows older, the gentle urging becomes pestering, as her parents hope that at the birthday party, she won't simply grab the present from her friend at the door and tear off the wrapping paper. "Say 'thank you,' " you nag; and she mumbles a perfunctory "thanks." The nagging continues for years, and sometimes in good moments it may revert to a just gentle reminder. And then one day it happens. Lo and behold, after years of being nagged, she actually says to a friend "thank you" without your having to prompt her. There really are miracles in the world.
In fact, this very drama between parents and young children will probably be played out today around the table.
And it illustrates the uncomfortable fact -- a fact we would just as soon not admit in our "human beings are basically good" cultural philosophy -- that thanking somebody for something isn't a natural thing to do. It's not built into us. It has to be learned. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is something we grow toward, we grow into gratitude. And as we grow, so does the amount of gratitude and the breadth of gratitude.
What the parents expect in the little scenario above is for the child simply to say "thank you." What God expects from us is that we will deepen our thankfulness, carry it further, always make it more. Perhaps even make it life-encompassing.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
It is always hard to reinterpret ancient traditions and writings for a new day, yet that is what every preacher is called to do, and that is what the authors of Deuteronomy were doing. By retrospectively putting words into the mouth of Moses, they offered the possibility of a new direction for a nation in turmoil.
This passage represents the instructions for a relatively obscure liturgical rite, which would, in theory, kick in after Israel's arrival in and settlement of the Promised Land and after the land had started to produce. In fact, this passage is a later instruction on how to give thanks to God. The first step was to gather the first of the harvest and take it to "the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name."
There are then two declarations that the worshiper is to make standing before the altar of the Lord. The first, in verse 3, is said as the priest sets the basket down in front of the altar. It is a statement of both simple fact and profound faith. The fact is: "I have come into the land ..."; the faith is: "... the land the LORD gave us." It is an act acknowledging the true Source of the land and Israel's possession of it.
The second declaration is longer, and it takes the act of giving thanks even deeper. The worshiper is to recite a concise history of what God has done for Israel, beginning with the namesake, Israel himself, or Jacob, the wandering Aramean. It goes through the sojourn in Egypt and the enslavement of the children of Israel. It continues with the exodus and the wandering in the wilderness, and it comes finally to this very Promised Land that has brought forth a harvest. It is more than simply a historical recitation. It is a creed.
The German biblical scholar Gerhard von Rad deemed this declaration a credo, a statement of faith. He says, "With these words, the speaker has taken his place in the story of salvation and, in a splendid foreshortening of time, has acknowledged himself to be a direct recipient of the act of salvation which was the gift of the Promised Land" (von Rad, Deuteronomy, Old Testament Library [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966] p. 159). You say it, you believe it, you act out of that belief, and you become a part of Israel. Or perhaps it would be better to say that Israel becomes a reality in you. In giving thanks to God, you rehearse the history, relive it, recite it. It is a liturgical action, perhaps a sacrament that produces a reality beyond itself. In this case, the reality is Israel.
But behind the saying of this credo lie many questions. What are the limits to thanksgiving? What precisely has God done for the Israelites? Given them the food in the basket that they are holding in front of the altar? Well, yes, but there is much more to it than that. Given them a land? Yes, but there's more to it than that as well. Guided them through the desert? Yes, but there's still more. Freed them from slavery? Called forth a deliverer? When do we stop? How far back do we go in giving thanks to God?
The answer, of course, is all of the above, and more. God has led and guided the children of Israel on a journey that began with "a wandering Aramean," but which surely goes back even further than that, and which continues to this day. True thanksgiving, thanksgiving from the soul, can never stop with just the immediate birthday present or Christmas gift or the food on the Thanksgiving table.
The instruction ends with "rejoicing in all the good the LORD your God has given to you" (RSV). The NRSV gives it a slant more befitting what we do on Thanksgiving Day: "Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you." The sense here is that the bounty itself becomes the means to celebrate. Even in the midst of a hungry world, giving thanks once a year by enjoying, even relishing, God's bounty is good and moral and worthy.
Philippians 4:4-9
Paul is writing the letter to the Philippians from jail, and many scholars have assumed it to be during his imprisonment in Rome. But that is by no means sure; it could be earlier than that. Whenever it was, however, the fact that Paul was in jail offers a glimpse into his mindset in the writing of the letter. If there is deep feeling in the letter, longing and yearning, incarceration might explain it.
Paul's letters always follow certain formulas. They begin with a salutation and a thanksgiving for the church, and they end with exhortations and encouragement. So this ending to the letter to the Philippians is in keeping with the standard style. For that reason, we may be tempted to disregard the closing instructions as pro forma sayings, statements that carry little theological weight. Simple final words, parting shots. Yet perhaps these are the most important words of the letter; perhaps these closing expressions are the things that Paul most wants for the church at Philippi.
Consider the words that Paul uses here. Rejoice. Gentleness. Prayer. Supplication. Thanksgiving. Peace. True. Honorable. Just. Pure. Pleasing. Commendable. Excellence. To call this advice doesn't do justice to the deep feeling that is evident in Paul. It is not simply distant, disinterested advice that Paul is offering here. Instead, he is speaking passionately, a passion that is betrayed by the rhetoric, in both English and Greek, of verse 8. There is something he wants very much for the Philippians -- a style, an attitude, a way of life.
The specific subject of thanksgiving is raised in verse 6, where it is set up in opposition to worry or anxiety. Indeed, paired with supplication or petition, thanksgiving becomes the cure for worry. The two actions -- worrying and giving thanks -- are presented as mutually exclusive: can we really continue to worry in the midst of asking God for what we need and giving thanks to God for what we have? The way of life, then, that Paul seeks, and yearns for, for the church at Philippi is a life of thanksgiving, the healing kind of thanksgiving that goes beyond a simple statement of "thank you."
And why give thanks? For what should the Philip-pians, and we, be thankful? For the fact that the Lord is near (v. 5). Looking further, we see that chapter 4 begins with the word "therefore," connecting what follows in the chapter with what went before. Verses 3:20-21 give us the antecedent of "therefore": "our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory...."
Through it all, we must never forget that the Greek verb to give thanks is eucharisteo.
John 6:25-35
John chapter 6 is an extraordinarily long chapter, and its 71 verses are chock full of solid theology. A preacher could have a yearlong series of sermons on this chapter alone. The Revised Common Lectionary often spans pericopes, so the preacher might want to choose other verses than the lectionary offers.
This reading is the conclusion to the story of the feeding of the 5,000, the only miracle recorded in all four gospels. The passage and its context contain two of the crucial elements of meaning in the Gospel of John. The first is "sign." That word is used in John where in other gospels the word "miracle" is used. Behind the usage is the idea that all of these events, deeds of power, are signs pointing to Jesus. And why are these things presented? John 20:31 answers that question, "so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah ... and have life in his name."
The second element is "I am." There are seven "I am" statements in John in which Jesus describes himself. These sayings, of which verse 35 is the first, are more than simply descriptions of Jesus. Rather they are statements of who Jesus is in relation to human beings.
Much of the story hinges on the understandings and misunderstandings of the crowd. Before the multiplication of loaves and fish, the people followed Jesus because they had seen other signs, signs of healing. After the miracle, they followed him to get more bread. Apparently the press of the crowd was too much for Jesus, and he needed to get away. He took to the sea, walking on the water, but to no avail: the crowd comes looking for him.
Jesus calls them on it, knowing that what they are really seeking is more of the miraculous bread, and he issues a mild rebuke, "Don't work for the food that perishes, but for food that endures." The crowd still misunderstands, thinking that Jesus is talking about their performing the "works" of God. Again, Jesus corrects them, saying, essentially, there is only this work of God: that you believe in him whom God has sent.
Now the crowd understands that Jesus is referring to himself, and now they want proof of his stature, a sign comparable to the manna in the wilderness. A rabbinical tradition held that the Messiah would come bringing manna from heaven, so they were looking for the conclusive evidence that the manna would offer. But again, the people get it wrong: they are still thinking of food for the body, when Jesus means vastly more than that. And he draws the distinction between ordinary bread and the true bread from heaven, which gives life, not to the body, but to the world. Yet again, in verse 34, the crowd misunderstands, asking fervently for the bread. But we shouldn't judge the crowd too harshly. Sometimes you know you need something basic and deep, but aren't sure what it is. You feel the pangs in your heart and you mistake it for hunger. "Sir, give us this bread always," may express not so much the ache of an empty stomach as the ache of an empty life.
This leads up the conclusion of the reading, which in the Revised Common Lectionary is verse 35. In the paragraphing of most English translations, verse 35 is the first line of the Bread of Life discourse. Yet it makes a fitting conclusion to the people's constant quest for food for the body. What will really feed us, when we are most fundamentally hungry, is Jesus Christ himself.
Application
Conventional wisdom, and conventional etiquette, have it that a newly married couple has a year to send out thank-you notes for wedding presents. Formal etiquette disagrees. Miss Manners says that each present must be acknowledged right away. The only proper way to do it, she says, is to give immediate thanks for what you get. Gratitude on the spot.
When we're talking about wedding presents, that certainly makes sense. After all, as my mother used to say, if people can go to the trouble of buying you a present and wrapping it, then at the very least you can go to the trouble of thanking them for it. A quick thank you for the gift is always good.
The problem is that we human beings take the short view. We want to make our thanksgiving immediate: we are only thankful for the most recent present, the most recent piece of good news. We seem to have developed memory problems when it comes to what we should give thanks for. The "What-have-you-done-for-me-lately?" attitude has become an epidemic. What's the latest thing I have received?
At today's groaning board full of turkey and dressing and potatoes and vegetables, and of course several different kinds of pie for dessert, or the regional and ethnic variations of all that, we find the custom in many families of going around the table picking out one thing we are most thankful for. Now, don't misunderstand, anytime we express thanks, to God or to another human being, that is a very good thing. It isn't done enough in our day and age.
But too often, we limit our thanksgiving to the big or the impressive, to the most recent or the most easily remembered. Our gratitude is similar to that of the birthday child who rips off the wrapping paper as soon as the present walks in the door in the hands of a friend. Our mumbled thanks, accompanied by tearing off the paper, focuses more on the gift than on the giver.
Where does thankfulness begin? And where should it end?
The biblical model of thanksgiving, the model held up in all three of the passages for today, calls us to expand our thanksgiving, to grow our gratitude. In the giving of the first fruits Israel was called to carry her thanksgiving back to the beginning, to acknowledge that God was the source not just of the food that they had raised from the land, but that God was the source of the very journey, and the very motivation and the very means, by which Israel came into the land.
Likewise with Paul's words to the church at Philippi. His deepest desire for them was that they would lead lives full of thanksgiving, lives which were in themselves an expression of gratitude, that thankfulness would show itself in every aspect of their lives.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus wants the people to realize that their real need is far deeper than they could possibly imagine. And therefore their thanksgiving must go beyond thanks simply for food, just for the physical take their need -- and therefore their thanksgiving -- deeper inside, to realize that food isn't the be-all and end-all in life, even though Jesus uses bread as a metaphor for everything that really and truly matters in life.
The gratitude that we are called to is grown-up gratitude, a gratitude that acknowledges that we receive all from God's hand. That all we have is an act of grace.
In a world of immediate gratification, where every need is seemingly met on the spot, as soon as it is felt, the world needs to move beyond immediate gratitude, gratitude for the things you receive just that day, to grown-up gratitude.
God always wants a broader thanksgiving from us. Not just thanks for the present. Not just thanks for the food on the table on Thanksgiving Day. Not just thanks for the jobcarhousecomputerstereo. But thanks for everything. Thanks for the world. Thanks for love. Thanks for creation. Thanks for the memories. Thanks for life. And, yes, thanks for death. And, above all, thanks for You.
Alternative Applications
1) Deuteronomy: Thanks for the Journey: The first-fruits statute requires that an act of thanksgiving include a recitation of the journey on which God had led Israel. Our journeys are gifts from God as much as other things we have: our talents and skills, our relationships and the material things we have. God has given us the journey. The preacher might choose this sermon to make a similar recitation of a church's history, and urge that worshipers undertake the same recitation, to explore how God has been present in their past, leading them through their own particular wildernesses to this point.
2) John: Bread for the Body, Bread for the Soul: Food is a powerful symbol in our world, and particularly on this day. Psychologically it means a great deal. We eat when we're lonely, we drink when we are in anguish, we use drugs when we are in pain. We mistake the real needs down deep, the spiritual needs, the needs for connection, with needs for the body. Let's face it: when there's an emptiness inside, you want to fill it. Christ urges us to get our needs straight, and let him fill us.
PREACHING THE PSALM
Psalm 100
Most interpreters agree that Psalm 100 is a processional song, an antiphonal liturgy for movement through the temple gates into its courts, where his presence is. Possibly verses 1-3 were sung by approaching worshipers with verses 4-5 sung by a choral group or priests already in the temple precinct.
While the NRSV titles this psalm "A Psalm of thanksgiving," the RSV title is "A Psalm for the thank offering." If the older title is accurate, Psalm 100 may have been used with the ritual described in Leviticus 1:11-18, but the glorious and joyous praise in the psalm goes beyond mere ritual.
Some preaching possibilities:
1) "We are the sheep of his pasture" probably spoke volumes to the semi-nomadic people of Old Testament Canaan, but as a metaphor, it's a bit far removed for us. But it is good to show that we are always heirs of God's blessing in the way of life that is ours. Someone wise has said that all translators are traitors. None of us can escape the world we live in, nor the world we have made for ourselves. But the praise of God, our thanksgiving, our recognition of him still translates in blessings of modern life. One idea is for a participatory sermon where you ask people to suggest contemporary metaphors to replace the-sheep-of-his-pasture phrase.
2) Psalm 100 has been set to music more than any other psalm. We even talk about "The Old Hundredth" and mean by that the familiar tune. The faith of the Bible is intimately linked with songs. Music is not something added to worship but is integral to worship itself. Thus, "come into his presence with singing" is not only a call to worship but also a statement that joyful music can be a channel by which God makes his presence known. You could talk about the "songs our of lives," wherein the song of thanksgiving should be one of the loudest.
3) "For the Lord is good," verse 5 asserts. We understand that the good/bad division is a way by which we characterize whether or not something enhances our existence. This psalm is clear that God is good. Truly God is the ground of our being, but his daily blessing enhances our lives as well, and Thanksgiving is a great time to remind our hearers of how much, and why the psalm is justified in telling us to worship the Lord "with gladness."
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
In the way it is framed, the Book of Deuteronomy purports to contain the final speeches of Moses to the Israelites as they stand on the eastern side of the Jordan River, just before Israel's entrance into the Promised Land. In the past are the exodus of Israel's preceding generation out of slavery in Egypt and their 40-year trek through the wilderness, where they were daily fed by God with manna from heaven and constantly guarded by God from attack by enemies, both natural and human. In that setting, which is presumed in verses 1-4 of our text, the book would date from about 1250-1200 B.C., as is held by many conservatives.
Most scholars agree, however, that the major portion of Deuteronomy is the work of Levitical priests and reformers, who assembled the book in the seventh century B.C. It formed the basis of King Josiah's widespread religious reform, known as the deuteronomic reform, in 621 B.C. (see 2 Kings 22-23), and from that time on, until the Holiness and Priestly Codes were adopted in post-exilic times, it stood as Israel's principal law.
The view of the book is that seventh century B.C. Judah stands once more in their imagination before Moses in Moab to hear their leader's final words. In Moses' address to the people, he rehearses all of their past history for them, telling how God has guided them from the time when their forefather Jacob, known to us from Genesis, went down to Egypt until their entrance into the land of Canaan. It is that review that our text for the morning presents also to us.
Verses 5-9 of our text preserve for us an ancient creed that was confessed by every Israelite male when, in thankfulness to God, he brought the first fruits of his produce to the temple. As such, they outline the major events of Israel's past history with God, an outline which also lies behind the first six books of the Old Testament. The creed starts with the patriarch Jacob and tells how he went down to Egypt. There Jacob's descendants multiplied, in fulfillment of God's promise. But they were forced into brutal slavery by the pharaoh of Egypt. When they cried out for help, God heard their voice and saw their affliction, their toil, and their oppression (cf. Exodus 2:23-24; 3:7), and he delivered them with a mighty hand and with great wonders. Then he brought them into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and gave them the fruit of the ground, the first fruits of which the Israelite worshiper is now presenting to God in this ritual of thanksgiving. At the end of our text, then, in verse 11, the worshiper who is making such an offering is urged to rejoice in all of the good that the Lord God has shown to him and to his household.
The most remarkable fact about our text, however, is that none of that past history remains simply in the past for the Israelite worshiper. It all becomes his history, the wondrous deeds that God has done for him. He begins by saying that his forefather Jacob went down to Egypt and multiplied. But then he says that the Egyptians treated him and his household harshly, that they cried to the Lord, that God delivered them, and that God brought them into the land of promise. They were there, and the great acts that God did for Israel in the past are not past at all. They are events in which the present worshiper participated and events that were done for him also. By reciting the creed, the worshiper makes the past his present.
And so it is with the stories of the Bible, isn't it? When we tell them, they do not remain stories of a distant era and folk, divorced from us. No. They become our story. When our Lord Jesus eats the Last Supper with his disciples and tells them that one of them will betray him, we are there, aren't we? We eat the bread and drink the cup of the new covenant and enter into the company of his covenant people. We are there, hoping desperately that we are not the ones who betray him with our lives. And the cross? The Negro spiritual captures it so well: "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" And, oh, yes, we were, and sometimes it causes us to tremble, just as we were there when they laid him in the tomb. But were we not also there when at the first light of dawn on the third day, our Lord Christ was raised from the dead? And so is that the victory of God not only in the past, but also the victory for us in the present that assures us of the resurrection of our bodies and eternal life with our Lord?
All, all that God has done in the history of humankind, all of those wondrous, mighty acts that he has worked and that are told to us in the scriptures are not just past events. They are also mighty acts of salvation done for us also. We tell of them when we too recite our creed, as the ancient Israelite recited his in our text. Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. On the third day he rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven. He sits on the right hand of God the Father, and from there he shall return again to judge both the living and the dead. That is the story of what the Lord God has done for us, and right now, in this present moment, we know and reap the benefits of all of that incredible history. Christ was born for us, suffered for us, died for us, raised for us, rules for us. And because of those merciful acts of the Lord God Almighty, you and I can indeed rejoice before the Lord in our worship, as our text bids us do.
This is Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday decreed by the president, a day when every person is bidden to pour out his or her gratitude to the Lord. But for us Christians, it is much more than simply a secular event, when we have time off from work and can eat our fill of turkey or ham at a laden table. Rather, it is the time when we remember all that God did for us in Jesus Christ, heeding our cries for deliverance, redeeming us from slavery to sin and death, leading us through the wildernesses of our lives and bringing us into the goodness of this place, where Christ abides with us forever. The story of Israel from Deuteronomy's ancient creed is also our story. And all that God did for that ancient people, he has done for us, and more.
So no matter what our situation on this day of gratitude, no matter what we have been through in the past or what we face in the future, no matter all the exigencies of our individual and corporate lives, the call to us this day is the call of the Apostle Paul that we read in our epistle lesson. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice ... Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:4, 6-7).
In fact, this very drama between parents and young children will probably be played out today around the table.
And it illustrates the uncomfortable fact -- a fact we would just as soon not admit in our "human beings are basically good" cultural philosophy -- that thanking somebody for something isn't a natural thing to do. It's not built into us. It has to be learned. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is something we grow toward, we grow into gratitude. And as we grow, so does the amount of gratitude and the breadth of gratitude.
What the parents expect in the little scenario above is for the child simply to say "thank you." What God expects from us is that we will deepen our thankfulness, carry it further, always make it more. Perhaps even make it life-encompassing.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
It is always hard to reinterpret ancient traditions and writings for a new day, yet that is what every preacher is called to do, and that is what the authors of Deuteronomy were doing. By retrospectively putting words into the mouth of Moses, they offered the possibility of a new direction for a nation in turmoil.
This passage represents the instructions for a relatively obscure liturgical rite, which would, in theory, kick in after Israel's arrival in and settlement of the Promised Land and after the land had started to produce. In fact, this passage is a later instruction on how to give thanks to God. The first step was to gather the first of the harvest and take it to "the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name."
There are then two declarations that the worshiper is to make standing before the altar of the Lord. The first, in verse 3, is said as the priest sets the basket down in front of the altar. It is a statement of both simple fact and profound faith. The fact is: "I have come into the land ..."; the faith is: "... the land the LORD gave us." It is an act acknowledging the true Source of the land and Israel's possession of it.
The second declaration is longer, and it takes the act of giving thanks even deeper. The worshiper is to recite a concise history of what God has done for Israel, beginning with the namesake, Israel himself, or Jacob, the wandering Aramean. It goes through the sojourn in Egypt and the enslavement of the children of Israel. It continues with the exodus and the wandering in the wilderness, and it comes finally to this very Promised Land that has brought forth a harvest. It is more than simply a historical recitation. It is a creed.
The German biblical scholar Gerhard von Rad deemed this declaration a credo, a statement of faith. He says, "With these words, the speaker has taken his place in the story of salvation and, in a splendid foreshortening of time, has acknowledged himself to be a direct recipient of the act of salvation which was the gift of the Promised Land" (von Rad, Deuteronomy, Old Testament Library [Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966] p. 159). You say it, you believe it, you act out of that belief, and you become a part of Israel. Or perhaps it would be better to say that Israel becomes a reality in you. In giving thanks to God, you rehearse the history, relive it, recite it. It is a liturgical action, perhaps a sacrament that produces a reality beyond itself. In this case, the reality is Israel.
But behind the saying of this credo lie many questions. What are the limits to thanksgiving? What precisely has God done for the Israelites? Given them the food in the basket that they are holding in front of the altar? Well, yes, but there is much more to it than that. Given them a land? Yes, but there's more to it than that as well. Guided them through the desert? Yes, but there's still more. Freed them from slavery? Called forth a deliverer? When do we stop? How far back do we go in giving thanks to God?
The answer, of course, is all of the above, and more. God has led and guided the children of Israel on a journey that began with "a wandering Aramean," but which surely goes back even further than that, and which continues to this day. True thanksgiving, thanksgiving from the soul, can never stop with just the immediate birthday present or Christmas gift or the food on the Thanksgiving table.
The instruction ends with "rejoicing in all the good the LORD your God has given to you" (RSV). The NRSV gives it a slant more befitting what we do on Thanksgiving Day: "Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you." The sense here is that the bounty itself becomes the means to celebrate. Even in the midst of a hungry world, giving thanks once a year by enjoying, even relishing, God's bounty is good and moral and worthy.
Philippians 4:4-9
Paul is writing the letter to the Philippians from jail, and many scholars have assumed it to be during his imprisonment in Rome. But that is by no means sure; it could be earlier than that. Whenever it was, however, the fact that Paul was in jail offers a glimpse into his mindset in the writing of the letter. If there is deep feeling in the letter, longing and yearning, incarceration might explain it.
Paul's letters always follow certain formulas. They begin with a salutation and a thanksgiving for the church, and they end with exhortations and encouragement. So this ending to the letter to the Philippians is in keeping with the standard style. For that reason, we may be tempted to disregard the closing instructions as pro forma sayings, statements that carry little theological weight. Simple final words, parting shots. Yet perhaps these are the most important words of the letter; perhaps these closing expressions are the things that Paul most wants for the church at Philippi.
Consider the words that Paul uses here. Rejoice. Gentleness. Prayer. Supplication. Thanksgiving. Peace. True. Honorable. Just. Pure. Pleasing. Commendable. Excellence. To call this advice doesn't do justice to the deep feeling that is evident in Paul. It is not simply distant, disinterested advice that Paul is offering here. Instead, he is speaking passionately, a passion that is betrayed by the rhetoric, in both English and Greek, of verse 8. There is something he wants very much for the Philippians -- a style, an attitude, a way of life.
The specific subject of thanksgiving is raised in verse 6, where it is set up in opposition to worry or anxiety. Indeed, paired with supplication or petition, thanksgiving becomes the cure for worry. The two actions -- worrying and giving thanks -- are presented as mutually exclusive: can we really continue to worry in the midst of asking God for what we need and giving thanks to God for what we have? The way of life, then, that Paul seeks, and yearns for, for the church at Philippi is a life of thanksgiving, the healing kind of thanksgiving that goes beyond a simple statement of "thank you."
And why give thanks? For what should the Philip-pians, and we, be thankful? For the fact that the Lord is near (v. 5). Looking further, we see that chapter 4 begins with the word "therefore," connecting what follows in the chapter with what went before. Verses 3:20-21 give us the antecedent of "therefore": "our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory...."
Through it all, we must never forget that the Greek verb to give thanks is eucharisteo.
John 6:25-35
John chapter 6 is an extraordinarily long chapter, and its 71 verses are chock full of solid theology. A preacher could have a yearlong series of sermons on this chapter alone. The Revised Common Lectionary often spans pericopes, so the preacher might want to choose other verses than the lectionary offers.
This reading is the conclusion to the story of the feeding of the 5,000, the only miracle recorded in all four gospels. The passage and its context contain two of the crucial elements of meaning in the Gospel of John. The first is "sign." That word is used in John where in other gospels the word "miracle" is used. Behind the usage is the idea that all of these events, deeds of power, are signs pointing to Jesus. And why are these things presented? John 20:31 answers that question, "so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah ... and have life in his name."
The second element is "I am." There are seven "I am" statements in John in which Jesus describes himself. These sayings, of which verse 35 is the first, are more than simply descriptions of Jesus. Rather they are statements of who Jesus is in relation to human beings.
Much of the story hinges on the understandings and misunderstandings of the crowd. Before the multiplication of loaves and fish, the people followed Jesus because they had seen other signs, signs of healing. After the miracle, they followed him to get more bread. Apparently the press of the crowd was too much for Jesus, and he needed to get away. He took to the sea, walking on the water, but to no avail: the crowd comes looking for him.
Jesus calls them on it, knowing that what they are really seeking is more of the miraculous bread, and he issues a mild rebuke, "Don't work for the food that perishes, but for food that endures." The crowd still misunderstands, thinking that Jesus is talking about their performing the "works" of God. Again, Jesus corrects them, saying, essentially, there is only this work of God: that you believe in him whom God has sent.
Now the crowd understands that Jesus is referring to himself, and now they want proof of his stature, a sign comparable to the manna in the wilderness. A rabbinical tradition held that the Messiah would come bringing manna from heaven, so they were looking for the conclusive evidence that the manna would offer. But again, the people get it wrong: they are still thinking of food for the body, when Jesus means vastly more than that. And he draws the distinction between ordinary bread and the true bread from heaven, which gives life, not to the body, but to the world. Yet again, in verse 34, the crowd misunderstands, asking fervently for the bread. But we shouldn't judge the crowd too harshly. Sometimes you know you need something basic and deep, but aren't sure what it is. You feel the pangs in your heart and you mistake it for hunger. "Sir, give us this bread always," may express not so much the ache of an empty stomach as the ache of an empty life.
This leads up the conclusion of the reading, which in the Revised Common Lectionary is verse 35. In the paragraphing of most English translations, verse 35 is the first line of the Bread of Life discourse. Yet it makes a fitting conclusion to the people's constant quest for food for the body. What will really feed us, when we are most fundamentally hungry, is Jesus Christ himself.
Application
Conventional wisdom, and conventional etiquette, have it that a newly married couple has a year to send out thank-you notes for wedding presents. Formal etiquette disagrees. Miss Manners says that each present must be acknowledged right away. The only proper way to do it, she says, is to give immediate thanks for what you get. Gratitude on the spot.
When we're talking about wedding presents, that certainly makes sense. After all, as my mother used to say, if people can go to the trouble of buying you a present and wrapping it, then at the very least you can go to the trouble of thanking them for it. A quick thank you for the gift is always good.
The problem is that we human beings take the short view. We want to make our thanksgiving immediate: we are only thankful for the most recent present, the most recent piece of good news. We seem to have developed memory problems when it comes to what we should give thanks for. The "What-have-you-done-for-me-lately?" attitude has become an epidemic. What's the latest thing I have received?
At today's groaning board full of turkey and dressing and potatoes and vegetables, and of course several different kinds of pie for dessert, or the regional and ethnic variations of all that, we find the custom in many families of going around the table picking out one thing we are most thankful for. Now, don't misunderstand, anytime we express thanks, to God or to another human being, that is a very good thing. It isn't done enough in our day and age.
But too often, we limit our thanksgiving to the big or the impressive, to the most recent or the most easily remembered. Our gratitude is similar to that of the birthday child who rips off the wrapping paper as soon as the present walks in the door in the hands of a friend. Our mumbled thanks, accompanied by tearing off the paper, focuses more on the gift than on the giver.
Where does thankfulness begin? And where should it end?
The biblical model of thanksgiving, the model held up in all three of the passages for today, calls us to expand our thanksgiving, to grow our gratitude. In the giving of the first fruits Israel was called to carry her thanksgiving back to the beginning, to acknowledge that God was the source not just of the food that they had raised from the land, but that God was the source of the very journey, and the very motivation and the very means, by which Israel came into the land.
Likewise with Paul's words to the church at Philippi. His deepest desire for them was that they would lead lives full of thanksgiving, lives which were in themselves an expression of gratitude, that thankfulness would show itself in every aspect of their lives.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus wants the people to realize that their real need is far deeper than they could possibly imagine. And therefore their thanksgiving must go beyond thanks simply for food, just for the physical take their need -- and therefore their thanksgiving -- deeper inside, to realize that food isn't the be-all and end-all in life, even though Jesus uses bread as a metaphor for everything that really and truly matters in life.
The gratitude that we are called to is grown-up gratitude, a gratitude that acknowledges that we receive all from God's hand. That all we have is an act of grace.
In a world of immediate gratification, where every need is seemingly met on the spot, as soon as it is felt, the world needs to move beyond immediate gratitude, gratitude for the things you receive just that day, to grown-up gratitude.
God always wants a broader thanksgiving from us. Not just thanks for the present. Not just thanks for the food on the table on Thanksgiving Day. Not just thanks for the jobcarhousecomputerstereo. But thanks for everything. Thanks for the world. Thanks for love. Thanks for creation. Thanks for the memories. Thanks for life. And, yes, thanks for death. And, above all, thanks for You.
Alternative Applications
1) Deuteronomy: Thanks for the Journey: The first-fruits statute requires that an act of thanksgiving include a recitation of the journey on which God had led Israel. Our journeys are gifts from God as much as other things we have: our talents and skills, our relationships and the material things we have. God has given us the journey. The preacher might choose this sermon to make a similar recitation of a church's history, and urge that worshipers undertake the same recitation, to explore how God has been present in their past, leading them through their own particular wildernesses to this point.
2) John: Bread for the Body, Bread for the Soul: Food is a powerful symbol in our world, and particularly on this day. Psychologically it means a great deal. We eat when we're lonely, we drink when we are in anguish, we use drugs when we are in pain. We mistake the real needs down deep, the spiritual needs, the needs for connection, with needs for the body. Let's face it: when there's an emptiness inside, you want to fill it. Christ urges us to get our needs straight, and let him fill us.
PREACHING THE PSALM
Psalm 100
Most interpreters agree that Psalm 100 is a processional song, an antiphonal liturgy for movement through the temple gates into its courts, where his presence is. Possibly verses 1-3 were sung by approaching worshipers with verses 4-5 sung by a choral group or priests already in the temple precinct.
While the NRSV titles this psalm "A Psalm of thanksgiving," the RSV title is "A Psalm for the thank offering." If the older title is accurate, Psalm 100 may have been used with the ritual described in Leviticus 1:11-18, but the glorious and joyous praise in the psalm goes beyond mere ritual.
Some preaching possibilities:
1) "We are the sheep of his pasture" probably spoke volumes to the semi-nomadic people of Old Testament Canaan, but as a metaphor, it's a bit far removed for us. But it is good to show that we are always heirs of God's blessing in the way of life that is ours. Someone wise has said that all translators are traitors. None of us can escape the world we live in, nor the world we have made for ourselves. But the praise of God, our thanksgiving, our recognition of him still translates in blessings of modern life. One idea is for a participatory sermon where you ask people to suggest contemporary metaphors to replace the-sheep-of-his-pasture phrase.
2) Psalm 100 has been set to music more than any other psalm. We even talk about "The Old Hundredth" and mean by that the familiar tune. The faith of the Bible is intimately linked with songs. Music is not something added to worship but is integral to worship itself. Thus, "come into his presence with singing" is not only a call to worship but also a statement that joyful music can be a channel by which God makes his presence known. You could talk about the "songs our of lives," wherein the song of thanksgiving should be one of the loudest.
3) "For the Lord is good," verse 5 asserts. We understand that the good/bad division is a way by which we characterize whether or not something enhances our existence. This psalm is clear that God is good. Truly God is the ground of our being, but his daily blessing enhances our lives as well, and Thanksgiving is a great time to remind our hearers of how much, and why the psalm is justified in telling us to worship the Lord "with gladness."
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
In the way it is framed, the Book of Deuteronomy purports to contain the final speeches of Moses to the Israelites as they stand on the eastern side of the Jordan River, just before Israel's entrance into the Promised Land. In the past are the exodus of Israel's preceding generation out of slavery in Egypt and their 40-year trek through the wilderness, where they were daily fed by God with manna from heaven and constantly guarded by God from attack by enemies, both natural and human. In that setting, which is presumed in verses 1-4 of our text, the book would date from about 1250-1200 B.C., as is held by many conservatives.
Most scholars agree, however, that the major portion of Deuteronomy is the work of Levitical priests and reformers, who assembled the book in the seventh century B.C. It formed the basis of King Josiah's widespread religious reform, known as the deuteronomic reform, in 621 B.C. (see 2 Kings 22-23), and from that time on, until the Holiness and Priestly Codes were adopted in post-exilic times, it stood as Israel's principal law.
The view of the book is that seventh century B.C. Judah stands once more in their imagination before Moses in Moab to hear their leader's final words. In Moses' address to the people, he rehearses all of their past history for them, telling how God has guided them from the time when their forefather Jacob, known to us from Genesis, went down to Egypt until their entrance into the land of Canaan. It is that review that our text for the morning presents also to us.
Verses 5-9 of our text preserve for us an ancient creed that was confessed by every Israelite male when, in thankfulness to God, he brought the first fruits of his produce to the temple. As such, they outline the major events of Israel's past history with God, an outline which also lies behind the first six books of the Old Testament. The creed starts with the patriarch Jacob and tells how he went down to Egypt. There Jacob's descendants multiplied, in fulfillment of God's promise. But they were forced into brutal slavery by the pharaoh of Egypt. When they cried out for help, God heard their voice and saw their affliction, their toil, and their oppression (cf. Exodus 2:23-24; 3:7), and he delivered them with a mighty hand and with great wonders. Then he brought them into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and gave them the fruit of the ground, the first fruits of which the Israelite worshiper is now presenting to God in this ritual of thanksgiving. At the end of our text, then, in verse 11, the worshiper who is making such an offering is urged to rejoice in all of the good that the Lord God has shown to him and to his household.
The most remarkable fact about our text, however, is that none of that past history remains simply in the past for the Israelite worshiper. It all becomes his history, the wondrous deeds that God has done for him. He begins by saying that his forefather Jacob went down to Egypt and multiplied. But then he says that the Egyptians treated him and his household harshly, that they cried to the Lord, that God delivered them, and that God brought them into the land of promise. They were there, and the great acts that God did for Israel in the past are not past at all. They are events in which the present worshiper participated and events that were done for him also. By reciting the creed, the worshiper makes the past his present.
And so it is with the stories of the Bible, isn't it? When we tell them, they do not remain stories of a distant era and folk, divorced from us. No. They become our story. When our Lord Jesus eats the Last Supper with his disciples and tells them that one of them will betray him, we are there, aren't we? We eat the bread and drink the cup of the new covenant and enter into the company of his covenant people. We are there, hoping desperately that we are not the ones who betray him with our lives. And the cross? The Negro spiritual captures it so well: "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" And, oh, yes, we were, and sometimes it causes us to tremble, just as we were there when they laid him in the tomb. But were we not also there when at the first light of dawn on the third day, our Lord Christ was raised from the dead? And so is that the victory of God not only in the past, but also the victory for us in the present that assures us of the resurrection of our bodies and eternal life with our Lord?
All, all that God has done in the history of humankind, all of those wondrous, mighty acts that he has worked and that are told to us in the scriptures are not just past events. They are also mighty acts of salvation done for us also. We tell of them when we too recite our creed, as the ancient Israelite recited his in our text. Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. On the third day he rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven. He sits on the right hand of God the Father, and from there he shall return again to judge both the living and the dead. That is the story of what the Lord God has done for us, and right now, in this present moment, we know and reap the benefits of all of that incredible history. Christ was born for us, suffered for us, died for us, raised for us, rules for us. And because of those merciful acts of the Lord God Almighty, you and I can indeed rejoice before the Lord in our worship, as our text bids us do.
This is Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday decreed by the president, a day when every person is bidden to pour out his or her gratitude to the Lord. But for us Christians, it is much more than simply a secular event, when we have time off from work and can eat our fill of turkey or ham at a laden table. Rather, it is the time when we remember all that God did for us in Jesus Christ, heeding our cries for deliverance, redeeming us from slavery to sin and death, leading us through the wildernesses of our lives and bringing us into the goodness of this place, where Christ abides with us forever. The story of Israel from Deuteronomy's ancient creed is also our story. And all that God did for that ancient people, he has done for us, and more.
So no matter what our situation on this day of gratitude, no matter what we have been through in the past or what we face in the future, no matter all the exigencies of our individual and corporate lives, the call to us this day is the call of the Apostle Paul that we read in our epistle lesson. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice ... Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:4, 6-7).
