Transcript
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word uh read and heard in this church this morning. We pray that we might be those who not only hear your word but apply it to our lives day by day. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Well, let me say a very good morning everyone. It’s good to be here and it’s always a delight for my wife Pam who was in the choir this morning and I to to visit here. Uh we we acknowledge we’re not here very often. Usually we’re on the road doing supply in different churches. there’s still a good shortage of clergy and for example the last two Sundays I was over at Cypriums and next Sunday I think we’re over at St. marks in Suffach. It’s like that each Sunday morning. Although I’m one of these senior clergy, retired, but still it’s a joy and a privilege to be involved in Sunday morning worship. Just a privilege.
Well, it’s a great delight here to be at um St. John’s and I want to hold up before you um two things but they’re coming I want to bring them together this morning. This is the this day is the conclusion of the Thanksgiving weekend and the news media is talking about how busy the airports are and there’ll be a lot of traffic on the road this evening. Thanksgiving we have gone through that. This is Thanksgiving week.
And then the other thing like we start in the service this morning, this Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent. The first Sunday of the season of Advent. Advent means coming. And in a way there it’s new year in church circles in a church calendar. So let’s hold up those for a little while.
I want to start off if I may uh with a little story. and I’m telling it against myself. All right, we we’re allowed to do that. Okay.
Well, you know, I grew up in Ireland on a small farm there in southern Ireland. And uh I was a child of a widow as my father had died when I was four. And mother and all her kids, we’d go out to church every Sunday.
But when I was in my early teens, I approached mother and said, “Mom, I don’t want to go to church with you this Sunday. You know, you you’re keeping teaching me. You know, I’m growing up. I need to make choices for myself and make decisions for what I want to do. So that’s my decision.” silence.
Then quietly said, “Okay, you know, you had a very good meal this morning. Good breakfast.” Hundreds, thousands of boys your age did not have that this morning. But but Derek, if if you’re not thankful for that, you know, you don’t need to go out to church to thank God for that silence. pause.
Oh, and and Derek, we have a good home to live in, a good house, a good roof over our heads, and we’re security as a family. And thousands of boys your age are refugees or living in countries where there’s insecurity or there’s war. And you’re very well off, you’re secure, and you’ve got a good home. And Derek, if you’re not thankful for that, you don’t need to go back to church to give thanks to God. Another awkward silence.
And I knew what was coming. It was just going to be a series. And of course, then I broke down and said, “All right, mother. I’ll come to church with you.”
And as Pam knows the story, I’ve been doing so every summer since. [laughter] Well, giving facts. One of the things I love about America is this uh this focus on Thanksgiving each fall, this uh this way of giving thanks, Thanksgiving Day, Thanksgiving season, you know. Um, some of us uh might ask the question, well, what are we thankful for? So, I want to pose that question to you this morning. What are you thankful for? Think about that.
I know that sometimes we hear people talking about the things that are unhappy in life. And in fact, there was a survey in the media just recently and it said that up to 80% of people rather than feeling happy and well-being, they tend to have to to have negative thoughts most of the time. talks about their discontent. So the question for us whether we’re happy or unhappy, whether we’re thankful or unthankful, there’s that uh option, you know, the the line uh from the poem, two prisoners, two men look out from behind prison bars. One saw the moon and the other saw the stars. Which do we have?
I want to hold up this morning as we think of the Thanksgiving theme. First, I want to hold up three words. Three words about Thanksgiving. The first one, remembering.
Yes. uh remembering you know there was that event back in 1621. Oh yes. When after a terrible winter and loss of life and hardships, those uh pilgrims from Plymouth, there they were, 102 of them, at least at the beginning of the season, they had lost some. There they were in Plymouth.
And after a bad winter, they are with the native peoples having a celebration, the first American Thanksgiving at Plymouth, 1621. and they did that a gesture of celebrating Thanksgiving together. I uh looked at um the Daily Press yesterday, a local newspaper, and it had an article um on the opinion page and it said, “This giving thanks can be an act of unity.” And I thought in our divided culture today, you know, there was a good thought. How could we extend last Thursday beyond that and be an instrument of unity in America? Might that be a thought? Giving thanks can be an act of unity.
I watched the series recently, The American Revolution. Maybe some of you in church watched that. It is a marvelous series with great detail and um my wife Pam and I we enjoyed it. We we think we learned from it. It was a wonderful thing.
But when I think of that series, I think of the the suffering that existed, the pain, the loss of life uh over those well there’s a period of eight years there and uh one of another even we had saw examples where in in the battles on either side one brother might be in one side and a brother on the other side. A time of great suffering and strife. a time of sadness and different motives, different feelings, different loyalties amongst different groups. But we can look back and say, but through that we give thanks to God for the freedoms that this country gives, for the liberties and for the peace, the relative peace that is in this land. We can look back in spite of those things of loss of life there or in the civil war in spite of those we can give thanks for what we have.
So remembering and as you look back you’ll say oh I remember occasions of tough days or perhaps it was health or perhaps something in the family was upset or perhaps someone was lost their career their job whatever it was difficult moments in your life and then you think of how you came through that with God’s help you survived you came through and you look back, you remember. You remember and give thanks. So that’s the first word I hold up for you this morning. Thanksgiving is remembering.
Secondly, I want to hold up the word theological. I hope you said, “No, not one of those clergy talking about theology again.” Well, I want to use a special word. You know, we come to church. We come to celebrate the eukarist.
The eukarist. Oh, that’s a great New Testament word in there in the text. It’s eukaristio, which means who has been Sunday school remember what it means. Eucharistio I give thanks. Eucharistio I give thanks.
So we come to the thanksgiving celebration around the altar. I give thanks. And as we put our offering on the plate that goes around, our token of thanksgiving to what all the material that God gives us. We give thanks. We give thanks.
There’s a wonderful old hymn that I recall so vividly from my childhood because it was a country area farming area and the hymn begins we plow the field and scatter the good seed on the land and the last line of that hymn goes like this. But what thou most desires is our humble thankful hearts. God desires that we come in the Eucharist and we give thanks. It’s theological. It’s about our relationship with God. Giving thanks to God.
Okay. So the first two remembering theological and the third word I want to hold up before you is the word attitude. All you know the phrase gratitude is an attitude. Gratitude is an attitude.
I was watching a TV discussion. This guest put it this way. He said, “The enlightened give thanks for what most people take for granted.” The enlightened give thanks for what most people take for granted.
As we come and think of that attitude, we hear St. Paul writing to us in the letter to the Corinthians when he says this. Pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks. What’s he saying there? Pray without ceasing. In other words, don’t give up prayer. Yeah.
Pray every day. Pray without ceasing. Pray in everything. Oh, everything. Not just in handle of thanksgiving day. In everything give thanks.
If that be our attitude, an attitude of gratitude. What’s in us? Isaac Walton once wrote, “God has two dwellings, one in heaven and the other in the thankful heart.” In the thankful heart.
I noticed in the news media that uh the American pope, Pope Leo 14, uh was off in his first trip, foreign trip this past week. He went to Turkey and it was a special occasion. You may have heard this in the media. It was a 1700 anniversary of a very special event in the life of the Christian church.
1700 years ago 3:25 the bishops of the church met there in a place called Na in Turkey. It’s on the northwest corner of Turkey just coming south from uh where you know some of that war is going on today in Ukraine. Yes. And the pope was there celebrating Nya 1700 years.
And he he mentioned intentionally that Nika is still the the statement the wonderful statement not just for a few but for the three great branches of Christendom. Catholic, the Protestant denominations, and of course the Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox. All three still embrace that queen that was pulled together 1700 years ago. And the words in the creed, of course, as you know, is and he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. It’s also looking forward that part of it to the coming again to the advent of Christ coming back into the world.
So this morning my friends I hold up three words remembering theological attitude and I want to say that attitude I feel it’s a choice. It’s a choice. And so I want to raise up this as a proposal. Maybe some of you might pick me up on this proposal as this is the New Year’s Day in the church calendar. How about a church New Year’s resolution? Oh, you knew I was coming to that. Yeah.
That we don’t just give thanks on annual Thanksgiving Day, but make it part of our lives. that become the attitude of gratitude that like St. Paul we pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks. We have so much to be thankful for in this land in this church and in our lives. We can, in the words of that gospel song, count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
So, let me ask, are you up to it? A church New Year’s resolution, a resolution to give thanks each day along with our prayers to also give a prayer of thanksgiving. May God give us the grace to do that that we uh as we remember give thanks for the past as we think of coming to church eucharistio to give thanks also we adopt the attitude of gratitude we choose that as our way. May God give us that grace and that guidance and that strength day by day.
Amen. Amen.