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Sunday, November 23, 2008
Being Thankful in all Circumstances
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture: I Thessalonians 5:14 – 18
14 And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. 15 See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
St. Andrew member Larry McLaughlin sent me this story about little Jacob and his family who were having Sunday dinner at his grandmother’s house. Everyone was being seated around the table as the food was being served. When five year old Jacob received his plate, he started eating right away. His mother said, “Jacob! Please wait until we say our prayer.”
Jacob replied, “I don’t have to.” “Of course you do” his mom said; “we always say a prayer before the meal at our house.” Jacob said, “That’s our house. But this is grandma’s house and she knows how to cook!”
Well, if you are a young member of your family, and you are having a Thanksgiving meal at your grandparent’s house this week, I offer that story as an example of something NOT to do or say!
Some people have called Thanksgiving Day our favorite holiday of the year in our country – a holiday with a very long tradition that extends even before the pilgrim feast in 1621 shared with the Native Americans led by Chief Massasoit. This Thursday we will consume 60 million turkeys and watch a lot of football. For many of us it will be a difficult Thanksgiving because of what economists are describing as the worst recession and downturn in almost 80 years.
We see the effects of the dismal economy every week in our congregation as we hear of persons being laid off and people feeling very uneasy and uncertain about their work and about their retirement plans. Many people will be looking for work, other people working more years than they had planned to work, and most of us will be cutting back on what we spend even if we feel some job stability.
Other persons are dealing with health issues and family crises that are just exacerbated by the economic distress. All of these pressures remind us of that first American Thanksgiving holiday in 1621 where it would have been easy for those 60 pilgrims who had survived the first winter, easy for them to say, look at all the bad things that have happened to us! Why in God’s name should we take time to give thanks??
That is why these words from the Apostle Paul in I Thessalonians are important on this day. We need to remember that Paul understood what it was to know suffering and pain and hardship. The 25 persons who just returned from Greece last month and followed in the footsteps of Paul relearned that about Paul. Paul was beaten, shipwrecked, run out of town and persecuted by his fellow Jews for daring to invite them to consider Christ as savior and messiah.
More than that, he was afflicted with some illness that we do not know specifically; he refers to it as his “thorn in the flesh.” He says he has asked God to heal this affliction but it did not happen and instead what he heard from God is this message: “My grace is sufficient for you.” My grace will let you live fully and joyfully and thankfully no matter what the physical circumstances are – even if you feel nervous and uncertain about your job, your health, your family issues. Open your life to me; my grace is sufficient.
When bad things do happen – and bad things happen to each of us, it is inevitable – we get sidetracked sometimes. We ask the wrong questions. We ask, “Why me?” It is not a helpful question. It is more valuable to ask, “Why not me?” Random things happen. Accidents occur. Jesus believed that some bad things just happen by accident; he tells us that in the 13th chapter of Luke. Bad things happen and they are not sent by God. Illnesses occur randomly. Genetic anomalies occur randomly.
Here is a prime difference in two dominant religious perspectives. Some people think that everything that occurs in your life is because God has sent it. It is God’s will that a child is born with a heart defect or spina bifida or with Down Syndrome. Judy and I have seen that attitude often over the past 35 years as parents of a person with a disability. If people believe that, then they must also believe that physicians who are working to heal persons with heart problems or spina bifida are going against the will of God.
That theology is very common and comes from the theological tradition of Calvinism. It is the perspective that is present in Rick Warren’s otherwise excellent book, The Purpose Driven Life. It is a different perspective from our own Methodist theology that believes accidents happen, tragedies can happen, and they are not sent by God, but God is big enough to help us grow through them and use them for good. That is how Paul talks about it in Romans 8.
Bad things will happen to us, detours will happen in our lives, and they are inevitable. Tim Hansel tells us that in his excellent book that we will always have on our bookshelves. He is a survivor of a 60 foot fall on a mountain climbing trip. His spine was permanently damaged, and he is in constant pain. His quote we have used so often about making sense of the detours and the pain in life is this: GOD PROMISES US FOUR THINGS IN LIFE: PEACE, POWER, PURPOSE, AND TROUBLE.
No one will be exempt from trouble: it is inevitable. It is a promise, but the peace, the power, and purpose that God provides will help us deal with and overcome the trouble.
I mentioned last week that I have had a chance to do a lot of reading over the last six weeks of recuperating from surgery. One of the most useful books is by Rabbi David Wolpe, Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. His book, Why Faith Matters, tells about his own journey as well as his wife’s journey through each of their serious illnesses. Here is his wisdom about our journey through pain or illness or economic distress.
Each of us has wounds. Each of us, if we have lived for a while, has some scars and wounds. A few months ago I could have showed you a small scar on my leg from my one and only bicycle accident where a couple of years ago I had an encounter with a curb and went flying over the handlebars in a way that let the gearshift lever punch a quarter-size hole in my thigh. The scar is now barely visible, but it has caused me to be a bit more cautious. If you ask today, I can show you my rapidly disappearing scar on my skull from my brain surgery six weeks ago. I was fortunate to have a promising diagnosis, a great surgeon and a circle of support and prayers from this congregation. But the scar will always be with me and it will be part of who I am, and has been an occasion to grow and deepen my faith.
Each of us has scars and wounds. Some are visible on our bodies. Other wounds and scars are on our hearts and souls, but even as they have caused us pain, they can also be occasions for growth and transformation. We may even need those scars and wounds to develop into the people God needs us to be.
Rabbi Wolpe tells in his book about a time he had been asked to address a group of recovering alcoholics. After the meeting a man approached him and said he was now forty years old and had been sober for five years. He began drinking at the age of sixteen and when he stopped at thirty five, he still had the maturity of a sixteen year old. He explained it this way: “You see, from sixteen to thirty five, I was always drunk and felt no pain. Since I was never in pain, I never grew.”
Does that make sense to you? Wolpe says it this way: “Pain is indispensable for growth.” What a difficult thing to hear! Is it true? Can you look back and see how the pain and scars and the wounds that you carry in your body and in your heart and soul have also been an opportunity for growth and depth? It is a difficult thing to talk about, especially when we are in the midst of the pain and darkness and loss, but it is a common experience.
Can you remember stories in the Bible of people who have talked about their pain and suffering and how that has been an opportunity for growth? We just told about Saint Paul and what he called his thorn in the flesh. How about the story of Jacob, the father of Israel, the grandson of Abraham who in coming back to meet with his vengeful brother stopped at the Jabbok river and wrestled with God all night and finally got away from that wrestling match with an injury, a limp from an injured hip.
Jacob was changed by that wound. He was one of the walking wounded and so are most of us, whether our wounds and scars are visible or invisible.
There is of course another important Biblical reference to scars and wounds. When the prophet Isaiah is talking about the suffering servant messiah whom Jesus became, he says that through the Servant’s wounds and scars, we are healed.
Each of us will face trouble and uncertainty. Paul reminds us to give thanks to God even in difficult times because God still promises peace, power and purpose even in the midst of trouble.
And we have one more resource that we have offered to each other over the years, the posture of faith from retired Bishop Mel Wheatley who was our bishop over 25 years ago. We have printed this quote on some note cards we are making available this morning. If you have been with us for a while, you know the quote. Here is how Bishop Wheatley encourages us to approach the detours and challenges of life:
FACE THE WORST
BELIEVE THE BEST
DO THE MOST YOU CAN.
LEAVE THE REST TO GOD.
There are copies in our sermon racks of a previous sermon using that timeless outline so I won’t take much time on it now. I have found Bishop Wheatley’s posture of faith immensely helpful in the days leading up to my own surgery and in my recuperation. I hope you find is useful as well. It might be a useful mealtime conversation today to share with someone else which of those four practices you find most difficult and which comes most naturally to you.
Two other learnings from my journey these past few weeks. Each of us will be on the receiving end at various times. Each of us needs to learn to be gracious receivers as well as generous givers. No one will remain independent and in total control of our lives. Each of us needs to learn to receive in gratitude and humility and not to try to be independent and always in charge. This might be a little harder for us men. None of us is self sufficient. None of us is totally independent. We all will be able at times to give to others and we will need at times to be able to receive humbly and gratefully from others. None of us is self sufficient. None of us is totally independent. We need at times to depend on each other and to depend on God.
The last insight has to do with how this Thanksgiving holiday began. In the horrendous winter of 1620-1621 half of the 120 pilgrims who had come to the new land died. Half of them died. And so during that first winter in America, graves were dug in the cold hard ground to bury children and wives and husbands, brothers and sisters. It was a terrible time. But some survived and they learned some new things from the Natives about how to plant differently and where to fish and hunt. And so, after a good crop in the fall of 1621, even after a year of darkness and suffering and death, they chose to do what Paul encourages: to give thanks to God in all the time and circumstances of life.
Our posture of faith, our outlook on life, our attitude, makes so much difference. What do we think God owes us? What do we deserve? How do we deal with the detours and the challenges?
Albert Einstein said it this way: there are two ways to live. You can live as if nothing is a miracle. Or you can live as if everything is a miracle.
What do you think?