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Don’t Worry…Be Thankful 11/19/05

I was looking through Thanksgiving sermons that I preached over the last thirty years or more when I came upon an advertisement that appeared some years back. You might remember it. It was titled, “Keep it Simple.” A company called United Technologies proffered it and it featured a series of short, simple and yet powerful sentences. See if these don’t strike you that way.

Strike three.
Get your hand off my knee.
You’re overdrawn.
Your horse won.
Yes.
No.
You have the account.
Walk.
Don’t walk.
Mother’s dead.

Basic events require simple language. And Thanksgiving—no matter what the differences are in our celebration of the national holiday this week—is a simple event. The day’s celebration reminds that all of life boils down to a similarly simple and yet profound little sentence. “Thank you.”

I’ve been thinking about Faithspring recently. Faithspring began it’s meetings in northern Nevada three years ago this month. And it’s been a really meaningful time for most of us. I remember when Nancy and wondered aloud with Scott and Alysha Shaw, and then later Scott’s parents Steve and Sable, if we could put together a group for folks not always satisfied with the faith or fellowship of traditional churches, we wondered about the distance. The thought that preachers a century or so before rode a circuit of churches to share the good news was instructive to me, as well as Scott’s affirmation that even if Nancy and I were to meet with folks only once a month something good would be accomplished.

And I think something good has been accomplished. Some of us have found new friends. Some of us have found renewed faith in the principals we were earlier taught, or new faith in spiritual truths we were never taught. All of us in our Faithspring meetings–in Portland up until a year or so ago and in Carson City even now–have discovered a fresher and more inclusive way of living our lives. And for that we are grateful.

I heard this month from Brenda who reported a wonderful time visiting with a local Muslim cleric, an event I suspect that never would have occurred years ago, when Brenda and Charles, and the cleric and congregation they were attending were living a more narrow existence and faith. I think too of David and MaryAnn, who lent us their house to meet in during November. Who would have expected MaryAnn, a former Catholic, and David, a former well, nothing, to be a part of a relatively high commitment group of people, meeting once a month to talk about their lives and other spiritual things.

None of us. And few of us would have expected the same of ourselves.

Nancy and I were pretty burnt out when we started. Our Portland group was healthy, but our insides—the emotional place and mystery wherein each of us live—wasn’t all that healthy. We had lost site of our spiritual moorings. Faithless instead of faithful, religionless instead of religion-full, we struggled for spiritual values. Because the institution that shared its values with us at that time had been such a disappointment. Our story, but a common story for all of us. Faithspring has been a part of our finding our way again.

Sometime in the next two months I’m hoping to make application to the United Church of Christ, one of America’s more liberal Protestant denominations, as a minister of Word and Sacrament. I don’t know that they call it that, but I’m hoping they’ll accept me, despite my clear inadequacies and idiosyncrasies, as a part of their ministerial pool so that I’ll be able to serve as a clergyman in the United Church of Christ someday. Who knows, it may be that Faithspring will be a part of that United Church of Christ as well. But that’s not where I’m going with this. What is important is that we find ourselves in a thankful space.

We’ll not take a holiday from Thanksgiving this year, Nancy and I, because we’re thankful of where God has brought us. How about you?

I saw something worth clipping the other day in a sermon entitled, Thanking About Thanksgiving. The preacher had quite a rhythm going I’m sure, when he wrote, “I am thankful…”

For the teenager who is complaining about doing dishes…because that means she is at home and not on the streets.
For the taxes that I pay…because it means that I am employed.
For the mess to clean after a party…because it means that I have been surrounded by friends.
For the clothes that fit a little too snug…because it means I have enough to eat.
For my shadow that watches me work…because it means I am out in the sunshine.
For a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing…because it means I have a home.
For all the complaining I hear about the government…because it means that we have freedom of speech.
For the parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot…because it means I am capable of walking and that I’ve been blessed with transportation.
For my huge heating bill…because it means I am warm.
For the lady behind me in church who sings off key…because it means that I can hear.
For the pile of laundry and ironing…because it means I have clothes to wear.
For weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day…because it means I have been productive.
For the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours…because it means that I am alive.

We’re thankful. Faithspring has helped us to be thankful. I’m hoping that you’re thankful too.

The scripture for this last week included one from the Gospel According to Matthew. It reminds us to be thankful. “Do not worry,” Jesus tells us, “about the food that you eat or the clothes that you wear or the other details of your life. Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

Ultimately I’ve never been satisfied with Jesus words, as sometimes folks more faithful than me seem to suffer a lack of the more important things that sometimes make up their lives. Everyone of us can think of a storm or situation near or dear to us where folks perished for lack of food or friendship, where a natural disaster claimed not only the good intentions of people who in faith were hoping for more, but their very lives as well. But I’m thinking now that that’s simply not Jesus’ point.

Jesus’ sermon—if it was a sermon at all —was first delivered to poor people, folks who could not have reasonably added to their stature by deed or devotion. They were simply too poor. Poor people can’t save themselves. Not like rich people sometimes can. Poor people can’t gain anything by worry and can’t often times work long enough or hard enough to make a difference in their lives. I know this because I’ve been poor—this year has been excruciating financially, I’ve worked two jobs and not had enough money for food or rent or whatever. I’ve worried about the gas bill and the electric bill and the other bills that stacked equally as high. So have some of you.

As sometimes poor people, sometimes rich, we know the truth of Jesus’ sayings here in the Gospel of Matthew, don’t we? There’s nothing we can do sometimes to take care of business, and yet something or someone takes care of us anyway. That’s the simple point of it all. When we can’t change things for the better, when we can’t make things conform to the letter, when our attempts to help ourselves are completely witless, confined and fettered, Something–or if you’ll allow me–Someone helps us anyway.

Fact is, in my life I don’t always get it right. And Lord knows these last five or six years I’ve made a number of serious miscalculations in my personal life and business. But that’s the gentle miracle of it all, don’t you think? When I’m not looking out best for myself, Someone else is. And for that, I’m grateful.