Forever Thankful

So, what are YOU thankful for this Thanksgiving? I ask the question in this sermon and suggest that maybe our typical responses aren't the best ones. Do you agree with me?

Thanksgiving is this Thursday already; and that’s no news to any of you. Have you bought your turkey yet? How about the cranberries? Sweet potatoes? Pumpkin pie? If you haven’t shopped yet, you’d better get cracking, because that big day of eating is right around the corner! But despite all the preparation that goes into that day’s dinner for many families, Thanksgiving isn’t a major holiday; it’s really only a “sandwich holiday.”

Now, I’m not saying that because turkey sandwiches follow us around for days after Thanksgiving! No, Thanksgiving is a “sandwich holiday” because it is sandwiched in between two other holidays that have become big business. Halloween, the holiday just before Thanksgiving, now brings in the second most sales dollars in the whole year! Halloween used to mean a homemade hobo costume for your kids and pumpkin cupcakes at school; but now it is a major retail event with adults as its target. Those adults spend big bucks on costumes, decorations, and party supplies. And of course, following close on its heels is Christmas. If Christmas merchandise isn’t already in the stores at Halloween, it’s there in the next few days, enticing us to buy all kinds of gifts that will amaze our kids, our friends, our spouse, and even our in-laws with our creativity and our generosity.

And that’s exactly the problem. Because it is sandwiched in between buying stuff for Halloween and stuff for Christmas, even if Thanksgiving doesn’t get lost, its emphasis is twisted to focus on stuff that can be bought and sold. Quick, what comes to mind when I ask you what you are thankful for this Thanksgiving? Your house? Your car? Your comfortable recliner and your big screen TV that brings you your favorite football team in high definition? It’s fine to be thankful for those things. I know that I’m thankful for what I have. But let’s set all those things aside, for a few minutes at least, and let’s imagine what would happen if a tornado swept away all that stuff. What would we be thankful for then? Ah, that makes us think a little bit!

Many of us would be thankful for our health. I hear that a lot: “At least I’m healthy.” And that is a good thing to be thankful for! But some of us aren’t healthy. In fact, most of us at some time in our lives won’t be healthy at all. It’s just a fact of life that as we age, most of us deal with chronic diseases. Our bodies just don’t work as well as they once did. So I ask you again – if we don’t give thanks for our possessions or for our health, what are we thankful for? I have some suggestions that you might want to consider when you’re bowing your head, ready to say grace at the dinner table on Thursday.

You might want to say thanks for the people who love you. Some of those folks are probably people in your family. But there are many others – close friends, for example. These folks will pick up the phone and ask, “What can I do?” when you call them at 3:00 in the morning. They know you, and they care about you, and they put your welfare before their own convenience. And some of the people who love you don’t even know you personally! These are the people who put love into action by the way they live their lives. These folks donate food to soup kitchens because they know that people are hungry. If you were hungry and needed some help, they would be there for you. Other folks work on disaster assistance teams. Remember that tornado that blew away all your stuff earlier in the sermon? In the aftermath of that tornado, these folks would be helping you to sort out whatever was left from the storm, giving you a shoulder to cry on, and helping you rebuild. They work in offices that offer assistance to folks that are down and out, in day care centers, and in the corner grocery store. They volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, answer the phone for FISH, fight fires and protect our communities. The late Fred Rogers – the beloved Mr. Rogers – once said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” His mother was right, and I hope that we all give thanks for them!

But there’s something else that we can be thankful for – whether we have lots of stuff or nothing at all; whether we are healthy or sick; whether we have lots of friends or just one or two. We can be thankful that God’s love – the love that we show to one another so imperfectly – that love is going to get the last word! In fact, this last Sunday before Advent is the day dedicated to celebrating just that certainty. You heard about love’s last word in the scripture reading just a few minutes ago (Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14). We saw a vision that imagined the end of time, with God seated on the throne, giving all authority to someone who was called “the Son of Man.” Jesus applied that title – the Son of Man – to himself. And that is something to celebrate, because it means that one day – although we don’t know exactly when – Jesus will get the last word. One day, God’s love will be so broad, so wide, and so deep that it will spread all throughout creation! One day, all fear and hate and greed and evil will be wiped away! One day, all relationships will be mended, and every creature will be the beautiful part of creation that God means for it to be! One day, “grace” will cover everything like a pure, white blanket of snow.

Don’t waste time trying to figure out when this is going to take place. Nobody knows but God. Jesus himself didn’t even know! And for heaven’s sake, don’t stop trying to make the world a better place, because God expects those of us who follow Jesus to do just that. But don’t lose hope. Don’t lose hope when all our efforts look like they’re in vain. Don’t lose hope when you read the morning paper or listen to drive-time radio or watch the evening news. Don’t lose hope when friends and neighbors think that there is no hope. Because we know better. We may not be able to fix what’s wrong with our world, but we know that God can. And God has given authority to Jesus, the Son of Man, the one who died for us on Calvary and rose again so that we might have new life!

So when someone asks you this week what you’re thankful for, go right ahead and say, “I’m thankful that I have lots of stuff that makes my life comfortable.” That’s OK. I’m thankful for those things, too. Say, “I’m thankful for all the people who love me, and for all the helpers in this world.” I’m going to say that. And I hope that, even if you don’t say it, deep down in your heart, you will give thanks to God that love will get the last word. Because, in the end, God’s love that gives us hope is the one thing that we can be forever thankful for.