Give Thanks With A Grateful Heart – Sermon for Pentecost 3B
God’s speech in Jesus Christ meets us in the Holy Scriptures. If we want to pray with assurance and joy, then the word of Holy Scripture must be the firm foundation of our prayer. Here we know that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, teaches us to pray. The words that come from God will be the steps on which we find our way to God. [Life Together/Prayerbook of the Bible, DBW, 5:156].
Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it (Ps. 22:30-31).
I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart;
before the gods I sing your praise.
I bow down toward your holy Temple
and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness;
for you have exalted your name and your word above everything.
We hear this word in our opening hymn:
Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
there is no shadow of turning with thee;
thou changest not, thy compassion, they fail not;
as thou hast been thou forever wilt be.
There is a reason why this hymn is so beloved. It reminds us that God faithful and true. To say that God doesn’t change doesn’t mean that God doesn’t respond to us, but it does mean that God’s character, God’s faithfulness and love, are steadfast and unchanging. That is a good word to hear in times of trouble. So, even in the most difficult of situations, we can sing out: “Great is thy faithfulness.”
Giving thanks in times of trouble doesn’t mean we give thanks for the trouble we experience. I once heard a preacher who told the congregation that they should be thankful when they find themselves in difficult situations. That means that God has confidence in them. He told us that God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle, so rejoice always, including when God sends bad things your way. That’s because God knows you can handle it. I must say, that’s really bad theology. I don’t think that God sends cancer, domestic violence, depression, or oppression our way, because God thinks we can handle it. But, I do believe, that God’s love is steadfast and that God is faithful, and that God is present with us even when walk through dark valleys.
Let us hear once again from Diana Butler Bass, who writes:
Gratitude at its deepest and perhaps most transformative level, is not warm feelings about what we have. Instead, gratitude is the deep ability to embrace the gift of who we are, that we are, that in the multibillion-year history of the universe each one of us has been born, can love, grows in awareness, and has a story. Life is a gift. When that mystery fills our hearts, it overwhelms us and a deep river of emotions flows forth—feelings we barely knew we were capable of holding. [Grateful, p. 42-43]
The Psalmist didn’t give thanks for times of trouble or the wrath of enemies. The Psalmist gave thanks because God’s steadfast love endures forever. As one commentator puts it, there is a “fundamental ambiguity that characterizes the Psalm.” The Psalmist seems to recognize that “we shall always find ourselves simultaneously professing God’s deliverance (v. 3) and praying for God’s deliverance (vs. 8c) — ‘thine is the kingdom’ and ‘thy kingdom come.’” [J. Clinton McCann, “Psalms,” NIB, 4:1233].
God has delivered us and God will deliver us, for God’s kingdom is here and yet it is still on the horizon. It’s because there is more to come, that God invites us to participate in acts of kingdom building that will transform the world. When Paul speaks of the church as the body of Christ, he envisions the community partnering with God in pursuit of God’s realm. We are, as it has been said, God’s hands and feet. This is our calling, but we do not undertake it alone. We go forth in the power and presence of God’s unfettered Spirit, sharing in God’s work of liberation.
As we experience God’s empowering presence even in times of trouble, we can join the people who head to the Temple to offer words of thanksgiving. Or, as Psalm 100 declares:
Make joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness;
come into God’s presence with singing.This act of praise brings with it a word of encouragement:
The Lord will fufill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands. (Ps. 138:8).Let us give thanks, with grateful hearts, because we are, as part of God’s creation, the work of God’s hands. I believe God will not forsake that work!
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