...And Be Thankful

...And Be Thankful--November 24, 2016

"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.  And be thankful." (Colossians 3:15)

Gratitude does not mean we ignore what is yet wrong in the world. 

Gratitude, rather, can see that life itself is a gift of grace--the fact that there is something rather than nothing is a sign that we have been graced before we were ever born.  The fact that there is a world at all is a sign that God is committed to saying a YES to all creation over against the powers of chaos and oblivion.  Life itself is evidence that God is invested in the struggle against evil, against death, against hatred, and against chaos.  Naming that there is still much that is hurting in the universe is not ungrateful--it is one more reason to be thankful that God is alive and moving in the world, mending all that is broken, lifting up those who have been stepped on, deflating the pompous and puffed up.  And being thankful does not mean sticking your head in the sand to those real troubles, either.

Tonight, I am listening to a song by the great Sharon Jones, who died this past week, that has been a little three-minute sermon on gratitude in the midst of a broken world, all to the sounds of soul music.  In her song, "Humble Me," Sharon Jones sings,

"When I start demandin'
More than the rest, oh yeah
And when I start mournin'
I didn't get the best, no

Just remind me of the man, oh
Ooh, with nothin to eat
And remind me of the other man
Oh, with no shoes on his feet, yeah

Now, ooh, let me be grateful, oh
For all that Ive seen
And all that I have here
And theyll be around me, ooh yeah, now

Ooh, make me grateful for my voice, oh
That I might lift you up, yeah, yeah
Ooh, now grateful for these old legs, oh yeah
That I might jump and come and shout, yeah oh"

Jones reminds me that thankfulness doesn't mean ignoring the "man with nothing to eat" or "the man with no shoes on his feet," and it doesn't mean I just pat myself on the back for at least not being that bad off.  It means that I can appreciate what I have... and work to be the answer to prayer so that everybody gets to eat in the Kingdom of God, and so that all God's children get shoes.

Being grateful should not make us numb or insulated against the reality that on this day there are many who are afraid, many who have been told they are less-than, many who went hungry last night, many who are without a home, and many who are aching to belong and know they are beloved.  And at the same time, being grateful means I should not ignore the goodness that has been put in my life.

As Marilynne Robinson puts it in her beautiful novel Gilead, "there is more beauty than our eyes can bear. Precious things have been put in our hands, and to do nothing to honor them is to do them great harm."  The ugliness and brokenness of this world does not destroy the beautiful things that call forth our honoring them and our thankfulness to the God who is willing that there be something rather than nothing. 

So today, amid whatever hurts, broken places, empty places, wounds, or injustices that weigh on our hearts, we are also thankful. 

We are thankful, because there is something when there could have been nothing.

We are thankful, because there is beauty at all when it could have all been desolate.

We are thankful, because even those there is evil and injustice and want in the world, the living God has taken the side of the hurting and oppressed in the struggle.

And we are thankful in advance, too, because we dare to believe that God's goodness wins in the end against the powers of evil and the shadow of death.

And that is enough for today, even if that were all we had.

Lord Jesus, thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.