Scripps Sunday #87- Ushuaia Edition
I read this sermon below today on gratitude and pulled out some key pieces that I thought you would really appreciate..... Giving thanks for YOU today!
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1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ---------------------------------------------- My question today has been:
Grateful? What has that got to do with now? How do we live in
times like these? What does gratitude have to do with it? The text that I chose is the text
from 1 Thessalonians 5:12-18 that was just read, “be at peace among
yourselves.” A very familiar text that ends with these famous words, “rejoice
always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances for this is
the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” One of my main memories of this text
is from years ago, when I was visiting a friend in seminary, I got really
sick. I don't know if I ate something bad or if I had just come down with
some bug. But I remember running in the middle of the night into the
bathroom, opening up the toilet — you don't hear many sermons that start like
this — and heaving. When I got done doing this horrible business that I had
to do, I looked up. And right in front of me there was a poster above the
toilet with a picture of a waterfall that read, “rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” I said, oh Lord, that's the last
thing I want to do right now. It's funny because I think we've all
been there. This is a verse that is often used just like that. I sometimes
see that poster or a similar poster like it hung right next to the Live,
Laugh, Love posters in some friend’s house. Those are what I’d call innocent
abuses of this text. The funny poster above the bathroom toilet or hanging
beside the Live, Laugh, Love poster. But there are more dangerous
applications of it as well. I certainly have heard well-meaning
people in churches say, when a friend of theirs was diagnosed with cancer,
“oh, make sure you say thank you for this because God is going to teach you
something out of it.” Thank God for cancer? Indeed, I think that this text is one of the most abused texts in the New Testament.... |
Rejoice always.
Pray without ceasing.
Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of
God for you.
The difficult verse, give thanks in all circumstances — in
the King James it says in every thing — is a verse that comes as the final
directive in Paul’s guidance about living at the end of the world.
You can't just pull it out and put it on a poster. It
doesn't have a thing to do with live, laugh, love. It isn’t a Hallmark card. It
isn’t trite. And it isn’t a demand.
It has to do with how to keep on in dark days. In days
where you don't know what's going to happen next. In days when you feel like
the clouds are gathered so heavily on the horizon that you cannot see the
future.
Give thanks in every circumstance.
And that calls us toward real depth in understanding those
specific words — including the Most Misunderstood Word in a Misunderstood Verse
in this Misunderstood Book.
And that single word is in.
The big sort of aha moment of this text comes when you
realize that this teeny tiny word, en in Greek. We
translate that little en as in, in English.
En does not
mean for.
The verse does not read give thanks for all
things.
That little word, that tiny little Greek word means with,
through, or within.
So, when you come to that verse — whether it's hanging on
the poster or somebody recites it to you saying you must be thankful for that
cancer. You must be thankful that your spouse died. You must be thankful for
this horrible set of events that you are going through.
You say no.
The Bible does not say to be grateful for anything that is
against the will, the love, the mercy, and the justice of God.
What the verse says is give thanks through, with,
and within every circumstance, even the end of the world.
So when you come to a circumstance of injustice, when you
come to a circumstance of oppression, when you come to a circumstance of
sickness or illness or some other problem that seems insurmountable, you can
still give thanks through it and not for it.
That is such an important distinction for Christians
because if we say give thanks for every circumstance, that's
the doorway to complicity and quietude. That says to us you accept these
things, these are just the will of God, you can't change things.
You can't stop a war on the other side of the world.
You can't fix the climate crisis.
You can't make that cancer go away.
This is just the way of the world.
And we're supposed to be grateful anyway. Smile. Say
thanks.
But God is not grateful.
God is not grateful for any of those
things.
That is not the dream of God. God dreams of a world that
will flourish with human creativity, with peace, with joy, with equality and
liberation for all people.
God's heart breaks with any of those circumstances.
We're coming up to Good Friday. The broken body of Christ
on the cross is a sign of God's own broken heart, the way that the violence of
the Roman Empire came in and destroyed, tried to destroy, the very son of God.
Because he preached love.
Because he preached the kingdom of God.
Because he challenged the powers that be, the Romans, who
were saying to their own people, you should be thankful we've given you bread.
Be thankful you're still alive. Too bad you're slaves, but
you're alive. We've done all this for you, repay our thanks.
The earliest Christians knew that that was wrong.
But to be thankful through it was a way of rebellion,
resistance, and even revolution. Because true gratitude reminded them that they
were still the recipients of all of the good gifts of God and that every human
being deserves all of those good gifts, too. And that they had power, and like
Paul himself will say in that letter just a few pages before, I want you to put
on these things: faith, hope, and love. That's how you live, even when the
empire counts you as dead.
Give thanks.
Continue in the struggle.
Empower the weak.
Stand up for the faint-hearted.
You can live at the end of the world….
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This does not have to be the end of the world, because we
can pick up the same tools that our ancestors picked up — faith, hope, and love
— and live differently. And as we deploy them in the midst of the challenges of
our own day, we can give thanks as we move through these difficult moments.
So now I love it. Now I love this verse. “In all
circumstances, give thanks.”
I don't want it anymore on a poster above the toilet.
What I want it for is a protest sign on the streets.
Thank you is
a rallying cry to a better, more loving world.
Amen.
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