A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, November 22, 2009
Exodus 16:1-15
Matthew 6:25-34
What do you think: are we grateful by nature? Are we born with the ability and desire to recognize our blessings and to thank God and other people for them? I don’t think so. I think we’re born self-centered. The last baby I talked to said she only cared about food, sleep, safety and a dry diaper. Loving parents give their infants whatever they need. And infants turn into toddlers who still assume the world should give them anything they want. And toddlers turn into pre-teens…and so it goes.
Attentive parents try hard to shift their kids away from a sense of entitlement to a sense of gratitude. They tutor their children to say “thank you” with their words and with their actions… and to mean it.
Just saying this brings back a vivid memory from years ago: I was just ordained and just beginning in parish ministry. My family and I had moved from student apartments into a real parsonage that stood ten feet from the back door of the church building. It was Halloween, back in the days before we had to x-ray candy bars and apples. We’d made popcorn balls in many different colors and had them all in a big bowl.
A little goblin came to the door and I stepped out with the basket of home-made popcorn balls. The boy looked down in the basket and paused, looking in the bowl suspiciously. He’d never seen such a thing. He finally accepted one and turned to leave. From the sidewalk came a mother’s voice “what do you say, Billy?” Billy dutifully turned back to me, holding the popcorn ball in his open hand and looked me in the eye. In a demanding six-year-old voice he said: “what the hell is this?”
His mother managed to say: “No, Billy! Tell the reverend ‘thank you.’” Billy mouthed the words but I don’t think he really felt grateful for this unfamiliar object I’d dropped in his bucket. I instantly knew three things: first, I knew the kind of language he heard at home; second, I knew his mother wanted the earth to open and swallow her; and third, I could bet she wasn’t going to make it to church the next Sunday.
But she was right that we all need reminders to feel and express our gratitude. With patience and guidance and experience we can move out of our inborn selfishness and become thankful people…True gratitude comes from the inside and wells up and comes out as thanksgiving.
We all know people who feel there’s nothing to be grateful for in their lives. You may feel that way yourself. From the beginning of time, humankind has tried to figure out why some seem to carry a heavier burden of sadness or trouble or even tragedy than others.
We also know people whose lives are really tough who still exude a sense of gratitude, even joy, experiencing the challenges as an opportunity to encounter the sustaining love of God. C. S. Lewis, the British author and commentator who discovered God seeking him, wrote in 1948:
We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is “good” because it is good, if “bad” because it works in us patience, humility, and the contempt of this world; and the hope of our eternal country. [Letters, August 10, 1948].
As we talk about gratitude the lesson from Exodus can be a mirror in which we see ourselves. Whenever I read this story I chuckle and squirm because it really tells us what we’re like. The Children of Israel had fled Egypt under the mighty leadership of Moses. They’d crossed the parted waters of the Red Sea. Now they were free; but they were also wandering in the Sinai wilderness. They were tired and hungry. They were afraid of starvation and of the unseen dangers that stalked them day and night.
So they murmured and complained to Moses that back in slavery at least they knew where their next meal was coming from. God heard their complaining and sent them a blessing. Manna, the “bread of heaven.” The Hebrew word actually means “what is it?” Or, as Billy asked about the popcorn ball: “what the hell is this?” It’s described as something like a pasty bread.
It’s a gift from God, a gift of grace. And it’s enough to sustain life.
There’s more to the lesson of the manna: God didn’t act like the parent who waits until her son’s 21st birthday and dumps the trust fund into his inexperienced hands only to watch him squander it. God gave the manna fresh every morning – just enough to sustain life. If the tribe tried to gather and hoard it, it rotted. They could eat their fill but then had to wait and do it again the next day. God would provide. They just had to trust.
As we hear this story we can better understand why our Pilgrim ancestors identified with the Israelites and the Exodus. In the early 1600’s all citizens were taxed to support the Church of England. It was illegal to worship in any other way.
The English Crown demanded obedience and treated the dissenters or Separatists as criminals who were persecuted and imprisoned when they refused to conform. In 1607, many of the Separatists fled to Holland where they were free to worship in their own way. But the language and culture were foreign. It felt like a wilderness.
So, returning to England in 1619, thirty-five of them joined 66 others who had little religious motivation and set sail to the New World. These Pilgrims imagined the New World in biblical terms – a land flowing with milk and honey. They intended to land at the existing Virginia colony, but a storm blew the Mayflower farther north. They landed December 21, 1620 and called the place Plymouth – the name of the British port from which they had left.
Governor William Bradford later described how the Pilgrims were in desperate straits their first year in the New World. They had exhausted their meager supplies and the region was gripped by drought into the summer of 1621. These devout Christians responded to the crisis by setting aside a day of “solemn humiliation.” They fasted and prayed and sought God’s will for them and their community. Much to their amazement the drought broke and a season of gentle rain revived their crops. In gratitude they joined together for a feast of Thanksgiving.
“Solemn humiliation” – today we’ve lost the Calvinist sense that we need to feel shame or humiliation as we approach God. But we’d do well to keep a profound sense of humility. Humility is the cornerstone of a healthy spirit and a healthy life.
Why do you suppose we who have so much have a harder time giving thanks? Because our bounty and good fortune can easily lead to a sense of entitlement. We buy into the popular lie that we’re just getting what we deserve because we’re smart or talented or morally superior in some way. And when we’re used to getting what we want we expect it to continue.
When we give in to this temptation to think we’re self-made and self-sufficient, it should come as no surprise that anxiety disorders are the most common emotional illness in our nation, affecting about 20 million adults, and costing more than $40 billion a year in treatment costs.
There’s some evidence that the occurrence of anxiety disorders increases proportionately to the standard of living – the more you have and the further you are from the source, the more likely you are to be anxious.
In the Gospel reading this morning I think Jesus made the point that anxiety is the arch-enemy of gratitude. When we’re consumed with worry about whether God will be faithful, we can’t see the wonder and beauty around us. We might want to point out to Jesus that many birds of the air don’t survive; lilies of the field wither in the scorching heat; people around the world die because they don’t have the necessities of life. It’s a stark reality in our world and it certainly was in Jesus’ day, too.
So he wasn’t proposing that we all recline and eat bonbons and demand that God protect us from our laziness. Rather, Jesus offered a poetic reminder that life continues to unfold and every day we can see the generosity and constancy of God.
But we who have enough and more than enough let our worries steal our joy. Our desires compete with our gratitude. We who have enough want more and we can easily become anxious about it. I think it’s also true that gratitude is the antidote for anxiety. Jesus said: if God has provided for the tiniest birds and the fleeting lily, how could we doubt that God is attentive to each of us?
As we come together in this season of Thanksgiving let’s pay attention to the wisdom that’s recorded in these ancient testimonies of faith:
• Find that place of trust and gratitude.
• Don’t store up manna. It will rot and decay.
• Don’t store up pride and arrogance. They’ll destroy you.
• Don’t store up anxiety. It will steal your joy.
• Don’t store up worries about tomorrow. It will have worries of its own.
Rather, dwell safely in the knowledge that God loves you and knows your need. You are of great worth. And in response to that, what do you say? What can we say, but “thank you?”