Sermons

“Giving Thanks in Times of Turmoil”

I Thessalonians 5:15-24; Psalm 138 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – November 20, 2016

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that our hearts might find rest in a place of gratitude from which we can be your people. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

2016 may be the hardest year in my lifetime for which to give thanks. Some of you with lifetimes twice as long as mine may remember years that could compete, but I think we can all agree this year has been pretty rough. Measured in celebrity deaths alone, 2016 has been pretty devastating. I saw something the other day that suggested that things have spiraled out of control because Prince was holding together the fabric of the universe and then he died. Someone else, of course, had to argue that it was actually David Bowie doing it, but maybe they both had an end and Harper Lee was holding up the middle.

The truth, of course, is that we can’t afford to measure this year merely in celebrity deaths. 2016 has been a lot more complicated than that. And perhaps the most difficult part about it is that everyone seems to be interpreting what’s been happening from wildly different perspectives. It seems we are losing our capacity to empathize and understand one another’s points of view. We have de-humanized one another to the point where we don’t have to care how someone else understands the world, if it doesn’t agree with our perspective. And in the middle of all this, Paul tells us to “give thanks in all circumstances.” Really?

This is complicated stuff. Our world and our lives have layers upon layers of significance and meaning and attachments, and a lot of the time our priorities conflict with one another and pull us in multiple directions. We know that at some level there is a clear distinction between right and wrong, but far more often than we prefer, doing the right thing upsets someone we care about, or damages a relationship that is important to us, or puts someone in jeopardy. The cost of righteousness isn’t just something that has to be paid, it must be weighed and considered, for the righteous thing is not always as obvious as we would like. Some will try to tell you that our world is black and white. You may hear this message from people you admire and respect. But if we indulge in this kind of wishful thinking, and more dangerously, if we teach it to our children, we will be cultivating a faith that is insufficient for the real world, which is way more complicated and nuanced than that.

The recent election has caused much turmoil. People on both sides have strong feelings and struggle to connect with those who voted differently than they did. While some are focused on the political wins and losses, others are occupied with the messages that were communicated by the results and how they are affecting our communal life. When so many of our citizens feel as though election results qualify as an assault on their personhood, something is terribly wrong. We have a lot of listening to do, and that can’t happen effectively if we insist on putting everything into neat, binary categories of good and bad, or if we continue to put each other into political categories rather than seeing one another as people.

Many of you are familiar with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. They have been doing incredible human rights advocacy since 1971. One of their main contributions to our country is their consistent and thorough tracking of hate groups like white nationalist militias and hate crimes of all sorts. For the week after the election, Wednesday to Wednesday, the SPLC has found record of 701 hate crimes.[1] Compared to the rate of hate crimes in 2010, that is an increase of about 4 and a ½ times. The highest number of those hate crimes were targeting immigrants, though blacks, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, Muslims, Jews and women were also targets. Twenty-seven of those hate crimes were directed at Trump supporters; yes, they are counting those too. Perhaps even more alarming is that the highest number of these crimes happened in educational settings, either K-12 schools or colleges or universities. And the state with the highest number of these targeted crimes is California.

It is my fervent hope that we can agree without caveat that targeting people with violence or threats for any reason, but especially because of their race or immigration statues or religion or gender or sexuality or political beliefs is an unequivocal evil. But there are people we love who will try to nuance or explain away these numbers. Some of them are likely in this room. There are people we love who will insist that their vote was in spite of the likelihood that racist rhetoric would lead to racist violence and actions. Some of them are likely in this room. Do not tell me that our lives are not full of shades of gray. If we can’t acknowledge the complexity, how can we even begin to have the conversation? If our faith isn’t rich and deep enough to hold all those contradictions, how can it possibly help us in the midst of such turmoil?

Perhaps a more personal example would be helpful. It’s so tempting to assume the world is the way we see it, and that we’ve got it pretty well figured out. But then we meet children, our own or someone else’s. And while they seem like pretty good and smart and sensible people much of the time, we occasionally get hints that these people – 20, 30, 40, 65 years younger than ourselves – are actually living in what is basically a different world than we are. Their experience of the world is so different from ours; their expectations about what should be normal, their assumptions about how people should behave, indeed, even their understandings of what is right and what is wrong, are not quite the same as ours. And we know these kids, and we love them, so we have to integrate our awareness of their vastly different perspective into own, if only by admitting that maybe we didn’t have things as figured out as we thought.

So to get back to the original point, how on earth do we give thanks in the midst of such turmoil? Paul says to give thanks in all circumstances, and we have to believe he means it, even if we don’t buy his argument that we should do so because it’s God’s will that things are such a mess. How do we give thanks when things are so bad, and why should we even try? I want to offer three reasons now, which I believe all lead to what the psalmist was getting at when it was written “you increase my strength of soul.” Stronger souls are what we need in these days, and thanksgiving is one important way of cultivating them.

First of all, as many of you know, giving thanks is helpful to our state of mind. It is a way of focusing on the positive, of finding the silver lining in the darkest of clouds. Some of you keep gratitude journals, and you can testify to the power of giving thanks for re-calibrating one’s perspective. Developing a practice of being intentionally grateful, rather than reactively grateful, helps us see the small miracles more easily. If we are gracious enough to express those thanks, when particular people are the sources of the blessings, it can even help spread the joy. So giving thanks is helpful.

Giving thanks has another effect on us. It helps keep us humble. Humility is one of the most important aspects of a healthy faith. And it is one of the hardest to cultivate when we’re enmeshed in a culture that tells us to “look out for number one” because we “deserve” better than we’ve got. But when we spend time thanking God and others for the many ways in which our lives are good and beautiful, for the tiny graces in a challenging situation, for the kind word or smile from a stranger that helped us re-balance our hearts after a hard time, it’s easier to remember that we are not self-made creations and that we haven’t really earned much of any of the blessings we’ve received. So giving thanks keeps us humble.

Finally, I think giving thanks – in all circumstances – is essential for maintaining hope. This is connected to the ways in which gratitude is helpful and keeps us humble, of course, but it brings it to another level. Hope is easier to see when we are noticing the tiny miracles all around us. But even more importantly, when we are humbly remembering that God is God and we are not, hope becomes possible because we can recall that saving the world isn’t all on our shoulders. We have been created in love by a God who makes a way out of no way, by a God who makes light break forth in the darkness, by a God who showed us that love is stronger than death. It’s not up to me. It’s not up to you. God is certainly inviting each of us into the marvelous work that is being done, but it is God who is in charge.

These are complicated times, but God is still God, and we are still God’s people, called to love and reconciliation and courage and joy. Our world may be filled with reasons to despair, but we are also surrounded by reasons to give thanks. That is our choice. Gratitude is not always an easy discipline, so we must occasionally pause and help one another find it again. But when we do, it will help us, it will humble us, and it will restore our hope. It will give us strength of soul, even for the most complicated shades of gray.

Let us pray: Holy and Gracious God, grant us a faith that is strong and deep, that we might draw upon your goodness and light to find the power to rise up and give thanks, even when it seems the dawn will never come. Alleluia and Amen.

[1] https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/18/update-incidents-hateful-harassment-election-day-now-number-701