Sermons

“Telling the Stories of Steadfast Love”

Psalm 107:1-32, 43; Colossians 3:12-17 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – November 22, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that our thanksgiving might be a testimony to your everlasting mercy and steadfast love. We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

I’ve always been fascinated by Psalm 107. It has such an interesting and unusual structure. Many of the Psalms make references to the formative stories of the Hebrew people. But this one almost seems crowd-sourced! Each of the stories – whether famine or imprisonment or illness or danger at sea – is inserted into this larger structure of thanksgiving, pointing the reader to understand the deliverance proclaimed as the work of God. But rather than just refer to the stories, assuming we’ve heard them many times before, each one is told again, with all the dramatic details, so that we can feel the desperation and fear of those involved, and then the extreme relief and joy when God’s deliverance arrived. “He saved them from their distress.” And each time, there is the refrain, reminding us of the appropriate response to such salvation: “Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.”

The closing line of the psalm encourages us to pay attention: “Let those who are wise heed to these things, and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.” So, as we approach this Thanksgiving week, let us be wise and consider the steadfast love of the Lord. Something important happens when we tell these stories of thanksgiving. We know that gratitude is an important practice. It’s at the center of our worship, in many ways, but it’s also widely appreciated in our society at large – at least during the month of November! Facebook and many other corners of the internet and other media are filled with people counting their blessings and giving thanks for the many wonderful things in their lives.

After a few years of watching people list the same things over and over, it’s easy to become skeptical that the practice is doing much. But here’s what I’ve noticed. You’ve heard me say before that the opposite of love is not hatred, but rather fear. I think there is a similar contrast when we’re talking about gratitude. We might assume the opposite of gratitude is ingratitude, that is, taking things for granted, assuming we earned everything we have. You might even call it pride. And that could certainly be the case in many situations. But I think there is an even deeper contradiction to gratitude, and that is cynicism. And cynicism is something that runs rampant in our society. There is always something to complain about. There is always a reason to be suspicious of others. There is always a reason why the new thing won’t work, or someone’s agenda isn’t totally pure, or it all comes down to the money. Cynicism is easy. We tell those stories with a depressing frequency.

So isn’t the opposite of that when we tell stories of thanksgiving? When we notice and remember and talk about the wonderful things that have happened to us, and recognize that they are manifestations of God’s steadfast love? And before we get cynical again, let me note that I’m not talking about going around boasting about how God has blessed us, claiming that God specifically reached down to get me that awesome job, or heal my disease, or find me the perfect parking place just in time, such that I must be more deserving than all the others who didn’t receive such blessings. There are appropriate ways of telling these stories, and there are ways of telling them that become more about us than about God’s love. If a story doesn’t share God’s love, it’s not really about God’s love either.

What is so interesting is to notice how many of these stories start out with a bad situation. “Some wandered in desert wastes… hungry and thirsty… some sat in darkness and gloom, prisoners in misery and in irons… some were sick… they loathed any kind of food… their courage melted away in their calamity.” Some were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Like the biblical stories in Psalm 107, Larry’s story starts out with calamity. The Big C. But his story isn’t really about cancer. Larry’s story is about church. Larry’s story is a testimony to conversion. “I wasn’t a church person. I never thought I’d be a church person. Then I came to church. Now I am a church person.” Let us thank to the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind. It was the steadfast love of God that Larry realized this church was surrounding him with. That is what this ten year anniversary is celebrating. That is why we give thanks. And did you notice how we knew Larry’s story was about God’s love? Because he didn’t forget those who didn’t receive healing from cancer. He remembers them and mourns with them, even as he shares his joy. That expansiveness is how we recognize that this is a story of God’s steadfast love, not just some tale of personal triumph with nothing to offer the rest of us. It started with cancer, but cancer didn’t get the last word, because the story was about God’s love.

Okay, that’s all well and good, you may say; God’s love in the lives of individuals within a faith community, okay. But the world is such a mess. Violence everywhere, terrorism, natural disasters, endless wars, global warming – How can we choose gratitude over cynicism in the face of all that? I had the blessing of visiting with Michael Kinnamon, after his procedure this week, and we were talking about today, about how his Bible study class and our worship service today would be about Thanksgiving. And he said he’d like to take a moment, perhaps during the Joys & Concerns, to lift up some global signs of hope. Instead, I talked him into letting me share them with you now. It is easy to get overwhelmed by all the bad news, to have the impression that things are worse than they’ve ever been. But in so many ways, that is simply not the case. Here’s what Michael shared with me: “Nearly one billion fewer people around the world live in absolute poverty than in 1990. Nearly two billion gained access to clean water during that period. Mortality rates for HIV and malaria have fallen by a third in the past decade.  And a higher percentage of children, especially girls, is in school across the planet than at any other point in human history.

In this country, over the past five years, unemployment is down, violent crime is down, teen pregnancies are down, military casualties are down, the number of medically uninsured is down, and the school dropout rate is down.” That all certainly sounds like a story of thanksgiving to me! This is a story we should all be telling, to each other, to our children, to our friends and co-workers, and to our politicians and media personalities.

Because of, perhaps, the nature of what gets our attention, the media tend to focus on the negative. There was an article about Ebola in the paper yesterday. Yep, Ebola. Haven’t heard much about it lately, have you? But in yesterday’s paper, there was a small item about 2 new cases in Guinea. Focusing on the negative, remember? You see, the reason those 2 new cases were news is because Guinea had entered its 42-day trial period to see if the epidemic was over. Because there hadn’t been any new cases in weeks! This is good news! And even better, Sierra Leone and Liberia have recently been declared officially Ebola-free! After so much hoopla months ago, Ebola in West Africa fell out of our headlines. But it was after that that the good news arrived. This is certainly a story of thanksgiving. As you’ve seen before, there’s more than one way to tell a story, and you know that our African brothers and sisters love to dance, so I’m going to share this story with you in a different format.

What about you? What is your story of God’s steadfast love? I bet if you thought about it, it would take you less than 10 seconds to confess 2 or 3 stories of cynicism that you love to tell. But what about stories of thanksgiving? What about stories of God’s wonderful works? Maybe you could even re-work one of your cynical stories by finding the way love worked through it to bring forth a blessing. What silver lining have you been failing to notice in your life? What sign of hope have you not yet claimed? I’m not asking you to choreograph a whole dance about it, but could you tell the story, to someone? Or even just to yourself? Could you offer up a prayer of thanksgiving to God? It will make a difference. It will change how you see things. It will change you. It will change the world. Let those who are wise give heed to these stories and celebrate God’s steadfast love! Alleluia and Amen!