The Forgotten Art of Giving Thanks

Have we forgotten how to give thanks?

This sermon is inspired by the readings for the Feast of Thanksgiving:

Deuteronomy 8:7-18Psalm 652 Corinthians 9:6-15Luke 17:11-19 (Particularly this one)

Recently I had some time to kill in a city with which I was not familiar. So, I walked down the main street of this old town, and I marveled at all the cute boutiques, specialty eateries, and upscale gift shops. To escape the brisk, fall day I ventured into a couple of stores. When I did I found myself rather disoriented and confused.

In every shop I entered, nearly everywhere I looked what I found was gifts, decorations, and cards celebrating the upcoming Christmas and Hanukah seasons. The tables overflowed with presents and featured signs above them like, “the perfect gift for her,” “that special gift for him,” “a gift to make their season bright.” There were ornaments for Christmas trees, decorations for the Festival of Lights, and row upon row of holiday notes. For a moment I had to stop and look down at the date on my phone to make sure I had not fallen asleep for a month and missed most of November. As I looked back up I saw one small table with a tiny placard on it distinguishing it from the rest. The sign read: “Thanksgiving clearance.” My heart sank.

We have found a way in our culture to all but overlook the celebration of Thanksgiving. Even earlier this week I heard radio hosts apologizing that their station had not started playing Christmas music yet. If you ventured into a local drugstore before the last day of October you might have been surprised that Halloween candy was already replaced with Christmas goodies. Our local shops had their Christmas open house in the second week of November. I wonder, “Have we forgotten the art, the practice of giving thanks?”

Somewhere lost in the shuffle at this time of year when we are captivated by football, politics, and buying the perfect gift is a day that we set aside to initially stop and give thanks. While the roots of agricultural festivals date back to antiquity, we trace our feast of Thanksgiving back to European colonists in Massachusetts and Virginia who thanks to Native Americans made it through their first harvest. Now with the bounty with which we have become so accustomed, we may even forget that tomorrow is about more than food, family, and football. Like the nine lepers who did not turn around to thank Jesus, we have become people who keep going on our merry way. Again, I wonder, “Have we forgotten the art, the practice of giving thanks?”

The one leper who initially stopped, turned around, praised God, prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet, and thanked him teaches us something about how we might recover the spiritual exercise of giving thanks—not just on the fourth Thursday of November, but every day. Let us look at the example laid out by this leper from long ago.

First off, we have to stop. We have to stop and not just tomorrow. Every Sunday here at church we participate in something profound. I’ll get to the deeper meaning of this service that we call the Eucharist in a moment, but for now think about the simple truth that when we are at church we stop doing what we would otherwise be doing. Sure, we can do this at other times in our lives. There’s a great gratitude campaign that some in our parish have been taking part in on Facebook. Even stopping to take a moment to thank God—especially first thing in the morning—has a profound impact on how we see the world. The lonely leper though did more than simply stop.

The second aspect that this Samaritan leper teaches us is turning around. We may recall that the fancy church term for turning around is repentance. When we repent, we figuratively—and often literally—turn our lives in a different direction. Namely, we shift our lives to focus upon following Jesus. In a few moments we will confess our sins and ask God to help us to transform our lives so that we might delight in God’s will and walk in his ways. Part of the leper’s thankfulness was in recognizing that he was lost and going in the wrong direction without the love of God, may we remember this as well.

Another helpful practice of giving thanks that this leper teaches us comes in how he praised God with a loud voice. I suspect most of us do not like to raise our voices—unless perhaps our team is losing. What happens though when we free ourselves from the elements of decorum? What happens when we truly experience profound healing or transformation from God? Don’t we want to shout and praise God? I can recall a time when after going to a priest to confess my sins in the rite of Reconciliation I was so happy I wanted to do cartwheels and so I did! If we are truly thankful we will feel the freedom to praise God without a care in the world—even with a loud voice.

The Samaritan’s act of laying himself at Jesus’ feet and thanking him stands out as the coup de grace, the pièce de résistance, the capstone in the overlooked art of giving thanks. Our entire liturgy that we are participating in right now focuses upon taking the time to figuratively and literally kneel before God to say thank you. Yes, we can do this daily in our lives in many other ways, but something even more powerful happens when we come together to celebrate the Eucharist. We call this very service the Great Thanksgiving. We celebrate together as we give our humble thanks to God. A simple summation of how this gratitude manifests may be found in the following words:

Celebrant: Let us bless the Lord.

People: Thanks be to God.

The very way that we bless God is chiefly with our thanksgiving. Of course, giving thanks takes under its wings all sorts of other giving—giving time, talent, treasure, energy, intellect, humor, and our entire lives. This service that we participate in is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. We give over every bit of ourselves through gratitude and Christ Jesus in this feast returns to us our lives, only transformed by love.

As we focus tomorrow on the Feast of Thanksgiving may we allow the example of this lowly leper to challenge us to be grateful to God every day. May we stop, repent, praise God, and kneel before Jesus, as we offer our blessing of praise and thanksgiving. In recovering this lost art of giving thanks God will transform our lives!