Think Inside The Box

Sometimes it is thinking inside the box that changes the world!

On Sunday morning in our articles class we read a piece from The New York Times written by David Brooks entitled, “How Would Jesus Drive?” Pope Francis’ New Year’s Eve address inspired the column. While I found the piece humorous, what sticks with me stems from Brooks’ channeling of the papal invitation to be “artisans of the good,” who look for ways every day to enact small actions of kindness. Sometimes though, when we gather here on Tuesdays or Wednesdays to celebrate Holy Communion we may miss this invitation.

Our midweek Eucharistic feasts so often center around the lives of those holy ones who have reflected the light of Christ within their own day. Even though we do our best to remember that these folks are just like you and me, we just as readily put “saints” up on a pedestal. In all honesty, many of the people we remember have done remarkable—nearly impossible—things that I could never do on my own. Each holy woman and each holy man we recall though would—most likely—point (quickly) away from their own lives and towards the life of Christ. Still, I find that on the whole we do a miserable job of truly believing that the people in The Great Cloud of Witnesses and Lesser Feasts and Fasts do not walk a few feet off the ground. Today’s Gospel lesson and the person whom the Church celebrates help me to demystify the aura of sainthood, such that I might see how powerful small acts can be.

Julia Chester Emery served as National Secretary of the Women's Auxiliary of the Board of Missions for forty years in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This notable office took her to every Episcopal Diocese and many parts of the Anglican world abroad. While we might think this lengthy tenure raises her stature to some overly lofty level, I find that what stands out about Emery’s life comes in that she was not lording her position over others. Instead, Emery used that office as an opportunity to serve. She modeled her own ministry after that of a humble servant not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of another’s sandal. But, even more than her faithful service was a small profound gift that she gave the Church that we still celebrate to this day.

Often in the world we tell people who want to do something grand to think outside the box, but Julia Chester Emery thought inside the box, so that she might change the way women in the Church affect Jesus’ mission and ministry in this world. Emery creatively envisioned the United Thank Offering (UTO). As you may know twice a year we celebrate an UTO ingathering in which we collect little cardboard boxes. At first Emery gave this out to the Episcopal Church Women as a way to create more funds for mission, but even more than that as a way to practice gratitude on a daily basis.

Emery gifted us through the UTO ingathering an opportunity to practice gratitude on a daily basis. She encouraged her members in the Auxiliary to put a few coins into their cardboard boxes anytime they felt thankful for something. I would extend this small gesture a little further. In this practice we are invited on a daily basis to pause—maybe at the dinner table or when we are getting ready for bed—to take a moment to count our blessings. One of my mentors, the Rev. Annwn Myers put it this way, “As we remember our own blessings, those blessings turn into someone else’s blessings!” God’s reign works in this way, doesn’t it?

The way that Jesus showed through his life leads us into an abundance that overwhelms us. As we begin by counting our blessings and practicing gratitude what we find may be truly life-changing. Julia Chester Emery models for us that we do not need to be Jesus, resurrect the dead, turn water into wine, feed the masses from nothing, or perform miracles. No, as Pope Francis reminded the Christian world at the end of last year, we are called to be artisans of the good who find small ways to be kind. In this season after Epiphany when we receive the light of Christ God calls us to perform small acts of bearing the light with others. We may do this in countless ways: being a good driver, going out of our way to serve someone else, treating an irritating person with kindness, seeing in another the shining beam of Christ’s love, or taking time out to count our blessings, so that they may overflow into other’s lives.

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! 

Practice Gratitude!

Tomorrow is a day that we set aside to give thanks. We trace the roots of our celebration back to settlers making it through some difficult times when coming to the land we know as America. I like this connection, but for me the day actually has more significance than just the historical link.

Tomorrow we set an entire day aside for giving thanks. Honestly, we would do well to do this all day everyday, but I'll take what I have been given (and be thankful for it). One day to give thanks; however, we do not often actually remember that giving thanks is the purpose of tomorrow. Instead we get caught up in the preparations of the food, the details of the parade, the football being played, the drama of family dynamics, or the absence of someone who is no longer with us. All of these are important, but in the messiness of these elements we can get so distracted that we only pause to give thanks during the blessing before our festive meal.

Tomorrow instead of confining your act of giving thanks to a single moment when your family, friends, and/or loved ones gather around a table, let the gratefulness expand a little bit. Every week at church in our Eucharistic Prayer (also known as the Great Thanksgiving) we say, "It is right and a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to give thanks." We go on to direct that thanks to our Triune God, but what grabs me is the always and everywhere nature of being thankful. You do not have to wait until you are sitting next to grandma with the turkey right in front of you to count your blessings. Instead, begin tomorrow by setting aside some time to practice gratitude.

Tomorrow when you wake up grab a pen and some paper. Maybe grab some coffee first or go on a run if you must, but do not turn on the news or check your email or open FaceBook. Get your pen and paper and begin writing down all the things for which you are thankful: people, places, things, feelings, activities, experiences, events, situations, conditions, and everything else; the good things, the bad things, and all things in between; the small moments, the huge moments, and all moments that are just medium moments. Spend time early in the day asking people you love about the reasons why they are thankful this year. For when we live our days focusing on our blessings we recognize something different than when we let other people dictate what we need to think about as we read the news or the newsfeed or listen to others spout out their opinions.

Tomorrow if you spend time counting blessings what I believe you will realize is that not just some parts of life are worthy of thanks, but all parts. Even the most frustrating things, the most horrible things, and the down right worst things I have experienced are now the events that have made me who I am. I may not ever want to experience them again, but somehow I believe that God walked with me through those moments to teach me something, to show me something, or to grow me in some way that could not have happened otherwise. I may never like going through low points, but I will do my best to be thankful for those moments, just as I am thankful for the high points. All of life is a gift. All of life is a gift. ALL OF LIFE IS A GIFT!

Tomorrow and always may we be thankful for the gifts that God gives to us. 

Clean vs. Well

In this coming Sunday's Gospel lesson from Luke 17:11-19 ten lepers approach Jesus. They cry out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Upon seeing their disease Jesus tells the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests. As they go upon their way they are made clean; however, something remarkable happens in the aftermath of this spiritual cleansing.

Only one of the ten lepers returns to Jesus to give thanks to God once he has realized he has been healed. Maybe we could get a little frustrated with Jesus who has been sounding harsher and harsher as he travels closer and closer to Jerusalem, but at least to my ears he has a point. When something benefits us in our lives, do we merely look in the mirror and think how fantastic we are, or do we take a least a moment to pause and reflect? Do we just keep on going or do we stop to thank the source of the healing or help that has come our way? Only one of the ten lepers returns to Jesus, and he is the only one who is made well.

As all ten lepers went to show themselves to the priests, they were made clean. As a leper that was a very good thing. Instead of being seen as an outcast, they could be restored to the community where they lived, but cleanliness is not the same thing as wellness. When I take a shower if I am sick with a head cold I might feel momentarily better, but to be made well that is my true hope when feeling ill. So in this passage Jesus amazingly connects full healing with turning around and giving thanks to the one who brings health and healing into this world!

We have busy lives. I know this because I feel this in my own life. There is never enough time to do everything I need or want to do. And yet, if I spend my entire life blazing through whatever is happening without having some time built into my day to pause, reflect, and give thanks what am I experiencing? Perhaps I feel clean of the responsibilities that I have completed, but do I feel the healing power of God? Do I feel fully restored to my essential self? Jesus connects the leper's turning thanks with having true faith in God.

God shows us in this witness of the one leper that our faithful response to Jesus' loving presence in our lives is to turn around and give thanks. How do you thank God? Do you start your morning saying, "Thank you God for another day!"? Do you pause and reflect before your head hits the pillow at night counting up all the things for which you are grateful? If not, do you create an appreciation journal in which you list all that God has given you, and could you create a new list every day? There are multitudinous practices of gratitude. The hope is to develop a thankful heart that instinctively turns around to show appreciation for the source of all goodness. This one thankful leper teaches us to turn around and give thanks for all that God does, for that is the image of true faith!

Mercy and Thanksgiving

What will you be doing in twenty four hours? Will you be frantically running around addressing the dressing, tending to the turkey and popping the pies into the oven? Will you have your feet propped up watching a full slate of football games? Will you be cutting out coupons and searching out deals in preparation for Black Friday?

You may not know, but tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It is a day when we remember the fellowship shared between the European settlers and the Native Americans way back in 1621. They may have had a meal together to celebrate the first successful harvest, but it was primarily a day of prayer giving thanks for continued life and all the blessings of new life for the Pilgrims in America. To answer my own questions from earlier I will gather with my family to overeat, watch too much football, but also hopefully to remember that primarily it is a day of giving thanks to God.

Sometimes things get in the way of giving thanks, not just football and cooking and couponing, but other more significant roadblocks on the path to appreciation. A few years ago while gathered around the Thanksgiving dinner table I found myself upset about how ungrateful one of my family members was. He grumbled about not liking turkey. He complained about politics (who wants to talk politics with their family?). He moaned about everything. Exasperated by the wave of whining I thought, and nearly said under my breath, God thank you for not making me like this bitter man, I’m thankful, I do my part in my community, and I go to church unlike him.

As I look back on the moment I am quite embarrassed by my “prayer.” While negative family members do not stand out on my Black Friday shopping list, my own reaction to this person caught me off guard. It also sounds eerily similar to a story from Luke’s Gospel account.

Two men went up to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee (well respected, law abiding, and a righteous man). The other was a tax collector (despised, disregarding the law, and a no good thief). While in the Temple, the Pharisee prayed, “’God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”

It’s not hard to see with whom I identify in light of my Thanksgiving day breakdown a few years ago. I feel so often like a Pharisee, but never more so than on that day. It’s wonderful to be righteous and to follow the religious laws we have, and yet what God desires is for us to come back to him when we stray, not religious correctness, and not competitive righteousness. So what do we do with grumpy relatives and what can we hope for in mean old tax collectors? I’m glad you asked.

In today’s gospel lesson we hear of the lovable little character named Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus though was not so adored by the people in Jericho. He was a conniving toll collector who would take much more than required. This was a man of great wealth, but he was not of great stature. When Jesus came to Jericho something compelled Zacchaeus to run ahead of the crowd, so that he could get a good seat in the balcony of his day. Then unexpectedly Jesus moves the crowd towards the tree where Zacchaeus was perching.

Then Jesus did something so stunning that it made the crowd grumble. Jesus told Zacchaeus that he was coming to eat at the tax collectors home. Zacchaeus’ response stands out to this day as a glimpse of what repentance looks like in action. He said, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” He admitted that what he was doing wrong and he set out to make amends even if that made him a poor man.

Jesus ended this scene saying that salvation had come to Zacchaeus’ home, “For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” A merciful tax collector climbed a tree so that he could spot the Savior coming. He gave away not a tenth of his income like the Pharisee but half of his possessions, and used his money to pay back those he had wronged. Yet all of this was more than worth it for Zacchaeus, for salvation and forgiveness had come to him in the person of Jesus.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a day when many of us will overeat, watch too much football, and maybe remember our Pilgrim predecessors. However, true thankfulness begins at the intersection of our contrite hearts and God’s mercy-giving grace. The Pharisee’s mistake stemmed not from his gratefulness, but from his belief that he was better than the “sinners.” Jesus came to seek out and save the lost, which includes us. He desires to bring salvation from our broken ways. May Zacchaeus the tax collector serve as our model for our Thanksgiving Day. Let us pray:

Almighty God have mercy upon us, mold our penitent hearts, as you shaped the life and witness of the contrite tax collector, and may your Spirit enliven us always to give humble thanks for the loving redemption of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.