Glen Avon Presbyterian Church

“PRACTICING GRATITUDE”

Rev. Lon Weaver

Psalm 100 was the first psalm I learned as a child. It is a psalm of thanksgiving. It closes with these words.:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him, bless his name!
For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

Over against that exuberant song of thanks is the story of the healing of ten lepers in Luke 17. I remember singing a song as a child about that story of ingratitude:

“Ten unclean and no where to go

Ten men cleansed as clean as snow

One returned to give God thanks,

But nine went away!”

It’s a song that cuts me to the quick! It reminds me of too many occasions when I’ve acted as if I deserve another person’s basic kindness to me. Worse, it makes me recall occasions in which people have graciously tolerated my impatience or a word that I may have spoken in haste which hurt another person.

Paul the Apostle knew about thanksgiving. If you make a rough count of the number of times words like “thanks”, “thank you”, “thanksgiving”, etc. come up in letters attributed to him, you’d find that that set of words occurs between forty and fifty times. Paul had been transformed. Originally a murderous enemy of Christ and of Christianity, he stood by and consented to the murder of Stephen. He pursued Christians as far away as Damascus, and God stooped to confront him and to change his heart. As a consequence, he was grateful!

The question is this: how has God touched your life? Have you received encouragement in times of real loss? Have you received an act of random kindness by another person? Has someone given you a break—granted you forgiveness—when you’ve simply, but undeniably “blown it”. Then, this simple, yet profound counsel of Paul is intended for you: “Be thankful!” (Colossians 3:15). In the countless acts of kindness and deference, love and friendship, care and healing, God is reaching out to communicate to each of us, to say to us in concrete terms, “I love you!” In this month of Thanksgiving, what better motivation can we have to become practitioners of the art of gratitude! Amen.