Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

Psalm 100; Ephesians 5:1-2, 15-20

Preached by Rev. Robert Matlack
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Most people talk to God when they're facing difficult times. In times of hardship or distress we become acutely aware that we are not in charge of life. So, we pray to God for help and for forgiveness to sustain us through the difficulties that we face at the time. In times of despair and distress, we turn to God in hope and anticipation of what God can do for us and through us.

Things are different though when everything in our life is going relatively well. Fewer of us talk to God regularly when things are going well - in spite of the fact that in those times we still have much to say, for we have a great deal to be grateful for, a great deal to thank God for...

The pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower and settled in Plymouth Colony realized that. Their first winter was brutal. They all experienced hunger and cold, with many in their community dying, principally from illnesses caused by their lack of food. By the next fall as they harvested their crops, and looked at the food that they had stored away, they realized that they had enough - not a great abundance, not a surplus, not as we like to romanticize it some great abundance, but that they had enough to survive the coming winter. They wouldn't have to go through that devastation again this year. They were grateful for this blessing, and so they set aside a day to give thanks. They felt a genuine need to give thanks, because they were profoundly grateful for what they had received. Times were better - not great, but better than they had been the year before, and they responded by giving thanks.

That first Thanksgiving Proclamation was issued at a point when our nation had suffered through the Revolutionary War, and then had gone through the process of writing a constitution and establishing a government for the colonies. There was much still to be done. There were many, many problems still to be faced, but George Washington realized how much they had to be thankful for. He realized that as individuals and as a nation we needed to give thanks to God for the blessings we had received.

All of us have that need to stop and give thanks once in a while. There are so many ways in which our lives have been blessed. God has touched us in countless ways and changed our lives for the better. Just as we are reminded in the 100th Psalm, we too have a need to acknowledge God as the source of all blessing, to offer God our thanks and our praise, for God loves us, God cares for us, and God walks with us through thick and thin.

Even more, as Paul reminds us in our text from Ephesians: "Since you are God's dear children, you must try to be like him". When we take on the name Christian, we also make a commitment to live out those qualities that are the very character of God and what God has done for us. As Christians we have been called to try and follow the example that God has given us in Jesus Christ. We have committed ourselves to live lives which express our thanks and praise to God, for as Christians we know that God is the source of every blessing.

Many years ago, Dr. William Stridger appeared in his pulpit one Sunday morning, and when it came time to pray the pastoral prayer, he simply said, "Oh, Lord, we thank thee this morning for big, red apples. In Jesus' name. Amen"

As you might expect, this rather strange prayer elicited some comment on the part of the congregation. Many people asked their pastor, "What did you mean by thanking God for big, red apples?"

"I meant," he replied, "that I was thankful for the common things of life which, though they are lovely, I am so likely to forget."

That's a prayer that I suspect each of us could offer and in so doing gain a great deal. Our lives have been blessed in countless ways. We live in a wonderful country with peace and freedom, with a great educational system and the opportunity for everyone to learn and grow and improve themselves. We have an abundance of food, warm and attractive clothing, nice homes, and a variety of other riches which make virtually every other society which has ever existed look poor. Yet we are still often not satisfied. There are things that we lack. There are hardships that we face. There is more that we want, and often that's all that we see. We fail to stop, to look for, to see our many reasons to be thankful.

I remember hearing many years ago that the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is that a pessimist looks at a glass and describes it as half empty, while an optimist looks at the same glass and describes it as half full. The difference is whether we focus on those things that we don't have, that we might have, that we want to have, or whether we focus on those things that we already to have, those gifts that we have received.

In our worship together this morning, let's not just mouth a few meaningless words of thanks, words that don't really come from the heart anyway. Rather in our prayers and our music and deep within our very selves let us offer heartfelt thanks to God for all of the blessings that we have received, and let us express that thanks in both our words and in our lives, that just as Paul charges the members of the church in Ephesus, we too might "always give thanks for everything to God.

Amen.