Faux-Pastor Jon: What Does God Say About Gratitude?

Long-time readers of this blog know that I sometimes lead worship services at Faith United Church of Christ in Iowa City as part of our shared ministry program. I was put in charge of the the worship services last November -- on the Sunday following Thanksgiving Day. As I often do, I veered away from the lectionary and focused instead on the concept of gratitude.

One of the things that I enjoy doing every so often is checking out Holiday Insights, a website devoted to holidays – both those that are commonly celebrated by everyone and those that are a bit more obscure. Because of this habit, I usually remember to talk like a pirate every September 19^thand I have an excuse to pop open a bottle every May 25^th when National Wine Day shows up on my calendar!

Glancing at the Holiday Insights website this month, I noticed that we just passed a special day devoted to gratitude. How many of you celebrated “You’re Welcomegiving Day” this past Friday? It’s not a well known holiday. Certainly not as famous as its older sibling, Thanksgiving Day.

You’re Welcomegiving Day has been around since 1977. It always falls on a Friday and it always happens on the day after Thanksgiving. The concept is pretty simple. Conventionally when someone thanks us for a kindness or a service, we respond by saying… “You’re Welcome.” So it was inevitable that someone would suggest that on the day after Thanksgiving we should eventually follow-up with a You’re Welcomegiving.

Now the jaded among us might see You’re Welcomegiving Day as a poor man’s Thanksgiving Day. Certainly, it’s creator (Richard Ankli of Ann Arbor, MI, AKA the creator of other lesser known holidays like Sourest Day and the rhyming May Ray Day) intended it to be nothing more than an excuse for a four-day weekend.

But I’m all in when it comes to You’re Welcomegiving Day. I mean, it’s good manners to say “you’re welcome” when somebody thanks you. I think we all could benefit from looking at reasons to thank others for their positive impacts in lives – both great and small. And I also think that the world would be a greater place if we all did a better job of encouraging others for their own expressions of gratitude with a sincere “you’re welcome.”

Don’t just take my word for it. Let’s take a moment and explore the benefits of gratitude. According to researchers at Eastern Washington University, there are four primary characteristics of grateful people. People who experience the most gratitude (and therefore its positive effects) tend to 1. Feel a sense of abundance in their lives. 2. Appreciate the contributions of others to their well-being. 3. Recognize and enjoy life’s small pleasures. And 4. Acknowledge the importance of experiencing and expressing gratitude.

Thanksgiving is the act of expressing specific gratitude to God for the blessings He has given us, whether those things are physical, spiritual, or material. As we grow as Christians, we should see an attitude of thanksgiving develop in our lives. One sign that Jesus is living in your heart is a sense of gratitude. Someone once said that God lives in two places. He lives in heaven and in a humble, grateful heart.

Thanksgiving Day and You’re Welcomegiving Day might happen one weekend every November, but those special days are truly meant to be special reminders to cultivate an attitude of gratitude every day of ours lives. As believers, we should make a concerted effort to appreciate all the blessings that God has given to us. Our lives should be filled day to day with an attitude of gratitude. Psalm 92:1-2 reads, “It is good to praise God and make music to your name, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night.” Day and night, the verses read, we are to praise and thank God. The apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 2:6 that our lives are to abound in thanksgiving. Colossians 4:2 says that we are to be devoted to giving thanks. Phillippians 4:6 says we are to do everything with prayer and thanksgiving. In Psalm 116, it says that we are to make our lives a thanksgiving offering to God. The book of Hebrews says we are to “serve God with thanksgiving.” And our lives are to be filled with a spirit of thanksgiving and gratitude towards God for all he has done.

Of course, most of us don’t live out either Thanksgiving Day or You’re Welcomegiving Day every day. I’m certainly not as grateful as I should be. I fall short when it comes to cultivating my own attitude of gratitude. I complain about work, when I could be grateful about my salary and my health coverage and my professional relationships. I complain about the current state of politics, when I could be grateful about checks that exist within the system that moderate our decision-makers. I complain about the things that I want to buy but don’t, when I could be grateful about the money that we’re able to tuck away for retirement or for unexpected needs.

In that way, we can be like those nine lepers in Luke 17. According to William Barclay, no story in all of the gospels so poignantly demonstrates man’s ingratitude like the lepers in Luke 17. Ten lepers came to Jesus with desperate longing; he cured all of them and nine never of them came back to give thanks. So often once a man has got what he wants, he never comes back.”

Here are some thoughts about ingratitude:

It’s easy to be ungrateful in this culture of affluence. In 1 Timothy: 6, Paul addressed those who are rich in this world. He noted that money is the root of all kinds of evil, and that those with money have a tendency to wander from our faith in the pursuit of earthly riches. Compared to the rest of the world, we are all rich. Most of us have vehicles. Our homes are air conditioned in the summer and heated in the winters. We have TVs and cell phones. Most of us can pick up pretty much any type of food that we want regardless of the time of year that it is and still have more than enough money left over to go out for supper after visiting the grocery store. It’s great that are needs are routinely met, but the ironic by-product of having so much is that we continue to desire more instead of being grateful for our collective bounty.

It’s easy to be ungrateful because of pride. According to Psalm 10:4, “in his pride the wicked does not seek God; in all his thoughts there is no room for Him.” We forget to thank God for our gifts. There is a bumper sticker out there that reads, “I couldn’t have done it without me.” I got that job. I raised my kids to be good people. I got that raise. Obviously, we had a role in our successes. But so did God. And we need to do better at remembering his influence in our day to day successes.

Ungratefulness is contagious. According to 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Bad company corrupts good character.” It’s easy to complain when you have someone to listen to you and feed into your complaints. I do it at work all of the time. I have been known to shut my office door in an effort to shut out the negative complaints. On my better days…

Life doesn’t always provide us with bounty. 2018 was a bad year at my office. We started the year knowing that most of my co-workers would be laid off. And those who remained would be left with unsustainable and overwhelming work loads and an ever-present specter that things will eventually end for us as well. It is hard to rejoice and be thankful in that atmosphere. It’s been even harder for my former co-workers, several of whom are still struggling to find work and to pay their bills. Who wouldn’t be ungrateful in such bad circumstances?

Exodus was a never ending battle against ingratitude. Moses and the Israelites wandered the desert for years with no end in sight. Their first reaction to tough circumstances was to grumble. And who blames them? It is hard to remain thankful when you are trapped by a situation in your life that is really tough.

Let’s flip this around and review what the Bible tells us about nurturing an attitude of gratitude:

Gratitude pleases God. 2 Chronicles 5:13-14 tells us, “They raised their voices in praise to God and sang, ‘He is good; his love endures forever. Then God’s temple was filled with a cloud and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of God filled his temple.” In other words, God’s presence came to the temple in response to the thanksgiving that was coming out of it. God loved to hear the praise from the temple and so he drew near. It appears that thanksgiving and praise are key elements to manifesting the presence of God. It pleases Him.

Avoid complaining. Complaining and grumbling are some of the biggest barriers to gratitude. According to Numbers 11:1: the Israelites “complained about their hardships and when God heard it his anger was aroused.” According to the Psalm 77:3, complaining ruins our spiritual lives. “I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed.” Lastly, Paul wrote in Philippians 2:14, “Do everything without complaining and arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.” Sometimes we just have to consciously stop ourselves from complaining.

Make a conscious choice to rejoice. It’s not always easy to be thankful, but even when it’s hard we need to make a personal decision to be grateful people. Paul wrote these words from prison: “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say it rejoice.” Paul made a personal choice to be grateful despite his circumstances. He decided that even though he was in prison, it didn’t matter. He was going to praise and thank God anyway. And it transformed his perspective.

Give thanks every day. I’m terrible with this particular piece of instruction, but we need to give thanks to God every day. We need to discipline ourselves to find something each day to be thankful for to God. In Daniel 6, we read that Daniel got down on his knee three times every day and prayed and gave thanks to God. I want to challenge you to begin a regular routing of finding something every day to give thanks for. No matter how small your blessing is, I encourage you learn to search out the positive in the midst of the negative and give thanks for what you do have.

Thank you all for offering me the opportunity to discuss God’s blessings during today’s worship service. (You’re welcome.) Amen.

Amen!