Thankfulness

On subsequent days he became more and more annoyed as he literally beat the bushes gathering every scrap of paper, foil, cans, bottles, twine, and anything else that didn't belong, until there came the day that he walked around the lake and he could not find a single piece of anything to pick up, no matter how carefully he looked... and that was annoying in a different way.

Just as he was developing a snit over this, someone passed him and said, “Isn't it a beautiful sunrise this morning!” and someone else added, “And the rosebushes are especially gorgeous today.”

and he realized that with his head down looking for trash, he had noticed neither of those things, even though he had been poking through those particular sun-lit rosebushes.

He needed a different way of focusing, rather than on the garbage alone.

Yes, the garbage needs to be handled, but not as the sole measure of one's life and activity.

It has always been the same, in Bible-times and today.

There is plenty of garbage surrounding our lives, and we can either let it control our lives or be merely the working platform for the Spirit in the middle of life.

We do not have to focus on the garbage, merely deal with it and move on, focusing our time and energy somewhere else.

In 1^st century Israel there was the Roman occupation, with the legionnaires tromping around, doing whatever they wanted.

There were the few very wealthy folk, and the scribes and Pharisees who flaunted their positions and acumen.

Everybody is paying attention to them fawning over them, with the ancient equivalents of the supermarket tabloids.

Also there were the tax collectors and others who worked out the schemes to cheat and defraud ordinary people.

And almost invisible at the bottom of the social pyramid are the widows, with no one to speak for them, go to court for them, protect them, work on their behalf, love them, or bury them.

Jesus is forever noticing people that others are overlooking, such as the widow in today's Gospel reading.

Everyone else sees the hated Romans and everyone sees the rich folks who put in the large contributions to the Temple treasury.

Jesus sees the widow and her offering of the two copper coins, which Jesus knows is all she has.

No one else would have paid any attention to her at all; but Jesus says that she was the most important person there that day. How so?

We know how colleges, sports teams, and other institutions tend to name buildings, fields, rooms, etc, for the highest bidders.

I'm thinking that this is a very understandable and yet a completely unGospel-like practice.

Might it be that the persons whom we should be remembering as our heroes are those who gave not from their excess but from their poverty?

Maybe we'll never see a stadium named for the man who swept the bleachers for 30 years rather than a bank or a beer company, but here in the church, wouldn't it be appropriate to honor the memory of the quiet saints, the ones others don't notice?

I'm thinking of one of the saints of this parish long since in the company of heaven.

I think that it was Sister Harriet who first told me about Maggie Edwards.

She had very little in the way of worldly wealth, but she used what she had to drive over the neighborhood long before seat-belt rules, and cram the car full of kids and bring them to Sunday School here at St. Mark's week after week.

If we were ever going to name a room after someone around here, I'd suggest it should be a person such as Maggie Edwards, one who gave all she had, and made the most of next to nothing.

So thankfulness is our theme today.

And there is still so much for which we can be thankful, even though there are many forces around us that are attempting to abridge our freedom to worship and share the Good News of Jesus, and refusing even to acknowledge the role that the Christian faith has played in the lives of millions of our forebears.

No matter how burdensome the government rules and how wearying the ridicule of society, the attitude of the church will still be thankfulness to the Lord God who continues still to bless us and will not abandon us despite a multitude of troubles.

In good times and in bad the people of Israel were reminded from Deuteronomy: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when your are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you arise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. [Deuteronomy 6:4-9]

In similar fashion, we'll keep right on teaching the Small Catechism in easy days and hard ones alike, knowing that those texts point us to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus and stir up thankfulness in spite of the most morose situation.

We keep on teaching!

And that Small Catechism is not just for youth in 7^th and 8^th grades.

They are just beginning to grasp its contents.

Adults need to return to it again and again, and in the light of our life experiences, reflect on those familiar texts and see how they help to interpret the latest twists and turns of our everyday life.

We'll discover that Martin Luther was a very perceptive fellow, who managed to say things that strike at the heart of issues with which we are still struggling today, 500 years later.

Dig out your old copy of the Small Catechism, purchase a new one, or discover that one can even be downloaded on the internet.

It will become our free guide for thankful living.

Then also we should think a bit about the opposite possibility.

One of hose opposities might squirm under the label “greed.”

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus was very annoyed with the scribes who are adept at long and flowery prayers. Why was that?

The Gospel writer does not really specify a reason, so we need to think about it awhile.

One of the commentators has proposed that Jesus was annoyed because it was a matter of greed.

The scribes mastered the art of long and flowery prayers in order to be noticed by the widows and town officials, in hopes that the one with the most impressive speech would be chosen to be the legal guardian of the widow.

Then he could begin to bleed the widow's estate for all sorts of legal fees to enrich himself at her expense, since she has neither the expertise nor the legal standing to challenge anything that he does once he is appointed to that position.

Can greed happen today as well?

Yes, perhaps in exact parallels to the Biblical situation and hundreds of other forms; we humans are immensely inventive in coming up with ways in which to cheat one another and dishonor God.

We need to shake it off, and return to the Psalmist's attitude: I will praise the Lord as long as I live.[Ps. 146:1],

and let that act of praising gradually move us along from thoughtless to thankful.

To the Glory of God the Father. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.