We think of gratitude as good manners:  you write a note; children are instructed to say "Thank you."  Or we think of gratitude as a feeling you have spontaneously, or else you just don't - and far too often we don't.  We nurture grievances and file complaints.  Advertisers incessantly lull us into a sense of dissatisfaction so we will buy their products.  Even the season of Thanksgiving becomes one more day of vacation, when the malls have sales and we gorge ourselves with a bit too much turkey and dressing. 

   Worship is school of gratitude.  The ancient Israelites enjoyed a huge advantage over us in terms of feeling grateful.  Lacking technology and financial security, they knew they were utterly dependent upon God for their bread (if they had any bread), for shelter (if they had any shelter), for taking that next breath, for the sunshine and rain.  We modern people are so smart, so self-sufficient - especially in America, where we prize "independence" above all else.  In an "It's all up to me!" and "Look out for #1" culture, how will we learn gratitude?

   Worship subversively turns independence on its ear.  In worship (the only refuge from the demands of autonomy) I can relax and say:  I am not the master of my fate.  It's not all up to me.  "Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father" (James 1:17).  I don't "earn" what is genuinely good in life.  It is all gift, all grace.  "Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth.  Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo.  Basically, all sin is simply ingratitude" (Karl Barth).

   Henri Nouwen understood how gratitude takes practice:  "The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift to be celebrated with joy.  Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice.  I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt.  It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint.  I can choose to be grateful, even if my heart is bitter.  I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye looks for something to call ugly.  I can choose to listen to the voices that forgive and to look at the faces that smile, even while I still hear words of resentment and grimaces of hate...  The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort.  But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious.  Acts of gratitude make one grateful."

James

james@mpumc.org

Sunday's sermon on Israel and the Manna (Exodus 16) may be heard by clicking here.

Coming up:

eWorship12 - The Offering

eWorship13 - Listening to Scripture

eWorship14 - The Creed

eWorship15 - The Work of the Sermon

The complete eWorship series may be found on our web site.