John 6:22-35
The Ultimate Thanksgiving Feast
As we
prepare to celebrate our annual day of Thanksgiving, I am reminded of the story
about four brothers who went off to college and lived very prosperous lives …
becoming successful doctors and lawyers. Some years later, they were having dinner
together and talking about the gifts they had given to their elderly mother who
lived in a far away city.
The first
said, “I had a big house built for Mama.”
The second said, “I had a hundred
thousand dollar theater built in the house.”
The third
said, “I had my Mercedes dealer deliver
an SL600 to her home.”
The
fourth said, “You know how Mamma loves
reading the Bible and you know that she can’t read anymore because she can’t
see very well. I met this preacher who
told me about a parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took 20 preachers 12 years to teach that
parrot to recite the entire Bible. And I
had to pledge to contribute $100,000 a year to the church for 20 years to get
it, but it was worth it. Mamma just has
to name the chapter and verse and that parrot will recite it.” The other brothers were impressed.
After the
holidays Mom sent out her Thank You notes. She wrote: “
To Marvin: “I am too old to travel. I stay home; I
have my groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes. The thought was nice,
though. Thanks anyway.”
To Michael: “You gave me an expensive theater with
Dolby sound. It can hold up to 50 people, but all of my friends are dead … I’ve
lost my hearing and I’m nearly blind. So, I’ll never use it. Thank you for the
gesture just the same.”
“Dearest Melvin, you were the only son to have the good
sense to give a little thought to your gift. The chicken was delicious. Thank
you.”
They say
that one hundred million turkeys have made the ultimate sacrifice this year, so
that we can stuff ourselves on this important day. I sure am thankful that I’m not a turkey this
time of year.
Indeed, we
have much to be thankful for. Yet, Thanksgiving
is a difficult holiday. True thanksgiving is getting to be a rare commodity. Many people prefer to call it “Turkey Day” as
opposed to “Thanksgiving Day”, because that’s what it has become for many. Authentic feelings of gratitude and
appreciation are getting hard to find anymore.
Last week I observed a Veteran's Day Assembly held on a college
campus. It was a typical Veteran's Day
event. There were patriotic speeches,
the choir sang patriotic songs, and the band played “Stars and Stripes
Forever.” On the stage, as guests of
honor, sat half-a-dozen elderly gentlemen in uniform … Veterans of America's
previous wars. As the assembly drew to a close, the speaker gestured toward
the men on stage and said, “We want to thank our special guests for being
here … these men who served our country in
I expected the college students
to respond with polite applause.
Instead, they stood to their feet and cheered loudly in a long, sincere
ovation. It was good to see the veterans receive the
honor due them. It seems that recent events have given these
young students a new sense of gratitude for the sacrifice these men and so many
others made on their behalf, and this is a good thing. In
fact, if we have any veterans here today, would you please stand so that we can
express our thanks to you. We have so
much to be thankful for.
And yet,
a thankful spirit is becoming a rare thing.
I am told that some department stores are having a difficult time hiring
people to be Santa Clauses this year. Why? Because today’s Department Store
Santas are finding that too many children are mean and ungrateful. They are getting too many kicks in the shins
from kids who are disappointed that they didn’t get what they wanted last year
for Christmas. I don’t know if that is
true or not, but it certainly reflects something that seems to be happening to
far too many people in our society.
Someone
has said there are basically two kinds of people: Those who have “a sense of
gratitude” and those who have “a sense of entitlement”. Think about that for a
moment: “a sense of gratitude” vs. “a
sense of entitlement”. For those who
live out of a sense of gratitude, nothing is taken for granted. Everything is seen
as a gift. For those who live out of a
sense of entitlement, everything is taken for granted. Nothing is truly appreciated, since we feel that
we are entitled to everything we have and more. As our guest speaker last Sunday, Kip,
reminded us, we are rich and greatly blessed compared to the rest of the
world. And yet, in our affluent land,
feelings of entitlement abound.
If you
are a country music fan, you may remember the singer/songwriter named Jimmy
Dean. Most of us have probably eaten his sausage. He once co‑wrote a song
that reflects a true feeling of gratitude. It’s called “Drinking From My
Saucer.” Sounds like a Country Song, doesn’t it. One verse goes like this: “So, Lord, help me not to gripe ‘bout the
tough rows that I’ve hoed, I’m drinking from my saucer, ‘cause my cup has
overflowed . . .” - Jimmy Dean, 20 Great Story Songs
The
grammar may be a little rough, but the sentiments are right on. “I’m drinking from my saucer, ‘cause my cup
has overflowed.” That should be our
sentiment of thanksgiving as well. “Thank you, Lord! Life may have been tough, but the good times
outnumber the bad. So, I’m grateful,
Lord, because my cup overflows.”
The
person with “a sense of gratitude” understands that they are not the center of
the universe. When something good
happens to them, they see it as a gift to be treasured and for which to be
profoundly grateful. The person with
this understanding of life is grateful for their health, for their family, for
their faith, and for the people they meet each day. They see life as a gift and they are thankful
for it.
On the
other hand, those with “a sense of entitlement” look at life as if everything
ought to go their way. I’m entitled to
be smart, attractive, and wealthy. I’m
entitled for all the traffic lights to be green when I drive in to work. I’m entitled to the maximum paycheck possible
for somebody as wonderful as I am. I’m
entitled to get my own way at work, at home, in relationships. I deserve
better. I’m entitled! That’s how some people really feel. So, when they hit a bump in the road or when
life gets hard and circumstances turn against them, they sulk and pout and make
themselves and everybody around them miserable … because they have this sense
of entitlement. “These things aren’t supposed to happen to me!”
The
question is, which attitude characterizes you?
A sense of gratitude or a sense of entitlement? Are most of your thoughts and moods centered
on what you don’t have and how bad things are?
Or are your thoughts and moods centered on what you do have and how
blessed you truly are?
A
missionary tells of leading a worship service at a Leper Colony on the
You see,
a sense of gratitude is not something that is dependant upon our outer
circumstances. It comes from within our
hearts. It is a state of being that is
born out of a changed heart. So, what
about us? Are we living with “a sense of
gratitude” or “a sense of entitlement”?
Pastor
Doug Oldenburg tells of reading excerpts from the diary of a young man whose
wife was gravely ill. Doctors could not
assure him that she would survive the night. Yet, in his diary the young man expresses his
profound faith in God.
He
writes, “She may die before morning. But
I have been with her for four years. There is no way I could feel cheated if I did
not have her for another day. I never deserved her for a single moment. God
knows that. And I may die before morning. What I must do now is to accept the
justice of death and the injustice of life.”
“What did I do to deserve birth? It was purely a gift. And
I am me, and that is a miracle. I have no right to a single moment, yet I have
had 32 years.”
“But wait,” the entry ends, “I
am being given another day. Another day to live, and read, and smell, and walk
in glory. I am alive for another day. And she is alive. It’s a gift! Another
gift. Thanks be to God!”
Would you
have written such words of gratitude under such circumstances? Or would you be gritting your teeth and
cursing God for your loss? It’s a tough
question, but an essential one … because the quality of our life depends on our
answer. Are we living with a sense of
gratitude or a sense of entitlement?
Another
way of examining ourselves is to ask the question: “When are you most thankful
to God?” “When do you praise God?” Is it only when the stock market is up; or when
your team is on a winning streak; or when everything is going well in your
family? What about in the midst of
tragedy or when things are not going so well?
Recently,
I was at the home of one our homebound members.
Both he and his wife are up in age and suffering from failing health. The husband has been told that there is
nothing else that can be done about his condition and he doesn’t have much time
to live with any quality of life. And
yet, to be with them is to be ministered to and inspired by their spirit. As I brought Holy Communion to them, I
watched how joyfully they received the Communion elements and he couldn’t stop
talking about how thankful he was. He
said, “When I begin to think about all
the things God has done for me and how he has carried me through my life, I am
so thankful. When I look back over my
life, I praise God and thank God. I am
so blessed.”
I don’t
know about you, but I find such genuine expressions of gratitude in the face of
unbelievable heartache almost overwhelming. And I begin to realize my own sense
of entitlement.
Here is
what I have learned … the happiest people on this planet are those who choose
to live with a sense of gratitude toward life. And giving thanks for them, isn’t a duty … it
is not just a discipline they have learned to do because they know they should
do it. It is a state of being that is
born out of a changed heart. And this is
the key to joyful living.
Author
Sarah Ban Breathnach, wrote a best-selling book entitled: Simple Abundance. In it, she praises the virtue of a grateful
attitude. But prior to writing this
book, she described herself as an “angry,
envious workaholic and perfectionist, who compared (herself) to others and
resented what seemed to be missing.” Finally, she got sick and tired of
being sick and tired. She realized that
she had been focusing on what was wrong in her life, not what was right. So, she sat down and recorded everything she
had to be grateful for. As a result, she
ended up with a list of 150 blessings and a changed outlook on life.
That day,
she began the habit of keeping “a gratitude journal”. She never ends a day without recording at
least five new things for which she is grateful. She credits her gratitude journal with
changing her whole approach to life. This
gratitude journal also became the seed for her best-selling book.
Does any
of this make sense to you? Most of us
have an upside down view of life. Our
sense of gratitude is often dependant on our outward circumstances. If something terrific happens to us, then we
will feel grateful. But such gratitude
is only a fleeting emotion … gone just as soon as life has one of its
downturns, as life inevitably does. The
secret is to commit ourselves to a sense of gratitude, regardless of what
happens. Only then will we be able to find
joy in the midst of the most humdrum and even the most painful experiences. But how do we do this?
We do it
by centering our life in the grace and the gift of Jesus Christ. Our Scripture lesson
from John’s Gospel comes just after Jesus has fed the 5,000. If you were here with us last week, we had an
experiential lesson on this miracle.
After feeding the 5000 plus people, Jesus withdrew from the crowds and
went to the other side of the lake.
The next
day, the crowds followed after him, because this was a man who could fill their
stomachs and they liked that. But that’s
not what Jesus was after. He wanted them to seek spiritual bread, not physical.
“Do not work for the food that perishes,
but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give
you.” he said to them.
And then
in verse 28, they said to him, “What must
we do to perform the works of God?” You
see, they wanted to know how to perform such miracles and do this for themselves. But Jesus says, “This is the work of God,
that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
But they
asked him, “What sign are you going to
give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you
performing? Our ancestors ate the manna
in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Jesus
said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from
heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down
from heaven and gives life to the world.”
They said
to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus then
declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and
whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
“The Ultimate
Thanksgiving Feast” is to partake of the Bread of Life that is freely given to
us by the Father in Jesus Christ. We,
who are not entitled to anything, have been given the greatest gift of all …
the gift of the Father’s love and grace. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, we have been given the Bread of Life that can satisfy our deepest
hunger and quench our deepest thirst.
And when
we center our lives on that gift of love, we drop all of our feelings of
entitlement, because we realize that none of us are worthy. When we center our lives on God’s gift of
love in Jesus, we begin to see life and everything in it as a gift from God. When we center our lives on Jesus, we find a
source of strength and hope to hold on to even in the darkest moments. When we center our lives on Jesus, we are
able to live with a genuine sense of gratitude and joy. And this is what God wants for us.
This past
week, we had one of our members experience the tragic death of their 23 year
old son. They are experiencing pain that
I cannot even imagine. Yet, through it
all, they have hung on to their faith in a God who loves them. Though it is not right and it’s not fair and
it’s beyond what they can bear, they are holding on to their faith in a God who
loves them. And that is the only thing
that is going to see them through it.
But what
I find most humbling and inspiring, is that by choosing to hold to their faith
in a God who loves them, they are able to see blessings in the midst of this
tragedy. Even in the midst of what can
only be described as a parent’s worst nightmare, they are enduring with a sense
of gratitude. Such is the power of trusting
in the love of God.
As we
prepare to close, you may remember that Martin Rinkert was a minister in the
little town of
“Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom his world rejoices.”
It takes a magnificent spirit to come through such hardship and express gratitude. Yet, here is a great lesson. Surrounded by tremendous adversity, a spirit of thanksgiving will deliver you ... “with heart and hand and voices”. Such is the grace and the gift we have through faith in a God who loves us.