“What God Desires From TEMC: Experimenting with Liberty”
Giving thanks in every situation
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, October 9, 2005
Text: Psalm 119:33-48
I confess I am struck with a degree of pathos as I feel the paradox that exists this morning between celebrating a great and a glorious Thanksgiving in this free and beautiful land on this sunny day, and waking up to the television and radio and Internet reports of the devastation in Pakistan and India, in Guatemala, and the still-existent flood waters around the Gulf of Mexico. You can't help on mornings like this, I think, but take stock of those things that we have, and to really rejoice in them, but we also let it be known that our hearts and our prayers go out to those who this day seem to have lost everything.
It caused me to ponder something that a counsellor in Louisiana said in an interview just a couple of weeks ago. When the stories were being told about people returning to their devastated homes, or of having to live for the next 12 months in trailer parks, the counsellor was asked, “What is it that allows some people to deal with their situation better than others?”
She answered that one of the things she has noticed during all her years of clinical work is this: The people who are able to rebuild, the people who are able to get their lives back and find structure in their existence, those who are able to rise from the ashes of their problems, are those who dwell on what they still have, rather than on what they have lost. Those who have the courage to go forward are those who still know that they have something left with which to build, rather than spend all their time dwelling on what has gone that cannot be returned.
I thought these were prophetic words containing a real element of truth, and all of this affects all our lives in many ways. It was brought home to me in something I read by the great Reform commentator, Matthew Henry, who was robbed on the streets of London, and who wrote in his diary the day after the robbery had taken place: “I thank Thee first because I was not robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.”
What an inspiring thought! Here is a person who, having seemingly lost everything in this robbery, could still find in the midst of all his trouble and tribulation something for which to give thanks: something on which to build and reconstruct his life.
Now, our passage from Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Old Testament, is more than anything else a testament to the power of God's word to strengthen in times of struggle. The psalmist is facing his critics and his enemies. He is wondering about his future, and whether or not he will be devastated. In the midst of this fear and lingering uncertainty, he finds words to describe the freedom that he has, and it is a profound statement of thanksgiving and trust in God's holy word. He says: “I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought your precepts. I have reached out my hands for your commandments, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.”
You see, even in the midst of his troubles, the psalmist has this profound sense of freedom or, in another translation, “liberty,” and the literal meaning of the Hebrew word here is wide-open spaces or boundless spaces. In other words, even though he faces terrible troubles, terrible circumstances, terrible problems in life, all the things that are being brought to bear to harden his soul, he nevertheless feels this sense of wide-open spaces, of liberty, of freedom, even though it looks like he is about to lose everything. He feels this way because he recognizes that he loves God's commandments, and he raises his hands to God, and it is his trust in God's precepts and God's covenantal love that is going to strengthen him through these difficult times and through the trials that he faces. He has, then, a great sense of liberty and freedom, even though things are challenging.
Likewise, in our passage from 1 Thessalonians, Paul, who is writing from captivity, is giving a word of instruction, a word of hope to the Christian community who cannot see him, and who are wondering if the world is going to come to an end. In this glorious passage he says, “I want to give thanks.” Here he is in prison, and he says, “I want to give thanks for your labour of love, for your works of faith, and for your hope in Jesus Christ.” In other words, when Paul is in his darkest moments and it seems like the world is coming to an end, he gives thanks for good things being done by others, and for the Christian community that is caring for its people.
In these passages, then, there is a lesson about Thanksgiving. It is a lesson of the power of liberty and freedom, and the hope that comes from looking for things that you can build on, rather than on things that you are losing.
Now, today's sermon is the second in a three-part series on stewardship. It is about what God really requires, what God wants from Timothy Eaton Memorial Church. As I was pondering these texts, I asked myself, “What happens this Thanksgiving if we, as individuals or as a community of faith, were to lose everything? What if everything was to evaporate? Our buildings were to fall down and we were left with nothing? What would we do? What would we build our lives on? What would remain that we could look to, rather than look at what we have lost?”
It seems to me that the psalmist has already paved the way for us to answer this. He has said that we can walk in the freedom of God and in the liberty of God, and our faith is a source of that liberty. There is tremendous liberty and freedom to go forth in our lives, no matter what difficulties or challenges we may face, if we know that God's covenant and love, his precepts and his grace are true. Just as people who feel bound by their own sins feel the liberation of forgiveness when they look at the grace of Jesus Christ, or when people face tyranny knowing that God's justice will surround them and encourage them, we believe that God's grace gives us the strength to get through dark times, no matter how dark. In all these circumstances, there is a liberty and a freedom that comes from faith. Even this Thanksgiving, when it may be that you cannot muster a great list of things for which to give thanks, there are still things you can indeed build on.
Years ago when I was growing up in England, we celebrated Harvest Festival, which is something like Thanksgiving here in Canada and the United States. Every fall there would be a service, and the children of the church would present gifts from creation, bringing them down the aisle and placing them at the front of the sanctuary. We would gather in a little room where the Sunday school met, and walk outside leading the procession.
Children would come with all sorts of fruits and vegetables and loaves of bread - any of you who were brought up in the U.K. would know all about this wonderful tradition. Well, on one particular occasion, my cousin was visiting us for the weekend, and we had magnificent gifts - I had a dozen eggs, and she had a pound of flour. We were so excited to be part of this glorious procession. You know what children are like: We hadn't seen each other for months, and we were talking to one another, and having a good time catching up on all the family news.
Well, we were not paying attention, and there was a step right in front of us as we were to enter into the sanctuary. So of course, Andrew J. B. Stirling went head-first with his dozen eggs right on the carpet just as we were entering the church. My cousin stumbled over me in the clumsiest way with a one-pound bag of flour that burst open on top of the dozen eggs, and we were left with this incredible pancake mix in the middle of the aisle. Our mothers had spent hours making sure we were groomed and nicely dressed for this great occasion and I had a white-and-yellow streak down the front of my navy suit, and my cousin's pink dress had all manner of colours on it. So the two of us picked ourselves up and continued in the procession of children carrying cabbages and sausages and bread, and came to the front of the church, only to be greeted by - of all people - my father, who was the minister.
My cousin and I appeared before my father, and I said, “Dad, I have nothing to give.” Well, he looked at us with a degree of bemusement and shame, frankly, but, he said, “Do not worry,” and then added these words that have stuck with me over the years: “Just bring yourselves. That is really all God cares about.”
My friends, in thanksgiving, that is the freedom of grace: Just bring yourself, for you might not have great and glorious things, and you may not possess the whole world. Even if you do, even if your barns are overflowing, even if you have a magnificence of riches, still what really matters is that you bring yourself to God to say thank you.
The psalmist could bring himself. He says, “I will walk in your freedom, and I will obey your commandments.” There is more. This gift of freedom also becomes for us a great source of thanksgiving. Not long ago, I read a wonderful Iroquois poem of thanksgiving. It pre-dates any of the settlers in North America. Here are the opening stanzas:
We who are here present thank the Great Spirit that we are here to praise him.
We thank him that he has created men and women,
and ordered that these beings shall always be living to multiply the earth.We thank him for making the earth and giving these beings its products to live on.
We thank him for the water that comes out of the earth and runs for our lands.
We thank him for all the animals on the earth.
We thank him for certain timbers that grow and have fluids coming from them for all of us.
We thank him for the branches of the trees that grow shadows for our shelter.
We thank him for the beings that come from the west,
the thunder and lightening that water the earth.
The writer of the Iroquois poem understood that what we have been given is precisely that, a gift. It is not something we have earned, and we cannot pick and choose what we like or what we don't like. We have been given so much, and we need to thank God for it all.
Corrie Ten Boom, who wrote The Hiding Place, found herself in World War II in a concentration camp with her sister, Betsy. They were taken to one of the deadliest of all the camps, called Ravensbrück, and placed in the most awful barracks. When it came time for Thanksgiving she and Betsy decided they really should find time to pray to God in some way, and to have a spirit of Thanksgiving during the harvest time. Corrie especially found it very difficult to thank God in the situation in which they found themselves, but Betsy would not be deterred. She said, “We must thank God for everything,” And she started to pray, thanking God for all the things they had been given.
Now, the barracks in which they lived was infested with fleas, and in the prayer of thanksgiving, Betsy actually included the fleas. Corrie said, “This is absolutely ridiculous! I can't thank God for the fleas! The fleas are a curse!” She started to go on about her sister being ridiculous, and asked her why she was thanking God for everything and not for just some things.
But what Corrie didn't realize was this: In their barracks they had the freedom that none of the other barracks had, and they couldn't understand why. None of the guards would come in and pester them. They would have prayer meetings and Bible studies and fellowship times. They would bring in other people from the camp who were having a hard time, and give them support and food and fellowship. Only later did they find out why the guards left them alone: The guards didn't want to be bitten by the fleas. Betsy was right; Corrie was wrong.
In God's great purposes, what seemed like a terrible thing was still something for which to give thanks. Why? Because we never know if what we have been given can be used for God's good and glorious purposes. Therefore, it even at times when it looks like we have lost everything, there is still something on which we can build: a spirit of thanksgiving and our trust in God.
There is one final thought: This liberty we have been given may produce in us a spirit of thanksgiving, but it must do something more. Look at what the Apostle Paul thanked the Thessalonian church for: their labour of love, their works of faith and their hope in Jesus Christ. In others words, thanksgiving should really usher in a sense of service. It is no good just paying tribute with our lips to the God who has given us everything, if we are not prepared to use those gifts and the wonders of creation to help others.
Just recently, we performed a very unscientific audit of this church, and we concluded that in this congregation, every year there are about 1,500 volunteers. Now, some of these are duplicates, people doing two or three different things, but nevertheless, 1,500 people are involved. Meals on Wheels, the food bank, taking part in the pageant or in Spirit Express, helping lead the Bethel Bible series, ministering to people through Stephen Ministry, working through one of the support groups, helping people at funerals by being an usher - the list goes on and on, and on! Fifteen hundred, we concluded - an amazing statistic!
You can be as thankful as you want, and have all the nice words and all the kind platitudes, but your thanksgiving should and must include service. It is precisely that sense of service that cannot be taken away, that cannot be removed, and on which we must build as a congregation.
A couple of nights ago, I was awakened by a terrible racket on the roof of our house. It was around two in the morning, and I decided I had better go outside and find out what was going on. I went to the shed and looked for the flashlight, but the flashlight was dead. So, I just took one of those lanterns that basically is a bulb on the end of an electric cord, and I took it outside and had a look. Here, staring down from the roof, right at the top of my head, were seven raccoons. All I could see were their bright, twinkling eyes. “This man is losing his hair!” they were saying to one another, I know it. While they looked down cheerily at me, I got the flashlight, and I took out the batteries in it that were starting to leak and smell, and I scraped it out. Finally, I looked up to see the raccoons still there so I got the hose and I just shot it up gently in the air, and that was enough for them. They were out of there and on their way to spend the night somewhere else. (They came back the night after, but that is another story.)
However, I remembered something that an inspirational speaker, not a Christian said. He was talking about flashlights and batteries, and he said, “If you leave batteries in a flashlight and you don't use them, they will leak and they will die. Flashlights and batteries are designed not just to sit and be comfortable, but to be used, and to be switched on.”
So it is, it seems to me, with the gifts that God has given us. They need to be switched on. They need to be used for God's glory and God's purpose. This Thanksgiving, if you are wondering if you have anything for which to give thanks, let me tell you: all you need to do is to switch on your spiritual batteries and you will find that there are many things for which to give thanks, and many things that out of thanksgiving you can do to help others.
That is why the Apostle Paul was not wrapped up in himself. In his letter he didn't give thanks for a good night's sleep or a hearty meal, he gave thanks for others doing good things; for the Church living up to its commitment to Jesus Christ, and using the freedom that it had been given to help others. His words were simple. He said, “I give God thanks for your labour of love, for your works of faith, and for your hope in Jesus Christ.” May the same prayer of thanksgiving apply to Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, and to you and me.
A happy and a free Thanksgiving to you all! Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.