A Serpent's Tooth

How many of you went to church on Sunday with your family when you were little? For most of us it's a familiar memory. Some of us went to Sunday school or children's church, while some of us went to the same serv¬ice as the adults. But no matter how different our experiences were, I'll bet there's one thing that's the same for us all. Before you got into the car, Mom or Dad would give you a nickel or a dime or a quarter (you can measure how long ago it was by how big a coin you got) to put in the collection plate. Now, I can't remember the very moments when my Dad would give me the quarter; in fact, I don't remember if it was a quarter or a nickel. But I do remember putting it in the collection plate. I think I always put it in the collection plate. But I can't be sure about it, especially when I was older, and I was supposed to save for the offering out of my allowance. Did any of you ever put the quarter in your pocket instead?

What kind of kid were you? Were you the kind of kid who always did everything exactly as you were supposed to? and before you answer, ask yourself what your parents would put in a signed affidavit. Did you ever want something so badly that you used this week's allowance to buy it, and promise that you'd put twice as much in the next Sunday? Did you remember to do it? Or did it somehow just slip your mind? Or were you the sort of kid whose last dime would somehow disappear on a Saturday morning ice cream cone? Do you ever remember not having anything left for Sunday morning? Did you ever tell anyone? Did you promise to do better the next week, or did it get easier to forget?

Now a lot of you have children of your own. How many of you give your children allowances, or if they're younger, a little something to put in the offering plate? Please ask yourself the question, how would you feel if you found out that, Sunday after Sunday, your child had been putting the money in his or her pocket to buy comic books or candy with?

I know that we give our children allowances for a whole host of reasons. Some of it is just because we love them, and it gives us pleasure to be generous. But there are conditions attached, because we also give them money to teach them how to use it, to help them learn how to be independent, and to become responsible for some of their own obligations. And part of their obligation is to respect the wishes of the giver, because an allowance is a gift a parent gives, not a debt a parent owes.

To receive a gift is to owe a debt of gratitude, one which we can only repay by desiring to please. If we do not love the giver, the debt becomes too heavy a burden to carry.

Shakespeare's King Lear is a classic tale of ingratitude. Now, being human and foolish, King Lear criticized the wrong daughter for ungratefulness, but that's another story. What he said was true, even if misdirected. He said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child."

Lear was wounded so badly by his children's ingratitude and rebellion that he went mad. the pain was more than he could bear. He wanted them to love him, and so he gave them everything. And when he had given them everything he had, they turned around and said, "I've got what I want. Now get out of my life." the message ingratitude sends is, "You are so great a burden to me that I have to pretend that what I have is mine by right, and that I owe you nothing."

Well, here we are, gathering together on this beautiful fall day to worship God. We’re here. We’re involved in mission. We reach out to our community, we feed them spiritually and physically. What has all this talk about ingratitude have to do with us, of all people?

Because, aside from the fact that it’s less than two weeks from Thanksgiving, I want us to think about how we go about not only spending a day of thanks, but living a life of thanks. I want us to think about the way to live out our gratitude on a daily basis. I want us to take a look at how God wants us to express our gratitude.

Psalm 67 is a hymn of thanksgiving. the Psalmist pours out his thanks to God for Israel's prosperity, and so should our prosperity call forth from us a similar outpouring of praise. But we mustn’t only praise God in words; King Lear's two older daughters did that, while conspiring behind his back to usurp his kingdom. No, our prosperity compels us to do more than that. Our prosperity obliges us to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the mission of the church, to evangelism, to carrying the Gospel to the ends of the earth. That is the message of this Psalm. And there are three compelling reasons why we must respond.