Title: There’s No Peanut Butter
Text: Psalm 100
The Big Idea: Our ability to be grateful to God is largely dependent on the perspective we bring to life.
Introduction
The painting you see on the screen is a familiar one.
Bovey, Minnesota is a small community in south central Minnesota. In 1918 a man by the name of Eric Enstrom took a photo of an old man named Charles Wilden, a door-to-door shoe scraper salesman.
Enstrom’s daughter often replicated the photo in water colors but the family eventually sold the copyrights of the photograph to Augsburg Publishers in Minneapolis in 1945. It is now a famously familiar print framed and hung in homes around the world.
As you can see the painting depicts Charles Wilden, with his hands folded and his head bowed, saying grace over a humble meal… a loaf of bread and a bowl of soup. We know the painting as “Daily Bread” but its real name is simply “Grace.” (www.gracebyenstrom.com/news/html)
“Grace” is not without its lighter moments… a little girl had accompanied her mother to an art store where she was shopping for items to decorate her home. The little girl went her own way and for a time was separated from her mother. When her mother found her, she was staring very intently up at the painting of Charles Wilden, hands folded, head bowed, in prayer before the simple meal. She asked, “Honey, what’s wrong?” And the little girl answered, “The poor man, doesn’t have any peanut butter!”
We certainly understand that the little girl was feeling sorry for the shoe scraper salesman because he did not have the stuff to even make a good PBJ Sandwich. Her heart was good… but she does remind us that we can let the images of what we have be overshadowed by images of what we do not have. We can look directly at a loaf of bread and a bowl of soup and see “no peanut butter.”
This morning my message is going to be about perspectives… about how we think about and see things, using Psalm 100 as our eye-opener. I would like for us to begin by giving thought to our perspective of the sanctuary… of going to church.
For the Psalmist going to church, so to speak, was something he looked forward to doing.
1. There was the appeal of the sanctuary.
• “…come before him, singing with joy!” Psalm 100:2
• “Enter his gates with Thanksgiving, go into his courts with praise.” Psalm 100:4
Perhaps you identify with the guy who said, “Well, I can’t go to church now.” My shirt was wrinkled. My car has bird droppings on it. I’m having a bad hair day. I can’t find my Bible. The Broncos are playing today at 2 p.m. and two and a half hours is hardly enough to get home from church. Our pastor is out of town this week. I had to work on Saturday and today is my only day to relax. My shoes are dirty. That party last night went to three in the morning. I did not bring any money for my tithes. That car just cut me off as I was going to church and I cursed him out. My gas tank is almost on empty and I won’t make it in time if I stop for gas. Somebody might be seated in MY seat. My socks are different shades of black. I don’t feel like going to church today. It might rain. The weatherman said there was a two percent change of drizzles this week. I’m too hungry to sit through the service and my stomach will probably growl and embarrass me. I might run into a terrorist who hates Christians. There are too many hypocrites at church. No one will talk to me at church. I probably won’t like the subject that we will be talking about today. The music will be too loud or too soft, and too hard. There will probably be too many hymns or not enough hymns. They will probably do too much repetition. I don’t mind repeating the chorus to six verses of a hymn but repetition in those praise songs drives me nuts. It’s too hot in the sanctuary and I will probably sweat like a banchee. Oh no, that guy that I earlier cursed at in traffic is pulling into the church! Why, I think it’s the guest speaker! Well, I can’t go to church now. That would be silly of me, wouldn’t it? (Adapted from Tracy Young, I Can’t Go to Church Now – It Might Rain, August 7, 2007)
I must confess that I have gone to church a few times in my life… as a child it was compulsary. As an adult and a pastor… it is still compulsary. I still do not always feel like or want to go to church… but I want to want to. I think that is why I like Psalm 100. It gives me a new perspective on church-going.
For the Psalmist and the Israelite people the temple was many things. It was a place for social gathering. It was patriotic in the sense that it was part of their nationalistic life. I was a marked tradition to go to temple. And it was a time and place for religious and spiritual experience.
The Psalmist loved and looked forward to going to the House of Worship. It was a time and place of sacred appeal.
I don’t think the Psalmist was one of those perennially happy people who pass through life seemingly oblivious to how horrible life can be at times. I suspect his life was every bit as common as our lives. It was tedious at times. He did not always feel good. He had to deal with deadlines and critical situations. He did not get enough rest. He sometimes muffed his interpersonal relationships. And perhaps that is why he looked forward to going to temple.
Going to temple, i.e., going to church, was a time and place away from the day-to-day stuff. It was a sacred time and place set aside or apart from the day-to day. He looked forward to the temple as a sanctuary or a place of refuge and protection from the world.
He looked forward to going and he did it with heartfelt gladness… it was not that the real world did not exist because it did. However, the sanctuary was every bit as real as the real world. And it was a place where he could regain his perspective. He could put his life and priorities back in order. He could worship a good God in the community of faith.
Perhaps our first response to Psalm 100 would be a new desire for sacred time and place.
Perspective: I want to think of gathering with my faith community as both sacred time and place… a time and place to worship God with a joyful heart and participate in a faith community of gladness.
The Psalmist also understood going to church as an opportunity for expressing gladness and gratitude for the goodness of God.
2. There was the expression of gladness and gratitude.
• “Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name.” Psalm 100:4
The Psalmist also teaches us that going to church is not so much about going in order to get something, but going so he could give something. Notice what he brings with him to church: Thanksgiving, Praise, and Blessing.
In Psalm 100 there is no hint of a lack of desire to attend or an expressed disappointment that he does not get anything out of it when he does. He brings gladness and gratitude and he shares it with those with whom he has gathered and gives it as gift to God.
The write of the Hebrews said, ”Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is the fruit of our lips, to God…” Hebrews 13:15
One commentator said, “Unless we make our sanctuaries centers of gladness, people will pass by on the other side.” (The Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Psalms and Proverbs, Volume 4, P. 535)
Once again it is about perspective.
A registered nurse marked a specific day when her outlook on life changed. She had a 14 year-old patient who had been in a dirt bike accident. She met the girl in the physical therapy department. She had just read the girl’s chart and noted that her leg had been amputated below the knee.
She was sitting in a whirlpool bath when the nurse approached and asked how she was doing. The nurse was not at all prepared for what happened next. The girl lifted her freshly amputated leg above the bubbling water and said, “Look at how much I have left!”
How much she had left was of more importance to her than what she had lost.
Perhaps a second response to Psalm 100 would be to cultivate a grateful spirit.
Perspective: I want to become a grateful person… and I want to bring that grateful spirit with me when I come to our sacred time and place, so I can join with my faith community in expressing thanks to God.
The Psalmist also saw going to church as an opportunity to affirm his devotion to a good God.
3. There was the recognition of God and God’s goodness.
• “Acknowledge that the Lord is God!” Psalm 100:3
• “For the Lord is good.” Psalm 100:5
Phillip Yancey wrote, “It is a terrible thing to be grateful and have no one to thank, to be awed and have no one to worship.”
It isn’t just the thought that we might be grateful or awed with no one to thank or worship… it is the thought that in light of all the goodness of life, we might not only neglect to express our thanks and worship, we might even misplace it.
Chuck Swindoll told this story about a man who had during an extended stay in a V.A. hospital, made a little wooden truck for his small son. His little boy could not visit him in the ward where he was confined so he asked an orderly to take the little truck down to the little boy who was waiting in front of the hospital with his mother.
The man watched out the window as the orderly handed the little truck to the boy who clutched it to his chest and then reached out and hugged the orderly, thanking him for the truck. All the while the father was frantically gesturing from his hospital room on the fifth floor, trying to tell the little boy that the truck was a gift from him… not the orderly. It was as if he were saying, “Look up here. It’s me. I gave you the truck!”
Finally the orderly and the mother turned his attention to the fifth floor window and the little boy waved the little truck over his head and called out, “Thank you Daddy for my truck.” (Chuck Swindoll, Elijah: A Man of Heroism and Humility, Word, 2000)
This Psalm is about recognizing who gave us the truck. It is God and God is good.
Perhaps a third response to Psalm 100 would be to cultivate an awareness of God and God’s goodness.
Perspective: I want to be motivated to come to this sacred time and place because I must… because God is God and God is a good!
Conclusion
The little girl reminds us that we can let the images of what we have be overshadowed by images of what we do not have. We can look directly at a loaf of bread and a bowl of soup and see “no peanut butter.” Hopefully, we have learned something about seeing what we have. And hopefully we have also learned something from the Psalmist as well:
• We have learned to look forward to coming to a sacred time and place.
• We have learned to bring to our sacred time and place our heartfelt gratitude.
• We have learned to give thanks to God who is a good God.
So in response today, “May we leave His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise… giving thanks to Him and blessing His Name. For the Lord is good. And His unfailing love continues forever, and His faithfulness to each generation.”
