The Great Thanksgiving

"The Great Thanksgiving"

Psalm 100

I once heard a pastor tell the story in a sermon of something that happened when he was visiting his brother in Florida. While there they decided to go deep-sea fishing on his brother’s boat. But after they were several miles out at sea and well out of sight of land, they lost all of their electronics, including GPS and communication. And since it was an overcast day, they couldn't even tell east from west by the sun. They prayed together when they realized their situation, and at first were hopeful that they'd see another vessel. But as the day wore on without any signs of rescue, they realized they weren't near a shipping lane. Suddenly it became clear that they were in serious danger of drifting farther out to sea, possibly for days, without food or water or shelter from the elements--and they knew nightfall was coming. So, they prayed once again, this time with an even greater urgency.

Not long after that, they saw and felt a strange roiling of the water all around them, and there appeared nearby the huge conning tower of a surfacing submarine. The captain soon emerged and called over to them, "You guys are lost, aren't you?" They explained their predicament, and he said, "Don't worry; we'll notify the Coast Guard and we'll stay with you until they arrive."

I love that story, but I realize that whenever I tell it there are two possible ways of hearing it: either as a miraculous answer to prayer, or maybe as just a very fortunate coincidence.

Albert Einstein, for all his brilliance as a physicist, was also capable of surprising spiritual wisdom at times, and he once famously said, "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." What I hear in that statement is that the very existence of reality and the amazing gift of life itself are reason enough to keep an open heart and an open mind to the realm of the miraculous--what the Apostle John called "signs and wonders."

How often have we heard accounts of someone who's been given a terminal diagnosis that prompts them to see and appreciate the precious gift of life for what it truly is: an experience infused with the miraculous. And if we aren't careful to see and appreciate the familiar blessings of life, even daily life--what theologians call honoring "the sacrament of the ordinary," we miss a lot of its luminosity, its spiritual shine.

Children have a keen sense of awe at the world around them and its many wonders. But as we age, we adults become desensitized to life's abundant goodness, and we develop the spiritual equivalent of cataracts that dim our appreciation of it all.

Do you know those puzzles that ask the question, "What's wrong with this picture?” (Someone might be missing an eyebrow, or wearing their shoes on the wrong feet.) That challenge fits many of us very well, with our strong critical nature, and what psychologists call a "negativity bias," in which our perception of the bad outweighs the good by a factor of 3:1. (How many times have you commented on a beautiful day and had someone answer, "Yeah, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow"?)

In fact, research shows that most people complain about once a minute in the course of an average conversation(!). And since we're social creatures, it's infectious, because we tend to empathize and join in. But the Bible has a lot to say about complaining and grumbling, and none of it's good. It's a serious sin, and was even a fatal one for Israel in the desert, where many of them were punished for it by a plague of poisonous snakes. And it's still a kind of spiritual poison for us today.

But the season of Thanksgiving is a good time for us to flip the script and focus on "what's right with this picture." You might have come across the saying, "There are so many beautiful reasons to be happy"--which we could easily change to "There are so many beautiful reasons to be thankful."

Psalm 100 is just one of countless examples in the Bible calling us to gratitude and praise:

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations.

"Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth! Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with singing." That's a vital part of our corporate worship: singing of the hymns and the Doxology. After Covid--when we couldn't sing at all for months, and then later only with masks—I’ve developed a whole new appreciation for the joy of singing again, only now even more wholeheartedly. Maybe you can relate.