songs of the heart: prayer of thanksgiving

from my message on 3/18/12 from Psalm 107

Four...show me 4 fingers. Four will be a memory device for this sermon. This is the 4th Sunday in Lent. The 4th sermon in a series on songs of the heart, praying with the psalms. Today, a prayer of thanksgiving, taken directly from the first verse, O give thanks to the Lord, 4 he is good, 4 his steadfast love endures 4-ever. Then the Psalm says that it is God's intent to gather the redeemed from the 4 points of the compass, from the east, the west, the north, and the south. Thank God, God doesn't want to leave out anyone.

Then, as I lived with the Psalm, I found that thanksgiving comes best out of stress and distress. If you read the whole psalm, you will find 4 situations of distress: hunger and thirst, in prison, sick (really the Hebrew word means foolish), and on the stormy sea. How can I get you to remember to give thanks in these 4 stressful situations? By taking you to San Saba, Texas, where I served as pastor for 5 years. The church was literally across a narrow street from the football stadium, Rogan Field. I could have sat in the upper Sunday School classrooms and had my own sky box looking down from the end zone. The mascot for the San Saba sports teams was the armadillo. Little known fact, the armadillo has on each of its feet 4 fingers. Now, at a football game at Rogan Field, the purple and gold armadillo team would be losing, down, bruised, hopeless, but when the 4th quarter would come, they would lift their hands in a 4 finger salute. They would say, No matter how bad it is right now, this 4th quarter is ours.

Thanksgiving comes best out of acknowledging that we need help, that we are in distress. After each stressful situation in the psalm is named, there is a refrain, yes 4 times, that goes, Then they cried to the LORD, and He delivered them. Let them thank to LORD 4 his steadfast love, 4 his wonderful works to humankind.

If you don't acknowledge your distress, your need for help, it may be really hard to be truly thankful. As a child, I saw a movie about the Civil War, called Shenandoah. Jimmie Stewart played the father of this struggling family. One scene in the movie is a classic statement of not wanting help and missing thanksgiving. The father is giving the grace over the meal with all of the family gathered, Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvest it. We cook the harvest. It wouldn't be here & we wouldn't be eating it if we hadn't done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb & morsel, but we thank you Lord just the same for the food we are about to eat. Amen.

This may not be you today. I went thru my emails on Saturday to get ready for this Sunday. As I read the 100 or so, I was struck again by how vulnerable we all are. I realized again that many of you, if not all of you, come to worship each week, acknowledging your stress and distress. In fact many people return to worship because something traumatic has happened in their lives. You may not be literally hungry and thirsty, but you may be hungering and thirsting for meaning in your lives. You may not literally be in prison, although in my former congregation about this size, I had 2 who were in prison when I left. You may be bound up in others' expectations, in a role assigned by your family system, or caught up in addiction. You may not be literally sick or foolish. You may be sin sick, as the song goes, There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul. You may want more than what the culture strives for --more, better, faster, the hamster wheel of success. You may not be literally on stormy seas, but you may be tossed by job loss, death, or problem pregnancy.

Thank God, when you cry to God, God hears and answers. From our Hebrew scriptures, we find examples of this, as God takes care of his people in the wilderness by providing manna and quails and water from the rock. He sets them free from bondage in Egypt and again when they were in captivity in Babylon. When they were sin sick, God sent them prophets to show the people the way to life. God saved his people by leading them through the stormy sea, the Red Sea, and later Jonah by having a big fish swallow him.

Then Jesus comes along, and what does he do? The same saving acts. He fed the crowds with a few loaves and fishes and fed their souls with the good news of salvation. He released people from the prison of their past, as he welcomed outcasts. He healed the sin sick by offering forgiveness. He calmed the stormy sea. Remember how he walked on water, saying, Fear not, it is I. If you go to Corpus Christi, go along Ocean Dr. and see the sculpture at First UMC. It looks like a surfing Jesus, but it really Jesus standing in the front of a boat, saying Fear Not, It is I.

Still today, Jesus saves us out of our distress. Thank God. Just before spring break, I went to visit at the Summit. I tried to see Harold. I couldn't find him. He and his wife joined when I first came to be pastor here 5 yrs ago. Very shortly thereafter, she was diagnosed with cancer. She went into hospice care and died. Harold stopped coming to worship. I have had a hard visiting with him since. So as I left the Summit that day, right at the exit, I was delighted to find Harold there. Most of what I have to tell you about Harold is in the public domain, and he has given me permission to tell his story. I told him how happy I was to visit him. He took me to a little gathering room, and said he had a funny story to tell me. He said that he had been attending worship services there at the Summit. There were 4 preachers who covered the 4 Sundays a month (see how the 4 keeps showing up?). Except this one Sunday the preacher didn't show up. What to do? The congregation said to Harold, You preach! So he did! He talked about the difference between faith and trust. A tight rope walker was going to cross Niagara Falls on a cable pushing a wheel barrow. He asked a man there if he knew the difference between faith and trust. No, the man replied. The tight rope walker asked if he believed he could walk across Niagara Falls pushing the wheelbarrow. Yes, the man replied. This is faith, said the tight rope walker. Now, will you get into the wheelbarrow as a I walk across? That is trust, said the tight rope artist.

So, I asked Harold how it had been going preaching. He said, I don't really preach, I just lead a discussion. Well, what have you been working on? My next discussion is on Is It Fair or Is It Right? I asked him how hard it was to preach. He said that he had never worked harder in his life on anything. He was going to his Bible, looking up stuff on line, rewriting drafts. I told him, that what made it the hardest for me was that we were always preaching first to ourselves. Harold, you are still dealing with your wife's death....Faith or Trust, Is it Fair. Thank God, he was turning to God in his grief, still working on what he believed, still connected to community. Thank God the steadfast love of the LORD endures 4-ever.

Pastor Jim recently preached here about the power of thanksgiving, about how it changes one attitudes, empowers one. He asked you to go to bed each night, reviewing the day, and thanking God for 5 things that day. I would be happy if you just came up with 4.

Know this: God is 4 us, 4 you. The steadfast love of God endures 4-ever. That is the good news I have to share with you today.