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Sometimes we're not as thankful as we might be.

God's Second Home - Jeremiah 23: 5-8; Luke 23: 32-43 - November 21, 2010 - Cicero United
Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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            Sometimes we're not as thankful as we might be. I heard about a man who walked to work every day, and each day he walked by a frail-looking woman who sold pencils for a quarter. He was moved by what looked like the hardship of her life, so he began to give her a quarter every day. Each day he put 25 cent in her box; and each time she held out a pencil to him; and each day he said, "I don't need it. But you keep the quarter." And he smiled at her and walked on. This went on for months, and in all that time she never said a word to him in response, until one day she finally spoke. As usual, he approached her station, dropped a quarter in her box; but this time, instead of holding up a pencil, she said, "Hey, Mister." And he was so happy to finally have some communication that he stopped and walked back to her table, smiling
expectantly. Then she said, "They're thirty-five cents now."

            I wonder if God doesn't look at us and see that ungrateful woman sometimes. We have so
many things that come to us as gifts - beginning with the gift of life itself. None of us earned
the right to be born in this world - that was pretty much pure gift. And amazingly, our attitude
can almost move in the direction that if it was God's idea to create us, then it's God's obligation
to take care of us, provide for us, protect us, and make us happy. Anything less than that is not
fair; God's not doing His job. I remember taking that approach with my parents a few times,
when I didn't think they were standing up to their end of the bargain. "You're the ones who
decided to have me!" Strangely enough, that never worked well. I seem to recall their
responses along the line that there must be some way to send me back.

            But start with the gift of life. And add to that the beauty of the world, and the joy of families and friends and freedoms and faith, and the gift of human love. There is so much to be grateful for, that to demand more is somewhat like saying, "You owe me 35 cents now."

            I once heard someone say that God has two homes. The first one is described in the Lord's Prayer - "Our Father, who art in heaven ... " God's first home is in heaven. But where is God's second home? We could say a lot of things in response to that. But what this person claimed is that God's second home is in a thankful heart. When we cultivate a thankful attitude, we are preparing a place where God can take residence. When we are unappreciative and bitter, God can only stand longingly on the outside. Life is a gift. No wonder the Bible says in a hundred different ways - be grateful, no matter what is taking place.

            What tends to trip us up is the tough times. We may read a teaching from the Bible like, "In everything give thanks," and have a pretty good shot at it when everything is going fine -
'Thank you, God, for my many blessings." But we can downright forget thanksgiving when
things are awful. When sickness or disappointment strike, when we run into economic trials or
relationship problems, or when our world gets rocked by natural disasters or unexpected
tragedies - how do you give thanks during those times? What our faith teaches us is that it is
especially during the rough times that we need to give thanks, and our yearly national holiday
of Thanksgiving is an ideal reminder of this.

            When we think of the first Thanksgiving, the legend has to do with Pilgrims and Native-
Americans happily gathered around a table covered with cooked game and abundant fruits and
vegetables. We all know that the story of the relationship between Europeans and Native
Americans was darker than that; it unfolded in tragic fashion, filled with conflict, and especially
devastating for the Indians. So it may be a good thing to recall and solemnly appreciate this
brief moment when there was peace around the table, and perhaps the hope that things could
have gone in a better direction that they did, and that we can aspire to regain that peace.
Anyway, Thanksgiving is a hopeful holiday, and a celebration of blessings in life.

            But in truth, the national holiday of Thanksgiving was not established until almost 250 years later, and not during happy times. In fact, it may have been the darkest time in American
history. It was 1863, and the United States was torn apart by civil war. And in the midst of that
darkness, our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, had the profound realization that in the
darkest of times it was crucial to do something totally counterintuitive - it was crucial to give
thanks. I wonder if people thought he was insane. The nation was crumbling; brothers in the
North were killing brothers in the South, and vice versa; all life was disrupted. And the
president was declaring a day of thanksgiving!

            Perhaps President Lincoln was influenced by an image from one of the great preachers of his day, someone Lincoln had met - Henry Ward Beecher. Beecher said once that without thankful hearts, we are like a person trying to separate iron filings from sand with our fingers - we know there is treasure in the sand, but we can't sort it out. All we can see and feel are the hopelessly mixed-in particles. But a thankful heart is like a magnet. When it passes over the sand, the treasures leap out and cling to it, and we have this beautiful accumulation of good things. A thankful heart draws out the beautiful things in life - separates them from the complicated mix of daily business, and holds them together so that we can count our blessings, and appreciate that we are truly gifted by God's grace. President Lincoln knew that his struggling nation needed a powerful magnet to pull together hopeful things. That magnet was thanksgiving. We need that magnet too.

            Behind this commandment to give thanks is the assurance of faith. Faith tells us that no
matter what is happening in our lives, including the hard times, God is faithful. God will not let
us down. We always have God's grace to be grateful for. Certainly this was the heart of the
scriptures, including today's lessons. Both of them were written during dark times - and both
of them hold up the sprit of thanksgiving and hope - because both are born out of absolute
faith in the power and grace of God.

            Few people lived through darker times than the prophet Jeremiah. The worst of it was the
destruction and exile of his beloved nation. In the beginning of Jeremiah 23, we see how the
Hebrew people have been crushed and scattered in every direction. It is a hopeless situation -
or should have been. Yet in the midst of it, Jeremiah bids his people to hold on to hope, and
count their blessings: God was going to raise up a king, and do a beautiful new thing. "Behold,
the days are coming," says the Lord, "when I will raise up ... a righteous Branch." That righteous Branch would reign as king and bring salvation and hope. It is faith in promises like that that allow God's people to keep thankful hearts even during seemingly hopeless times.

            We believe that king, of course, was Jesus, and our New Testament lesson describes his
darkest hour - or what should have been. Luke 23 describes those terrible moments on the
cross, when Jesus is not only in the agony of dying, but is mocked by the crowd, represented by
the scolding by one of the thieves who was dying beside him. "Are you not the Messiah? Then
save yourself, and us with you." Yet even here there are blessings to count, as Jesus assures
the second thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." And that is the ultimate hope - what
we see and struggle through here on this earth is not the last word. In the goodness of God's
plan, even the end of apparent earthly blessing is not cause far despair. God's plan extends
beyond the earthly, into a paradise beyond this life. There is still so much to give thanks far.

            I believe that God would like to enter his second home. I believe God is searching far
thankful hearts. It seems to me that we as a society have been doing a lot of grumbling lately.
The economy has gone sour: the government is messed up; life is not fair; the world is getting
smaller; there is so little peace - all of that is true. Life is hard - unbelievably hard far same
people. But it is still a gift; and there are many blessings to count: and God is faithful; and God
has promised a Righteous Branch that will bring justice and hope; and Jesus has promised
Paradise. And we need a magnet to pass aver and lift up all those beautiful things that make
life worthwhile - humility, hope, generosity, love, grace, peace. That magnet is thanksgiving,
and thanksgiving is an invitation far God to come and dwell in us.

            And when that happens a beautiful circle takes place. When God dwells in our thankful
hearts, we can't help but long to share the blessings of life; and so we respond to this inner joy
by sharing our blessings - our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, our witness - the
things lifted up in our stewardship teaching at church. And then when we share those things,
not only does the world around us improve, but those blessings come back to us over and over
again, and we have all the more to be thankful for - and the cycle starts all over again.

            Someone passed along to me a statement written home from a soldier that moved me
deeply. It said, "When I do get home, I hope that when we have finished dinner at night and
we're there at the table, we will just stay there and look at one another and realize for just a
little while nothing else but the fact that we are there together. That's all I want." For that
soldier, serving there in a place of darkness, the treasure has been lifted out of the sand; he or
she sees clearly what is important, and is thankful. God finds a home in a heart like that. May
Gad dwell with you today and each day. Count your blessings; see what God has done.