Eternal God, pour out your Spirit upon us that we might be sensitive to your presence in our midst, that we might be attentive to your Word, and that we might be faithful always to your way, through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.

Thanksgiving is a sentimental time, full of feelings. I don't know about you, but many of my feelings at this time of year center around food. I don't think you can celebrate Thanksgiving in this country and not have at least some of your focus on food. Because it is a national holiday and it is also a holiday which we celebrate through the church, our concerns for food aren't always just for ourselves, but extend to others as well.

There was a young girl who went with her mother to an art store, as the mother was looking for new decorations for the house. The little girl did her own exploring. She came to that famous painting called "Our Daily Bread." It shows an older gentleman seated at a very small table. His hands are folded in prayer, his head is bowed, and on the table before him is a single, small loaf of bread. The little girl looked at it intently, and looked at it some more, and finally her mother came over and said, "Honey, what's wrong?" The little girl responded, "The poor man, he doesn't have any peanut butter!" So often our concern for others is flavored, or colored, by our own values and our own wishes.

In this sentimental season, as we feast we think about others and their need for food. We think of family and family gatherings, of those times when we can be together. But what we tend to remember, rather than everyone who was there and all that took place, are very specific little glimpses of that time.

Jane Kaumeyer, a resident of Carrollton, Texas, remembers a particular Thanksgiving. Her extended family had come together. During the months before that, she had tried to help her nuclear family learn to eat in healthy ways. They had begun to eat turkey hot dogs and turkey hamburgers, turkey ham and turkey bacon. When it came time for Thanksgiving they had a wonderful traditional meal with all the trimmings. All the family had gathered, the prayer had been offered, and as Jane's husband stood and began to carve the bird, her ten-year-old daughter leaned forward and in a stage whisper heard by all, she said, "Mom, is this a real turkey or is this turkey turkey?" You probably can tell some similar stories out of your family gatherings. (Maybe much more colorful ones, as well!)

There was another family with a little first-grader named Robbie. Robbie found great joy in the time of prayer at family dinner. Most of us like to kind of race through that, because we know "better" things are coming. But Robbie enjoyed the prayer, and he asked his dad several days before Thanksgiving if he could say the prayer. The father said yes. He began to coach his son, but Robbie protested, "Dad, I know how to do it. I've listened to you. I know how to do this." So the family gathered, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, a great extended family, they were all there. It came time, they sat at the table. "Robbie, it's your turn." Robbie said, "Now everyone, fold your hands, bow your head, close your eyes, and pray with me." He had heard his dad say it so many times, he knew exactly what to do. "God is great, God is good, and we thank him for this food." There was a slight hesitation, but then he continued on, "And we thank him for the hands that have repaired it." Now there is a slight difference between repairing a meal and preparing a meal. But that was lost on Robbie at that moment. It is not lost on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is often a time for repairing-repairing family relations as we come together. There's something about the sentiment of the gathering that enables us to reach out across the divides and bring repair to the family. It's a time of great sentiment and great value for us.

Paul was well aware of the sentiment that was a part of his life. That sentiment reached out to people in many different places, in the congregations that he had founded. He writes a letter to the congregation in Thessalonica which we heard a passage from earlier. It's a letter to express his love and his concern, his sentiment for those people. He writes to them with a great purpose in mind. They were a people who, like many first-century Christians, were suffering. They suffered because they were trying to live a Kingdom-of-God lifestyle in an anti-Kingdom-of-God world. They were trying to be distinctive and different from the world around them, to be holy people. It was very difficult. They suffered persecution, torture and hostility on a continual basis. If that weren't enough, like most other first-century Christians, they had expected the imminent return of Christ. When that was delayed, the resultant uncertainty intensified their anxiety. So there was all the hostility they dealt with, and also doubts within their own faith. They also began to experience some of their members dying. Questions began to arise: What happens to them? Where do they go? What is the nature of their soul, what is the fate of their soul? What will happen to me when I die, if Christ hasn't come back? The anxiety and the intensity of their frustration and their concern just seemed to increase.

Paul writes to these people-he writes to try to console them, to help them, to guide them. But he does not pamper them. He does not coddle them. He does not say everything is going to be okay. Rather he calls them to be more ardent in their faithfulness, in holy living. Paul loves these people. He wants them to survive, he wants them to be faithful, and he knows no other way than to say, "Live as Jesus showed you how to live." In fact, he says to them in so many words, "Be Christ to each other within the life of the church, especially to the idlers in your midst, to those who fall, those who backslide, those who torment you and those who have special needs-help them out; be Christ to everyone in the church."

But Paul is ever a mission-minded pastor, and so he doesn't concern himself with just those in the church. He calls these people under persecution to reach out beyond the church, and to be Christ to them, as well-even to their persecutors. It's a tough message. I'm sure when the Thessalonians opened it up, they said, "Oh, a letter from Paul!" As they began to read it, they went, "Ouch, this is a hard word." It's a hard word for you and me-but it's an essential word for us, as well.

Then Paul comes to that wonderful line, the line we want to pull out of the whole letter and hold up, unique from everything else. He says, "Rejoice always. Pray constantly, and in all circumstances give thanks, for that is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." Some scholars have said that those are three separate commands; while other scholars have said no, that's just three ways of saying the same thing. Paul was probably emphasizing this one thought: have a grateful lifestyle. But what's also important to look at in that statement, is that Paul does not say be thankful for all the circumstances of life-but be thankful in all the circumstances of life.

Paul was very much aware of what the people who received his letter were experiencing. He was very much aware of their persecution, of their theological questions. Paul himself had had a very rugged life. It was not a bed of roses, it was a life of thorns. He talked about having a "thorn in the flesh." He was constantly under persecution himself, in jail as much as out, hungry as much as well-fed, alone as much as with people. And so out of the pain and anguish and struggle of his own life, to the pain, anguish and struggle of others' lives, he says this word: "Be thankful in all circumstances."

What in the world can he mean by that? What Paul means is what he experienced from his own life: If you center yourself in the feeling of the moment, you will be up and down, and up and down, throughout your life. But center yourself in the knowledge that God is with you in all the moments of your life, and there will be a foundation on which you can stand secure. Let your thanksgivings rise, not because of the circumstances of your life, be they good or bad, but let your thanksgivings rise because of who God is, because of the character of God, the nature of God-which is everlasting love.

That's the way we can give thanks in all circumstances. It's what the psalmist says in Psalm 100: "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Sing with exuberant praise!" Or if you read the original Hebrew, literally it says, "Make a racket!" (The psalmist must have heard me sing on some occasion.) Make a racket with whatever instrument you have, lift your voice in praise to God... not because of the situation of your life, but because of the character of God.

Karl Rahner, the Roman Catholic theologian, says, "Our life is our prayer response to God." The way we live is our prayer response to God. It's not what we say when we fold our hands and close our eyes and bow our head at a table; that's not our response to God. It's the way we live our lives. And if we can live our lives grounded in the nature of God, then our lives will be gratefully lived, in response to the grace of God. There will be a constancy about who we are. It doesn't mean you won't have a bad day. But it means you'll be able, even in the midst of a bad day, to see beyond that, and see that which is good, and hold on, and live.

There's something else that a pervasive sense of gratitude for the very character of God provides for us. It provides a kind of reframing of all of life, a re-understanding of what life is like. It's what we see in the life of Paul, because once he became a Christian his life went down the tubes! His conditions became much worse. Paul had been the great persecutor. He was the one in charge, he was the one telling others what to do, and then all of a sudden he was the one receiving the persecution, because he had become a Christian. Yet the joy of his life increased dramatically once he had made that change. Sometimes we look at his life and we think, what's going on here? What was going on was that he had a new source of power. It wasn't in the events of the day, it was in the very character of God. The power of gratitude enabled him to tap into the everlasting grace of God. It energized him. It enabled him to see life in the face of death, to see faith in the face of doubt, to see hope in the face of despair. It enabled him to envision the Kingdom of God here and now, and to choose to be a part of that kingdom and live an alternative lifestyle. It enabled him to draw the power of the kingdom into his own being and feed it out to other people. It enabled him to spread the kingdom as no other single individual was able to do in his day. And all of that is available to you and me-when we are grateful, when we are thankful.

In 1621 the Plymouth pilgrims gathered. They gathered to give thanks because they had been able to construct some lean-tos that protected them somewhat from the weather. They gathered to give thanks because they had found kindness in their native neighbors. They gathered to give thanks because they had received an adequate harvest from the land-barely adequate. They gathered to give thanks for those things, but they looked beyond those things and they gave thanks to the God who stood behind those things. If it hadn't been for the lean-tos and for the few friendly folk, and for the little bit of corn and grain they were able to raise, they could not have survived. But they survived and were thankful because they knew something behind those things existed, that was foundational in their lives and could keep them going: the everlasting love of God.

In 1863 Abraham Lincoln made a national proclamation, setting aside a day for Thanksgiving. It was the midst of the Civil War. No one in their right mind would thank God for the Civil War; but in the midst of the war, Lincoln knew that the nation would only survive if it looked beyond the immediate situation, and found its strength in God. So he called for a nation divided to be at one in prayer.

You and I have that kind of strength and power available for our lives, because it becomes a part of who we are when we give thanks in all circumstances. I invite you this Thanksgiving, whether you feast alone or with family or friends, to enjoy all that time. Enjoy the turkey, enjoy the stuffing, enjoy the pumpkin pie, or whatever else you consume. But don't let those things anesthetize you to the greater joy of knowing the everlasting love of God-because it's a power beyond everything else that is ours, when we open ourselves in gratitude to that power.

Pastor Bill Simpson tells of Thanksgiving eve at his church. They had worked with a community agency to receive the names of ten different families which they could care for at Thanksgiving. The congregation gathered on Thanksgiving eve, and set out ten boxes on tables in their fellowship hall. They invited the ten families to come, and as the congregation put food into each box-turkey and ham, vegetables and pies and bread-everyone was filled with joy, those who could give and those who would receive. Then the unthinkable happened. An eleventh family came in the door, somebody in need. They piled out of an old dilapidated pickup truck, a father, a mother and three children. They had heard there was food being distributed by the church. The pastor had to explain that they didn't have enough for an extra family, but he would do what he could. Then an amazing thing happened. Without any prompting, one of the women who was receiving the food, and already had her box in her arms, went back to the table, and sat her box down. She pulled an empty box from under the table, set it beside hers, and began to take food out of her box and put it in the eleventh box. Then the others who were to receive boxes went to theirs, and took food out of each of their boxes to share, until soon the eleventh box had the most in it. And then they turned and gave it to the new family.

What enables us to do those kind of things in those situations? It's not what's in the box. It's what's in the heart-the everlasting love of God enables us to give thanks in all circumstances.

Thanks be to God. Amen.