I am often astounded by the profundity of prayers that emanate from truly grateful people. One Tuesday at the urban ministry center, my service team had just completed the usual task of providing lunches for several hundred clients who had come from the central city for a warm meal. I was eager to attend the after-lunch worship service in the center's chapel, led by my colleague the chaplain. The pattern for worship was always similar: we sang familiar hymns, read a lectionary passage, received a challenging homily, and circled the room in closing moments of prayer. Occasionally a resident at the shelter offered a solo. More than once our worship was interrupted by shouts of ecstasy or confusion coming from a drug addict. One day the closing circle included a young woman with her two pre-school children. They were guests in the shelter. This teen-age mother, without a dollar in her pickets and little promise for her future, began praying spontaneously: 'O Lord, you are always more generous than I deserve. Today I am off crack. Praise your name! My children are finally well. You have called forth these kind people to provide me with a place of shelter. Last night we slept in a dry and comfortable bed. We were safe from harm. I do not deserve your goodness; but you sent Jesus to save me. I am grateful that I awakened this morning to the sunlight of your day -- a day of new beginnings.'

Her eloquence was born of sincerity. These words came from the depths of a grateful heart. Indeed, the spirit of this young mother's petition was replicated in the lives of countless people whom I met through my years as a volunteer at the urban ministry center. My moments of worship with the least of these opened within me a renewed sense of gratitude, teaching me that all expressions of authentic prayer are rooted in praise.

The prayer book of the Church through the centuries, as with the heritage of Israel, is the Psalter. We do not have accurate biographical information concerning the context of the composition of these Psalms. Each poem is attributed to King David -- Israel's second and most memorable monarch. His reputation was that of a poet, musician, and warrior. Clearly David did not write a vast portion of these psalms, for the poetry describes historical settings well into the post-monarchical era. The psalms are indeed a collation of Israel's most revered prayers over centuries of experience. The Psalter contains the prayerful reflections of every possible human emotion: lament, penitence, thanksgiving, and ecstatic praise. The prayer book of the church contains liturgies of covenant renewal or royal coronation, psalms of trust, doxologies, poetry of wisdom, and affirmations of Torah.

A redactor attributed Psalm 34 to David during a unique and frightful moment in his life. This young son of Jesse from the tiny village of Bethlehem was fleeing the wrath of King Saul. David had been an obscure shepherd, a member of the insignificant tribe of Benjamin, when he suddenly catapulted into national prominence. With a sling-shot and smooth stone, he flung himself into legendary prominence. After slaying Goliath and successfully leading a portion of the royal army, David became the object of the king's jealousy. He sought refuge in the court of King Achish of Gath in the desert region of the Negeb. King Achish recognized David to be a potential threat to the monarchy of Israel, and thus, a challenge to the stability of his own limited domain. When young David realized that Achish viewed him to be a dangerous rebel, he pretended to be mad. Apparently he rendered an academy award winning performance. He began sinking his fingernails into the wooden surface of the royal door like a deranged animal. He drooled like a lunatic. Achish ordered him from his court. Thus, David escaped to a cave in the wilderness and survived an imminent execution.

Hebrew legend suggests that in this cave David composed an immortal hymn of praise, beginning with the words: 'I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.'

Gratitude is not always the attitude of those who have been materially blessed. Likewise, those who have become victims of life's harshest horrors and those who have been deprived of ample financial security are not necessarily devoid of gratitude. There are some among us in this room of worship today who have recently been threatened by a potentially fatal disease. These are truly the most grateful in our midst. Some among us have experienced unemployment due to their company's down-sizing. These are persons who are most grateful for every day of work. They extol the blessing of labor and are least likely to complain about the rigors of strenuous toil. The level of gratitude within one?s heart is contingent not upon what life does to us, but upon what life finds within us.

A disciplined life of faith prepares us for an attitude of gratitude in all circumstances. This was the advice that the apostle Paul gave to the faith community in Philippi: 'Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.'

Richard Foster, in his classic work on prayer, commends a form of prayer that moves upward seeking intimacy with God. These are prayers of adoration. We adore God in response to God's outpouring and incessant love for us. Adoration becomes the air in which all other forms of prayer breathe. Foster observes that there are two balanced sides of adoration in the life of a mature believer: thanksgiving and praise. 'In thanksgiving,' he writes, 'we give glory to God for what he has done for us; in praise we give glory to God for who he is in himself.'

The Hebrew poet rendered praise. He articulated the faith of one who might be in the midst of a major spiritual crisis, trapped in the dark cave of a foreboding dilemma, but who still renders praise and shouts, 'Hallelujah anyhow!' Thus, the Hebrew poet bursts into this powerful affirmation: 'My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.'

It is difficult, if not impossible, to magnify the Lord if one is self-centered. It is difficult to praise the name of our Creator if we are obsessed with attaining the praise of others. Authentic praise is not contingent upon the Lord shelling out material blessings to me, mine, and my kind. Such petitions do not reach the depths of gratitude. Such prayers are oblivious to the fact of our finitude.

The author of Psalm 34 was merely grateful for his survival. He was perhaps autobiographical when he penned this line: 'This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble . . . . Happy are those who take refuge in him.'

We all seek happiness. It is our constitutional right to pursue happiness. The dynamics of the American culture in the second half of the Twentieth Century is the story of that incessant pursuit. Few writers have dramatized the search for happiness in our era better than that flamboyant writer in a white suit, Tom Wolfe. His latest caricature centers upon a certain Charlie Croker of Atlanta whose life was defined by a couplet written in celebration of the life of another man with the same name. 'Charlie Croker was a man in full, He had a back like a Jersey Bull.' Tom Wolfe's protagonists are nearly always men who attempt to define their own destiny through financial and sexual triumphs. It has been twelve years since Wolfe described that pitiful Wall Street executive Sherman McCoy who made it to the top of the economic pyramid in order to declare himself to be 'Master of the Universe.' Yet this master could not manage his own affairs (or affair). He lost his marriage, his mistress, and his lucrative position due to greed and arrogance. His domain became a single cell in a federal prison. Sherman never came to the realization that we are all owers and not owners. We are servants of the Most High, not masters of God's universe.

Thanksgiving is like a Copernican revolution. Suddenly we discover that the stars do not rotate around us. We are not the center of our universe; yet we are loved by the omnipotent Lord of the universe. Thus, the Psalmist does not praise God because he or she has been spared suffering or pathos. To the contrary, he writes in autobiographical reflection: 'Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord rescues them from them all.'

One of the vital ministries within a previous congregation I served was the sponsorship of refugee families. A significant number of Southeast Asians, therefore, attended worship among the people who were their sponsors. Each November I was always amazed at the generosity of these people as they brought to the altar their financial pledges.

At the time of the pastoral prayers one family in particular knelt at the altar near me each week. Ba is a seamstress who works diligently at a sewing machine. Tu is her teenage grand-daughter. She has little, if any, memory of her life in a Thailand refugee camp awaiting sponsorship. When she was a baby, her family risked escape from the Viet Cong by putting themselves and all their belongings on a tiny boat. In the turbulence of the sea, Tu and her mother were thrown overboard. The baby was rescued from the waters; her mother died in the sea. This loving grandmother took responsibility for Tu. Our church's sponsorship brought these survivors to North Carolina. They rarely, if ever, missed Sunday worship and the opportunity to give of their meager resources to the ministry of Christ their savior.

Giving money to the church budget is really a matter of gratitude. Ingratitude is the result of not knowing who we really are. God is owner. We are owers. The self-made person is a myth. We are who we are because God has made us and called us to become stewards of his possessions. Giving is the most noble and natural expression of our humanity. In fact, worship itself is the highest expression of giving. Worship is a word from the Old English, weorthscipe or worth ship. Only God is worthy of the royal title of ultimate worth.

In a few moments we shall be invited to participate in a life-transforming exercise. We shall be given the privilege of registering our gratitude to God by offering a pledge of our prayers, our attendance at worship, a portion of our wages or monetary assets, and our gifts of sacrificial service. The full scope of who we are shall be offered as a gift to God!

This year all who pledge will receive a thank you note from a child who attends one of the Sunday school classes. A certain third grader drew a representation of the church in crayon last week and wrote this message, a copy of which some of you will receive: 'We thank you for all the things we have at Providence that help us learn about Jesus, especially our third grade Bibles.' In that Bible this child is discovering the story of the One who gave thanks by giving his life. Because of God's gift, we shall each receive eternal life. This child is now learning about Jesus who gave the gift that keeps on giving. Forever.

1. You may read this story in I Samuel 21-22.

2. Psalm 34:1 NRSV

3. Philippians 4:4-6 NRSV

4. Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), p. 83.

5. Psalm 34: 2-3 NRSV

6. Psalm 34:6, 8b NRSV

7. Psalm 34:7 NRSV

8. Psalm 34:22 b

9. Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary , The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962), p. 299.