BY JASON SCHIFO
Thanksgiving Sunday has just past, and as a pastor, I joined scores of other pastors across the country in challenging people to be thankful. I pleaded with them to rise above the rivalry, division, animosity, and antagonism by becoming a people best known for our thankfulness. I also made an impassioned plea to resist the temptation of being self-focused and self-indulgent during this season.
Even as I type this I am bothered, but why?
As I reflect on my Thanksgiving message, taking an honest inventory of my own heart, I begin to see that I myself have missed a critical element of being thankful. I am not saying I am not thankful, but often my thankfulness is mostly centered around being thankful for things in my life. For instance my house, my finances, the fact that my car runs, that my kids are healthy and that I have things I desire.
And while there’s nothing at all wrong with being thankful for these things, I thought more about it. I began to see how that kind of thankfulness made me the focus of my thankfulness, and totally missed one of the greatest things we all can be thankful for; the people around us. I guess the impassioned plea to resist the temptation of self-focus and self-indulgence fell on deaf ears, mine.
As I thought about this more and more I began to see that yes, we can thank God for the things in our lives, but we should remember to be infinitely more thankful for the people God has placed in our lives.
Now when I say that, I don’t just mean the people you like being around, you know, ones who are easy to be thankful for. I also mean the people who aren’t always easy to be around, and yet God placed them in our lives. I wonder if that is why we tend to make thankfulness more about us rather than others. It is us trying to control the mess. And yet, while sharing life with others can be quite messy, just think about how empty, meaningless, and frankly boring our lives would be without them.
In Old Testament Scripture the word for giving thanks is tied to, “acknowledging what is right about God, and what He has provided.” In the New Testament, the word is connected to “giving praise as a response to God’s grace, His unmerited favor.” Like the Old Testament, the New Testament acknowledges God’s provision, but it goes much deeper because of God’s grace, His provision of Jesus Christ, went right to the heart of the matter.
In the New Testament we are not just those who are called to respond to God’s grace by giving thanks to Him, but also to respond by living out that grace and offering it to others; by thanks giving.
Peter wrote these very things in his second letter to the church in Rome, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18) Notice that it does not say we are to grow from grace or to grow beyond grace. We’re told to grow in grace, and as we grow in it we extend it out more and more.
So often we think the grace of God is about us, but the grace of God goes far beyond that. If we limit what grace is all about to us, we have a terribly sad misunderstanding of the grace of God.
Grace is about bearing fruit.
Grace is about abounding in good works.
Grace is about acknowledging and extending your thankfulness
Interestingly, my more liturgical friends will recognize the connection of the word “thanks” and the Latin word “Eucharist,” which is one name for the practice of Communion. Communion is the practice of acknowledging God’s grace, which was instituted in the upper room at the Last Supper.
Luke chapter 22 verse 19 says that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks (a response to God’s grace), He broke it and gave it to his friends, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” What I love about this moment is that those gathered around Jesus were about as messy as they come.
Peter tended to be a bit of a loose cannon and often needed correction. James and John were nicknamed the “Sons of Thunder,” which is thought to come from the fact that they both had stormy personalities. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved. Phillip was known for introducing his friend Nathanael Bartholomew to Jesus. Thomas struggled with doubt, and Matthew had a checkered past as a tax collector. Then there was James, Thaddeus, Andrew, Simon, and just when you thought, well that’s not so bad, we have Judas the one who would betray Jesus.
Jesus’ friends were a messy bunch, not unlike the people we have in our own lives, and yet Jesus broke the bread and gave thanks.
The table itself was set by grace.
That act of gathering together was grace.
Jesus, who is the living embodiment of God’s grace, was seated somewhere near the center. Which tells us something about where we ought to position grace among others.
Jesus acknowledged grace by giving thanks, and He extended grace to this messy group of people by washing their feet and serving them.
Jesus gave thanks as a response to God’s grace, and He extended that same grace to that messy group of people gathered around Him, acknowledging that God put them in His life.
The odds are good that you are surrounded by the same kinds of folks.
The inlaws, the outlaws and those who live on fringes of your patience and love. So my challenge to you is to set the table of grace, offer them a seat, and give thanks for them. Chances are you might discover that beauty abounds in the mess.
