Thanks Would Suffice

Sermon preached on November 25, 2012 at the Church of St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene: I did not use the Proper 29 readings for the day, but chose to preach on Thanksgiving.

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.

Col 4:2

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-c. 1327)

In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.  And this food is called among us Eucharistia …

Justin Martyr (100-c. 165)

We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

The Book of Common Prayer, p. 363

          Recently I picked up a book entitled, Choosing Gratitude: Learning to Love the Life You Have, by a man named James Autry, who has apparently written many books about leadership and spirituality, but of whom I had never heard.  I bought it on a whim.

          One of the first things Autry does is quote the 14^th century theologian and mystic known as Meister Eckhart.  “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’” Eckhart said, “that would suffice.”

          I was startled by that quote.  It was one of those assertions that struck me as either being of very great importance, or so overly simplistic to be of no real help at all.

          It was a puzzle I decided to try to solve and it completely distracted my attention from this Sunday’s readings, so I am, for better or worse, ignoring them.  So what you get this morning is some reflection on the importance of thanksgiving in the Christian life.

For those of you who get parish e-mails, I have already tipped my hand.  On the parish blog on Thanksgiving Day, I wrote:

Very early on in the history of those who followed Jesus, less than a hundred years after his death and resurrection, Christians began calling the sharing of bread and wine that he left them to "do in remembrance of me," "the Eucharist."  It probably came from hearing the words of what he had done over and over and over again, "He gave thanks (Greek: eucharistia), gave it to them, and said ..."  It was simple. If he what he was doing was "giving thanks," then that is what they were doing as well.  And so it became "the Eucharist."  Which means … gratitude becomes the beating heart of faithful living. From it flows everything else…

          So how did I get there?  It is true that within a hundred years of Jesus’ death and resurrection, this thing that we continue to do almost 2,000 years later, in much the same pattern it had come to be done then, was called “The Eucharist.”  We know this from a man named Justin, who wrote to the emperor trying to help him understand Christian faith and practices.  He described what Christians did when they gathered on Sunday.  The outline is exactly what we still do.  And he says, “And this food is called among us “Eucharist…”

          Now you have to remember that he was not using a strange name by which to call something familiar.  He was literally saying, in Greek translated into English:  “And this food is called among us thanksgiving…”

          Had it just gotten that name because of the words of institution that included the description of Jesus giving thanks?  Certainly that had helped.  But at the same time, Christians were clearly discovering that a life of thanksgiving was a significant part of the way of life they were called to in being called to follow Christ.

          The word is not used very often in the Gospels. It was St. Paul who latched onto it and made it central.  Two-thirds of its uses come from Paul’s letters.  That includes a verse I had never seen before, or at least remembered seeing.  It’s at the end of the Letter to the Colossians, in a passage we never read on Sundays.  It’s stunning, I think.

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.  Colossians 4:2

          It is quite possible that verse inspired Master Eckhart’s quote.  Thanksgiving is the engine of prayer, which means it is the engine of worship, since for Paul prayer and worship are the same thing, which means it is the engine for faithful living, since for Paul prayer and worship are the engine of life itself.

          So what does that mean in practical terms?  Many, many things, but here are two:

          In the Gospels, as I said, Jesus does not use the word “thanks” very often, hardly at all, really.  But in Luke’s Gospel he does use it in two different stories which illustrate in crystal clarity the choice we have to make in being a thankful people, and it is a choice as clear today as it was 2,000 years ago.

          You know the stories.  The first is the story of the ten lepers Jesus sends off to the priests for healing, which does indeed happen on the way.  Of the ten, only one returns to say thank you.

          The second is the story of the two men who go to the Temple to pray.  One of them men is a Pharisee, the other a Tax Collector.  The Pharisee kneels in the Temple and prays. He gives thanks actually.  He says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people...I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of all my income.”

          These two are the hero and anti-hero of thanksgiving.  The Pharisee’s thanks is directed toward God, but it is all about himself and his accomplishments.  It is one part gratitude and two parts bragging, which makes the gratitude near to worthless.

          The leper, however, goes out of his way to say thank you, and he does it with simplicity and humility.  The text just says, “He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.”  It is clear he knows that this was not his own doing.  Add in, as well, the fact that he, a Samaritan, is thanking a Jew.  This thanksgiving is a sacrifice, a sacrifice of time, a sacrifice of humility, and a sacrifice of prejudice.

          We have always known of the sacrificial nature of true thanksgiving.  We have called what we do at our Altars that very thing:  “We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.”

          Thanksgiving is a conscious, daily effort, nay, sacrifice, to keep life from being all about me.  This is precisely why I call it the beating heart of faithful living.

          Which brings me to my last point, which I will let Dietrich Bonhoeffer make for me. Bonhoeffer was, of course, the German pastor and theologian who worked against the Nazis, and was imprisoned and executed for it.

In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.

          This is the life of gratitude we are called to live.