Colossians 3:12-17
It’s not always easy to be grateful. It’s kind of like the little boy whose turn it was to say grace at dinner. He looked around at the table, with plates holding chicken, broccoli, carrots, and garden salad. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and said, “Well, Lord, I don’t much like the looks of it, but I’ll thank you for it anyway.”
And just like it’s not always easy to be grateful, it’s not always easy to get along with each other, either, not even in the church. Paul understood that very well. He dealt with congregations, large and small, spread all across the Mediterranean world, congregations that were made up of very diverse populations. He was trying to help Jews and Gentiles figure out how to worship together, when one group felt that following the Jewish Law was essential to Christian life and the other group did not. Paul had to speak rather sternly to a group of believers who were saying that speaking in tongues was a greater spiritual gift than any other. And Paul had to address congregations that were quarreling over issues of belief and practice. He clearly understood how difficult it could be to get along with people who are different from you: people who think differently than you, people who have different opinions than you, people who understand the nature of the church differently than you, people who have different personalities and life experiences than you.
And so here in Colossians, we find Paul writing to the Christians about how they were to live together in Christian community. He named some of the characteristics that should be practiced by each of them: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Members of the church should bear with each other and forgive each other, even as the Lord forgives them. And over all these other virtues, Christians should practice love. And they should let the peace of Christ rule in their hearts. And, Paul said, they should be thankful. He went on to say that they should sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in their hearts. And finally, whatever they said or did, they should do it in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to God.
I find it most interesting that in these two paragraphs when Paul is urging the members of this church to behave in a Christian manner towards one another, three times he mentions gratitude. It’s like gratitude is the key to the whole thing, maybe even more than love. Because maybe they were to start with having gratitude for each other. When you are thankful for someone, when you are grateful that they are in your life, you behave towards them with compassion and kindness and all those other things we’re supposed to do. And perhaps that’s because gratitude also involves a healthy dose of humility.
The Hebrew for gratitude is hikarat hatov, which literally means recognizing the good. When you look around you this morning, do you recognize the good in this church? Do you recognize the good in each other? Are you grateful for this church? Are you thankful for each other? That is essential to the life of the church. An attitude of gratitude among the church members. Being grateful for each other. Seeing the good in each other.
John Ortberg, in his book, Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You, says that gratitude comes from a posture of humility. We recognize that we have been given something. We are the beneficiaries of something that we didn’t do for ourselves. We have received the good gifts of God. And one of those good gifts is the gift of this church. No one did anything to deserve that gift. No one was entitled to it. God just gave it to us. And he has given it to each generation of church members who worshiped here before us. And the proper way to receive that gift is to be thankful for it and to humbly accept it.
One of my favorite writers is Anne Lamott. In her book, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, she says, “Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides … When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and in the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.” To me, that is what Paul was trying to get at: when you have a grateful heart, then you will embody those behaviors that he calls the church members to. When you are thankful for your blessings, for the gifts that God has given to you, for the church, for each other, then you more naturally behave in ways that are kind, compassionate, gentle, and forgiving.
Lamott goes on to say, “Most humbling of all is to comprehend the lifesaving gift that your pit crew of people has been for you, and all the experiences you have shared, the journeys together, the collaborations, births and deaths, divorces, rehab, and vacations, the solidarity you have shown one another. Every so often you realize that without all of them, your life would be barren and pathetic.” Some of the members of your pit crew are family and friends. But I would be willing to bet that some of them are sitting around you in this sanctuary today, your fellow church members. You have lived through things together. You have supported each other in good times and bad. You have prayed for each other, laughed with each other and cried with each other, held one another when no words would do. You have been Christian community in the best sense of the term. And it is important to stop and recognize how significant that is in our lives. I don’t know of another type of organization that provides what the church or other faith community provides to its members.
So I want to invite you to try something for me. It’s going to be hard, but I think you can do it. I want you to think of a member of your “pit crew,” to use Anne Lamott’s language, someone who has been significant in your life, someone who has made a positive impact on your life, someone you are thankful for. Maybe it’s even someone in this church. It could be someone you’ve known for a long time, or maybe someone you met more recently. But it should be someone who has changed your life in some way for the good. Maybe they have been your mentor in some way, or maybe just an encourager, or a shoulder to cry on when you needed one. I want you to identify this person. And then I want you to write them a letter. It doesn’t have to be long, certainly no more than two pages. And I want you to tell that person why you are thankful to God for them. And if possible, I want you not to mail it to them, but to actually meet them face to face and read the letter to them. I know that sounds really hard, and really awkward. But maybe we need to get better at letting people know how much we appreciate what they mean in our lives. Maybe we need to get better at saying, “I’m thankful for you.”
What does it mean to have a grateful heart? I think it means to always be mindful of the fact that God has given us so much, to always try to recognize the good around us and the good in other people. I think that when we can be thankful for life, for the church, and for the people in it, we will behave in ways that reflect the model of Jesus, with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love, and peace. So let’s practice gratitude. And, as Anne Lamott writes, “if we are lucky, gratitude becomes a habit.”
