One of my enduring Childhood memories was the post-Christmas
ritual of being made to sit down and write thank you letters to people who had
sent us gifts. Usually it had been a $1, $2 note in a card, or later a $5 or
$10 note and I couldn’t say whether it was us getting older or people getting
more generous or simply inflation adjustment… or all three. Usually it was from
a distant relative who we’d never met, or we’d been dressed in our best clothes
and told to be on our best behaviour and the best cups and saucers would have
come out of the china cabinet as they’d come round for afternoon tea and a
catch up. It was the right thing to do the ‘write’ thing and say thanks and
include some details about what life had been like for us that year. Maybe it’s
easier for kids growing up in the digital age, as we can simply flick off a
txt, an email, where words and whole paragraphs can be recycled with a quick click
copy and paste, or you can IM (instant
message) someone on Facebook, steam, snap
chat or even tweet them. The words accompanied by a photo of the child’s
beaming smile while holding the gift given. But we were told it was right to
say thank you, it helped us not take things for granted.
Today we’ve been giving thanks for so many different things:
·
40 years of garage sales at St Peter’s and all
the people who had contributed to their success as a fundraising venture.
·
Father’s day, where we give thanks for our Dad’s
imperfect though we are.
·
The start of the season of creation in the
church calendar.
·
With the hint of warm weather we can give thanks
for the start of spring.
·
We
celebrate communion, which is also known as the Eucharist, which means giving
thanks, where we give thanks for God’s
great love shown in Jesus Christ.
It may not be the 10,000 reasons that the song
we learned today talks of, but it’s getting up there. And in the midst of that
I just quickly want to share some thoughts about the importance of Thanks
giving to our faith.
Our Old
Testament reading today came from Psalm 136 a psalm that starts with a
threefold command to God’s people to give thanks to God, for who God is and
God’s very nature, that God is good. It works its way through many reasons for
God’s people to give thanks. For me I can’t help but think of one of my
favourite Songs when I think of Psalm 136. The song is ‘silly love songs” by Paul McCartney and Wings, It became part of our New Zealand music landscape
when Adijah had a huge hit with an urban pacific cover. Sometimes when we are
driving in the car I’ll turn it up when this song comes on our playlist and
sing it to Kris, much to the embarrassment of the rest of the family. But it
says
You’d think the world would had
enough of silly love songs,
I look around me and I see it isn’t
so…Oh No,
You’d think the world would have had
enough of silly love songs, but what wrong with that I like to know beccasue here I Go again…
I love you, I love you….
You see this psalm focuses on God’s loyal love
for us over and over again…
His
steadfast love endures for ever…God’s loyal Love, shown in creation,
His
steadfast Love endures forever, God’s loyal love shown in God’s saving his
people bringing them out of Egypt and guiding them through the wilderness,
His
steadfast Love endures forever… God’s loyal love shown in giving the land to
Israel,
His steadfast
Love endures forever…and finally God’s loyal love, experienced in the life of
the community singing this psalm.
It would be easy to sum up the psalm by saying
every step along the way ‘God’s love endures forever’. It’s more than a silly
love song it a great reality that God loves us. It could go on
His love
endures forever… God sent his son Jesus into the world
His love
endures for ever to bring good news to the poor
His love
endures forever to give his life as a sacrifice for our sins
His love endures
for ever God raised his to life again
His love endures
for ever, God sent his Holy Spirit
His love
endures forever, and we could work our way through the whole of church history
from the opening pages of Acts to the 2015/2016 AGM reports of St Peter’s
Ellerslie.
When we give
thanks to God for all the things that he has done, it allows us to see things
in perspective: Things that have happened not just as the flow of history but
as His story, God’s story; Human life in terms of the life of God. Our story,
our life then fits into that as well. We become more aware of God’s presence
and movement in our lives today. In communion we remember God’s saving acts in
Christ and we are strengthened as we are aware of Christ’s presence with us
today.
In giving
thanks for what God has done in the past it gives us strength and hope to face
life today trusting God. One of the questions when it comes to the psalms is
what is the real life situation that they were written for? For Psalm 136 we don’t know but in 2
Chronicles 20 King Jehoshaphat faces a vast army arrayed against him, an army
made up of Moabites, Ammonite and some Meunites. He calls his army together and
encourages them not to fear but to trust in God. Then he calls his army to
march to battle singing ‘Give thanks to the lord for he is God his love endures
forever’. Which is the first line of the
Psalm, and you could imagine psalm 136 being a marching song. Like a marine
cadence song… the leader singing out the line and the soldiers repeating the
refrain as they keep in step. As the people of Judah come to the valley where
the armies are they find only dead bodies. The armies had starting fighting
each other. God had won the victory for Judah. AS we thank God for the thing he
has done, it allows us to have faith as we face the armies arrayed against us, armies
as Joyce Meyer says equally made up of an alliance of other ‘–ites’, the fear-ites,
disease-ites, poverty-ites, broken relationship-ites, stress-ites,
insecurity-ites, injustice-ites etc. there is that famous saying two prisoners
were in a prison cell one looked out and saw bars the other looked up and saw
stars, as we give thanks to God it enables us to look beyond both and see God’s
face present in any situation.
The New
Testament reading we had today comes from Paul’s letter to the church in
Philippi, it is part of his opening prayer for the church. Paul says that he
has been giving thanks for the Philippians because of the way they responded to
the gospel from the beginning. I don’t know about you but you can almost hear
the echoes of Psalm 136 in those words. AS each step of the early history of church
at Philippi followed by ‘his love endures forever.’ You can read that early
history in Acts 16.
God lead us
across the sea to Philippi ‘His love endures forever’
We found a
place of Prayer outside the city ‘His love endures forever’
Lydia responded to the message and invited us
to start a church at her place ‘His love endures forever’
We freed a
women bound by a spirit of divination, “His love endures forever
We were
thrown into prison, ‘His love endures forever.’
We sang
praises and God opened the doors and the chains, “His love endures forever’.
The
Philip
pian jailer and his household believed, ‘his love endures forever’.
The
magistrate found out we were roman citizens and treated us with respect ‘His
love endures forever’
The church
continued to flourish and grow, ‘His love endures forever.’
They sent us
a gracious gift to help and support us, ‘His love endures forever’
Because of
that Paul writes to encourage them in their present situations as they face
persecution and hardship. Then also because of God’s blessing in the past he is
able to turn and to look at the future with hope and confidence. ‘I am
confidence,’ says Paul, ‘that he who started this good work in you will carry
it on to completion, until the day of Jesus Christ.’ There is confidence that
the God who has lead us every step along the way by his loyal love will be able
to keep on into the future. One of New
Zealand’s preeminent biblical scholars EM Blaiklock says of Psalm 136 “praise
is an aid to Prayer, he who most surely bears in mind what God has done for him
will the more readily ask for richer blessings.’
Giving
thanks for what God has done, allows us to look with trust and confidence to
the future. AS we celebrate the Eucharist, we do this as well, we remember what
God has done for us in Christ’s life and death, we acknowledge and know his
presence with us today, to strengthen us, as surely as our bodies are
strengthened by what we eat and drink. We
look forwards with trust to a time when we will sit down with Jesus in the
marriage feast of the Lamb. We can move forwards and work towards that in
confidence that the God who has done so much for us in the past is able to
bring his work to completion. AS we give thanks for spring we trust God that
the new life we are seeing budding round us will come to maturity in a harvest
in the right time. As we say thank you for 40 years of a garage sale and say
its season has come to an end we look forward trusting that God is able to
provide for us and who knows what opportunities will come for us.
We started
by talking about writing thank you letters and in 2 Corinthians 3:2 Paul says
that we are letters written to show what Jesus has done in this world. Ur lives
are thank you letters that resound with the truth of
Give thanks
for God is Good
‘His love
endures forever’.
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