Universalist National Memorial Church

The Five Ws and the One H of Giving Thanks

A sermon by Deacon Dave Skidmore, preached on November 27, 2011

Good morning. My topic, not surprisingly on this Sunday after Thanksgiving, has to do with giving thanks. "Wait a minute," you might say. "We just gave thanks on Thursday. Aren't we done with that?" My response is, "No. We are never done. At least I hope we are never done."

"Giving thanks," is a big topic. I wasn't quite sure how to tackle it. So, I fell back on my early training as a journalist. I was taught in my introductory newswriting class at Penn State that every news story should answer six questions -- the five Ws and the one H -- who, what, when, where, why, and how. News stories organized using the traditional inverted pyramid structure attempt to answer as many of those questions as possible in the first paragraph -- and then elaborate as necessary. So, here are the answers -- up front -- and then I'll elaborate.

• Who? We give thanks to God.
• What? We give thanks for anything that moves us to gratitude.
• When? We should give thanks as often as we can.
• Where? Here -- wherever here may be at any given moment.
• Why? Because it's good for us.
• How? We can make it a discipline, starting by saying grace at meals. And we can give thanks by giving back.

In any given news story, depending on the topic, the answers to some questions are naturally brief and straight-forward while others are worthy of more exploration. This morning, I'll start with who, move on to what and why, and then combine when and where with how? (Bear with me. I recognize this is starting to sound a bit like the old Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on first?")

Who Do We Thank?

"Who to thank?" In many churches it is so obvious that "God" is the answer that the question is barely worth asking. In our church, our denomination at least, the answer may take a bit more thought. Who or what is God? Even in our small congregation, with its liberal Christian orientation, we have many different concepts of God. (Each of us individually may have more than one concept.) And, for many Unitarian-Universalists, God may not be central to their understanding of the universe. So let us thank God, or the universe, or that nameless mystery that gave us life and the earth we inhabit.

And let's not forget to thank each other -- the stranger who does us a kindness and loved ones we should not take for granted. If, as the Apostle Paul says, we all live and move and have our being in God, then these benefactors are the face of God.

What Are We Thankful For?

What are we thankful for? Answers are as varied as the human race. Maybe you're grateful for your iPhone. Don't laugh. I know some people who seem obsessed with theirs. In any case, answers to that question, though varied, seem to fall into a few broad categories. People generally are grateful for their loved ones. (Now, I don't mean every minute of every day -- but generally.) iPhones aside, people frequently do give thanks for their daily bread -- which can, literally, be bread but, more broadly construed, can mean anything that sustains us day to day. And they give thanks -- as our responsive reading this morning underscores -- for the beauty of nature -- the grass underfoot, the songs of birds, the breath of spring.[1]

Nature really does offer us consolation and joy -- even when we have little else to be thankful for. Psychiatrist Victor Frankl wrote in "Man's Search for Meaning" of an incident he experienced in a Nazi work camp.[2] He and his fellow prisoners were resting on the floor of their hut, dead tired after laboring all day. He wrote:

A fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, 'How beautiful the world could be!

I recall a dozen years ago sitting with my dad on a balcony of a hospital in Florida late one afternoon as he fought to recover from the pneumonia that would soon recur and end his life. We watched as a line of pelicans emerged from the setting sun, turned and swung low over the ocean. It gave us both a moment of profound pleasure.

Tom Schade, a well-known UU Christian and pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Worcester, Mass., offered his own gratitude list in a sermon called "10 Things You Gotta Love About God." [3]

Here is his list -- I'm paraphrasing, not quoting verbatim:

1. When I cut my finger, it heals.
2. There is a healing power that courses through all the human world that allows us to recover from our grievous losses.
3. The natural world is teeming with life and bursting with beauty.
4. Wherever there is cruelty and injustice, there also flashes a spark of rebellion and resistance that cannot be extinguished.
5. Wherever there is a disaster, you can count on the fact that people will come together to help each other.
6. People can change their lives and start over.
7. Feelings of warmth, compassion, and community exist among all people.
8. We have implanted in us a moral sensibility, the ability to discern between right and wrong.
9. (Very timely as we head into the Christmas season.) God did not stay in heaven to bask in the adoration of angels, and
10. I woke up this morning in my right mind.

It is interesting that Tom identifies our responses to injustice and disaster as things to love about God. Some people -- far more enlightened than I am -- can reach a place of radical acceptance, where they can thank God for everything that comes their way, good and bad. I don't think I'll ever get there -- but, if you reflect a moment, you may think of an experience or event that at the time you thought was bad but turned out also to be good because it taught you something and helped you become the person you are today. I'm thinking of some of the points Mike Miller made in his recent sermon on fear of failure -- his point being, not to fear it too much.

In the end, I think, the fundamental thing we give thanks for is life itself -- the opportunity to live and love. A pithy expression of this truth is a grace written by Joseph Barth, who was pastor of King's Chapel in Boston in the 1950s.[4] It goes like this:

We give thanks for being
We give thanks for being here
We give thanks for being here together.

Why Give Thanks?

Having discussed what we give thanks for, I will move to why. Perhaps the reason is because our parents raised us to be polite -- or pragmatic. In our everyday lives, saying "thank you" is a useful social lubricant. If someone we work with does us a favor, we make a point of thanking them. We may need another favor later. And we must be sure to thank our spouses every time they cook us a delicious Indian meal. Otherwise, they may not feel inclined to do it again.

But, why do we need to thank God? If God is love, as the inscription above our altar proclaims, then surely God would be good to us even without thanks. The reason why Christianity, and every other religion I can think of, stresses the necessity of thanksgiving is not because God needs to be thanked, but because we need to thank God. This is not just a religious belief. It is also a scientific fact that people benefit from an attitude of gratitude. A recent New York Times article summarized the findings of numerous psychological studies on the topic.[5] Cultivating gratitude, the Times says, "has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life, and kinder behavior toward others."

Let's try a little thought experiment right now to see if we can support the hypothesis that gratitude is good for us. Think of one thing that has been troubling you lately. Perhaps a significant relationship is not all that you would want it to be. Maybe there is a conflict, at home or at work. It could be a health issue -- your own or someone you care about. Maybe it is financial. (Pause) Alright -- has everyone thought of something? OK. Now think of something that fills you with gratitude. A relationship? Some material comfort or pleasure? The fact that Thanksgiving Day in Washington this year was gloriously sunny and temperate. (Pause) OK. Have you thought of something that makes you grateful and truly contemplated it? Now, briefly, think again of the thing that troubles you. It is still there -- correct? But, perhaps, you see it from an improved perspective. Perhaps it doesn't seem quite so overwhelming.

If so, why is that? I think, partly, it is because we humans are problem-solvers -- we have a tendency to focus on problems, on the negative rather than the positive -- and the exercise we just experienced directed us to contemplate both the positive and negative. Focusing on problems has its benefits -- it helps get problems solved -- but it also tends to skew our outlooks.

Also many of us have a tendency to see what we expect to see -- not the best of mindsets for people who are problem-solvers. Listening last week to American Public Radio, I heard a secular parable that illustrates this tendency. It was told by Paul Brandeis Raushenbush. He is religion editor of the Huffington Post and also the great-grandson of Walter Rauschenbusch, the author of our responsive reading this morning, and of the Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis.[6] Here it is, paraphrased:

A man (or a woman) walks through the forest. It is filled with birdsong. But she does not hear the birds. Why? Because she is a botanist.

Another reason we tend to discount the good things in our lives is a phenomenon scholarly literature calls "hedonic adaptation" -- a phrase I encountered in a commencement speech on the economics of happiness by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.[7] (Who knew the dismal science had a branch focused on happiness?) Anyway, hedonic adaptation means people tend to get used to their circumstances. That can be a good thing. Life hands each of us setbacks and disappointments -- not always curable. It is hedonic adaptation that allows us to go on, despite the setback, and again find satisfaction in life. But, "hedonic adaptation" also can work against us. We can be incredibly blessed -- healthy, living in a free society, with all of our material needs reasonably met, enjoying the companionship of family and friends -- and yet we can take it all for granted.

Where, When, and How to Give Thanks

Is there a remedy for hedonic adaptation? I don't know -- but a good place to start is making room in our lives for giving thanks. Where, when and how shall we do it? Of course we can give thanks wherever, whenever, and however we like. But many of us have difficulty making room in our lives for gratitude.

A good way to start might be to say grace before we eat. Many of us said grace as children but let the practice lapse as adults, except perhaps at holiday meals with the extended family gathered round. Carl Scovel, who followed Barth as pastor of King's Chapel, offers a four-part instruction on how to pick up the practice again.[8] First, he writes, begin. Second, be regular. Third, persist. And, fourth, pray as you please. He says we may feel self-conscious about saying grace at first. But, he advises us to say grace regularly, even if at just one meal a day, and persist through dry spells when we aren't feeling particularly grateful. He says we can say the same grace every time -- such as Barth's "We Give Thanks for Being" prayer, we can sing grace, or we can just make it up as we go along. "The best grace," he writes, "is spoken from the heart without a thought about effect or eloquence."

Another practice, which Bernanke mentioned in his speech and the New York Times cited in the story about gratitude research, is making gratitude lists or keeping a gratitude journal. The Times mentioned pioneering research by Robert A. Emmons of the University of California-Davis, and Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami. They instructed people, once a week, to list five things for which they were grateful -- such a friend's generosity or a sunset. After only five weeks, there were significant effects. Compared to a control group, the people keeping a gratitude journal were more optimistic, felt happier, and reported fewer physical problems.

Our two Bible readings this morning point toward what I think is the most essential way of giving thanks -- giving back. The first reading is from the book of Deuteronomy, which recounts the law given by Moses as the Israelites were preparing to enter the land of Canaan. It vividly describes the blessings of the new land -- flowing streams, wheat and barley, figs and pomegranates -- and concludes with the admonition: "Do not say to yourself, 'My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.' But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth."

The second reading, from Paul's second letter to the early Christian church in Corinth, Greece, says that God provides us with "every blessing in abundance" so that we may "share abundantly." Paul advises the Corinthians, "The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully."

So, together, the readings tell us that we must not make the mistake of attributing our good fortune to ourselves -- and we must not keep it to ourselves. We start by cultivating gratitude but we must let that gratitude flow into generosity.

Conclusion

I will conclude by returning to the answers to the six questions I posed at the start of the sermon.

• Who? Give thanks to God, the universe, a mysterious higher power -- whatever you see as the source of life. And let's not forget to thank each other.
• What? Give thanks for whatever moves you to gratitude -- but mostly give thanks for life itself.
• When and Where? Whenever and wherever you want. Here and now.
• Why? Because it's good for you.
• How? However you want -- but consider starting with saying grace. And let your gratitude move you to generosity as an expression of your thankfulness.

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Footnotes

[1] Prayer of Thanksgiving by Walter Rauschenbusch.

[2] Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, third edition, by Viktor E. Frankl. Simon & Schuster. 1984.

[3] "10 Things You Gotta Love About God," By Tom Schade. From the newsletter, Good News, published by the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, July-August 2001.

[4] From Graces, Sung and Spoken, ed. by the Rev. Carl Scovel, published through the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship by the Massachusetts Evangelical and Missionary Society, 1963.

[5] "A Serving of Gratitude May Save the Day," by John Tierney. New York Times, page D1, November 22,2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/science/a-serving-of-gratitude-brings-healthy-dividends.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=john%20tierney&st=cse

[6] "Occupying the Gospel," interview of Paul Raushenbush Brandeis, on "Krista Trippett's on Being," American Public Radio. November 20, 2011. http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/occupying-the-gospel/

[7] "The Economics of Happiness," speech by Ben S. Bernanke, chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the University of South Carolina Commencement, Columbia, South Carolina. May 8, 2010. http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20100508a.htm

[8] From "There Are Four Things To Remember About Saying Grace, by Carl Scovel. http://www.uuchristian.org/R_Prayers_Thanks.html

Posted by Sue Mosher at November 30, 2011 09:53 PM
Posted to Sermons