On Being Gratitudinal - sermon for Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving Eve, the three UCC churches in town hold a joint worship service of thanksgiving. This year it was at First Congregational, and I was the preacher. Here is the sermon text I preached from. I talk about the importance of the act of giving thanks to be more than just saying it, instead of showing our thankfulness by the way we live, showing gratitude by serving the people around us. 

How do you show your gratitude to God, or your gratitude to anyone/anything?

Have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving Day!


“On Being Gratitudinal”
Sermon, Year A, Thanksgiving, November 26, 2014
Given at First Congregational UCC, Eau Claire, WI 
© Rev. David J. Huber
Focus Scripture: Amos 5:7-15, 21-24, Matthew 25:34-45 

In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Matter of Honor", First Officer of the Enterprise-D William Riker does an officer exchange to go serve temporarily on a Klingon starship called the Pagh, a word that means “zero” in the Klingon language, by the way. 

Klingons are a warrior race - combat, honor, staring down death, rising up through the ranks by assassinating your superiors when they get weak, they are honest, honorable, don't pretend to be something they aren't. They are loud, boisterous, laugh loudly and feel anger fully. That is what matters. That is what they value. 

They are very much a race who are in the moment. 

Riker is the first Federation officer to serve on a Klingon ship, because for a long time the Federation and Klingon Empire were enemies. They had been hesitant allies for 50 years after the Khitomer Accords in the year 2293, but the real alliance was with the Romulans. But after the incident at Norendra III in 2344, just a few years before this story, in which the Federation ship Enterprise-C helped Klingon ships defeat some Romulans who had betrayed the Klingons, which act then solidified the alliance between Klingons and the Federation and dissolved the one between the Romulans and the Klingons. 

Oh, I'm sorry... Does this geekiness make my brain look fat?

Anyway, Riker, a human, comes to this Klingon ship, and lots of Klingonness ensues in which we learn that there are no old warriors. Riker has his leadership challenged by second-in-command and he has to fight him, finally putting the Klingon's head through a computer monitor; Riker learns that the Klingon food gagh, a kind of worm, is best when served live; and then the captain of the Klingon tries to attack the Enterprise-D because he thinks they did something to his ship. Riker tricks the captain, there are lots of Klingons threatening to kill each other because they don't like each others' commands, but Riker keeps them at bay, calls off the attack, gets the ship fixed and everyone is happy except the Klingon captain who gives Riker quite a belt to the head in anger and Riker goes back to the Enterprise.

As I watched, I thought, "What a way to live."
     and then I paused for a moment, and thought, “No, what a way to die.” And said that with a feeling of awe.

Not just dying through combat or the glory of battle, but that the Klingons have about them a sense of death always around them - death is always on the horizon, and so there is a fullness in their lives knowing how precious it is this short time that one is alive. No pretending of there being a long life, so put things off to tomorrow... whether it be a party with friends, a chance to eat, a time to make love. Life is short, so there's no need to hoard, to acquire, to be stingy, to be worried about possessions.

Tomorrow we might die, so let us live right now. That's not even Klingon – that's the Bible. 

“Today is a good day to die”, that's Klingon. Though originally it was Crazy Horse, but co-opted by the Klingons.

They have found something to live for, and so do not fear death. 

And in that, I see a sense of gratitude. Gratitude, as I think of it, is thankfulness in action. Thankfulness lived. 

This moment is all that there is, it is the gift given to me to be alive right now, so in gratitude I will make the most out of it. 

“I'm so thankful for the gift of today, I will live it fully. I am so thankful for the gift of having enough, I will share it. I am so thankful for the people around me that I will spend time with them.”

And also this sense that, since life is temporary, what is the point of hoarding anything? Why hold on to things, or go without using them, or go without sharing them, when one knows that there is only a short time to experience and enjoy them? And once we're dead we can't take them with us. And once we're dead, we can't share. We can share through our estate planning or wills, sure, but I've heard good wisdom from some who have said to me that they are taking the things they planned to leave in their wills and giving them to the people now – then they can see the enjoyment. It's a way of saying “I have such thankfulness for what has brought me joy that I want to share them in gratitude.”

The prophet we read is railing against those who do not share. The rich have too much and are beating down and ignoring the poor. They're even cheating the poor. Taking advantage of the weak. We see over and over in the prophets that the sin God is upset about is not sharing. Being unjust toward those who have the least.

We like to balance budgets on the backs of the poor. It's easy. We like to think we won't die, and that we win by accumulating the most/

A Klingon might say that our attachment to things keeps us afraid, and being afraid keeps us from living. So would Yoda. And Confuscious. Lao Tzu, Buddha, and Mohammed as well.

Jesus said that we win by sharing. Keeping things to ourselves says, “God, you aren't generous enough to me.” Serving others says, “Thank you, God, for being generous.”

Our job is to love the world. As we dedicate ourselves to this vocation, to daily loving the world - we are more and more showing our gratitude, not just with words but with our very lives.

Compare this to Bilbo Baggins, the famous but also very hesitant Hobbit, described in this song that the dwarves sing:

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bent the forks!
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates-
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!
Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
Pour the milk on the pantry floor!
Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
Splash the wine on every door!
Dump the crocks in a boiling bawl;
Pound them up with a thumping pole;
And when you've finished, if any are whole,
Send them down the hall to roll!
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!
So carefully, carefully with the plates! [Book version]

A turning point, in some ways, in Bilbo's life: he's been asked to go on an adventure, but does not want to go. He likes his comfort, his hobbit hole, his fine linens and delicate plates and ancestral silverware. The dwarves, who've lost their land, their home, their story, their history, they find Bilbo's hesitance to be almost offensive. Bilbo is afraid something might break, especially that the something might be him. He would rather see the dwarves go unfed and homeless than take the risk of serving them because he is afraid that he might break a plate, or soil a doily. He is afraid, and so he does not live. He only survives. 

But, he learns! He likes his stuff, his comforts. And I'm not anti-comforts or anti-stuff. But he learns through his adventure to let go, and learns that by letting go he is finally alive.

But, we know that serious preachers don't quote Star Trek or recite Dwarven poetry. 

So.... Wittgenstein.

Mmm, that felt good.

Schopenhauer. Schillebeeckx. Nietszche. Dag Hammerskjold. Wittgenstein.

As Wittgenstein wrote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” – but what limit has action? 

Jesus never said, “Here's what I want you to believe. Repeat after me.”
He said, “Here's what I want you to do. Follow after me.”

Thankfulness – words. Important! Don't get me wrong. “Thank you, God, for what I have.”

But gratitude – thanksgiving in action.
  Thank you, God, share my water.
  Thank you, God, share my food.
  Thank you, God, share my clothing.
  Thank you, God, let me visit you in prison, let me visit you on the street, let me visit you in the hospital...

Words have incredible power to shape worlds. To define reality. To change reality. To take an imagination at warp speed and go places no one has gone before. But they are not omnipotent.

What if our language, 
     our language as Christians, 
     the language of our Christian vocation, 
        not be confined to liminal words of thanksgiving, 
          a lexicon of sounds and scribblings 
          inherently limited in comprehension 
          to only that population which shares it in common, 

          but what if, instead, 
            the language of our Christian vocation 
            be the universal language of gratitude, thankfulness in action, 
            through service to others,
            a kinetic language of movement that does not limit the world 
                 or attempt to circumscribe it, 
          but which by refusing to live for ourselves
            creates ever new lands and capacity 
              for flourishing the imagination of what is possible. Amen.