Advent Reflections: Unanswered Prayers, Part 1
The season of Advent began last Sunday, and it could not have come at a better time. I love Advent because I’m always ready for it. I’m rarely ready for confession at Ash Wednesday. Of for the repentance of Lent. And sometimes the joy of Easter may feel a little forced. But I’m always ready for Advent because it means “the coming” — and so it’s a season of waiting and anticipation. My life seems to be defined more by waiting and anticipating than by receiving, or at least it’s easy to see life that way. So Advent finds me ready each year to embrace it with a little dread but also relief — Finally! I can acknowledge that life is full of darkness, mysteries and unfulfilled longings, and I also want to believe that there will be an end to this longing and anticipating when faith becomes sight. Advent is “my” season.
Some churches make the mistake of equating Advent and Christmas, but they are not the same in the Christian calendar. Advent is a mournful time, a time of waiting and a time to be quiet before the mystery of it all. In the biblical witness, it’s a time of fear, of unexpected interruptions, and of the inbreaking of Spirit into the creation. “O Come, Emmanuel” is the song of Advent because it cries out with yearning for something to relieve the pain, to give us a new way of looking at our lives, and to take away the fear.
In the Gospel of Luke, the “Advent” texts of Luke 1-2 present us with three people: a priest, a young peasant woman, and some lowly shepherds who find themselves confronted with an angelic visitor. In each case, the angel shows up in the most ordinary and unexpected times to announce that the current anxiety in their lives is not something they should dread or fear but to welcome as the work of God. To each the angel declares: Do not be afraid.”
Zechariah was an old priest who had no children. It did not matter that he had a prestigious job, or that he and his wife Elizabeth came from prestigious families. It didn’t even matter that they lived righteous lives. There was something missing. Elizabeth suffered disgrace at the hands of her own people who called her “barren.” To be disgraced is to be removed from the means of God’s grace, which is exactly how ancient society understood a couple without children. The people thought that Zechariah and Elizabeth must surely have done something wrong to merit such an unfavored status with God. If they were without a child, they must have been removed from God’s grace. That is a terrible place to be if you are a priest and the wife of one.
It is a pretty safe bet that Zechariah and Elizabeth started praying to God as a young couple when they first discovered that they were having a difficult time getting pregnant. As the years began to pile up, so did the prayers that God would be gracious and grant them a child. Like the incense that Zechariah the priest offered on the altar, he watched his prayers rise to the skies, out of sight and evidently out of God’s mind. But every time he prayed to God, this longing for a child bubbled to the surface and he remembered that something was missing. Everything else had gone so well in life. Why was there one request that God would not grant? As the priest of the people, he longed for a Messiah. As a man without a posterity, he longed for a child. So day after day, week after week, year after year, he told his longing to God. But the answer never came.
One day Zechariah was called to enter the sanctuary to pray and offer incense while the whole assembly prayed outside the temple. This was so routine. Been there and done that. He had learned to accept a religion that was good for the soul but which offered little in the way of expectation. Zechariah’s religious practice remembered what God had done in the past but certainly did not expect God to do anything in the present. But this time while he was praying and offering incense, suddenly the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah inside the temple and said, “Don’t be afraid Zechariah. Your prayers have been heard. You will have a son named John.” Zechariah said, “How will I know that this is true?” (Luke 1:18)
I’m struck by this scene. Zechariah has prayed for years for this blessing from God, and on this very day he was praying for God’s gracious intervention inside the temple. An angel of God appears and says, “Ok, you’ve got it. Your prayer has been heard.” And he’s shocked out of his – well, tunic. We expect him to fall to the ground praising God. Or to laugh like Sarah did. Or to go outside and announce to the people that his prayer has been heard. Instead, Zechariah can only ask, “How can this really be?”
We spend so much time praying the deepest desires of our hearts. At first, we are afraid that God would not give us what we want most. But eventually we become afraid that he will. That is because over the years we make friends with the longing. We trust it. In fact, we come to trust the longing more than God. We are not certain of God, but we are certain that our longing won’t go away. For God to answer our prayers and take away our longing would terrify us because we wouldn’t even know where we are without that old desire.
Have you noticed that we human beings prefer longings to fulfillment? We look forward to our vacation in a place we have never been. For months, we dream of that place and long to be there. Then when we arrive, we say, “I can’t believe I am here.” Somehow the longing to be there was more engaging than the actual experience of being there. One of the hardest things to accept in our lives is when our longings actually come true, when God finally answers the prayers you’ve prayed for years. The answer to your prayer is even more difficult to believe when it isn’t the answer you expected.
Like Zechariah, and like Israel, we get so used to our longing for a gracious salvation that we do not recognize the Messiah when He comes. We have grown more accustomed to asking than to receiving, and more accustomed to disgrace than to mercy. The disgrace with which most of us live is not that we are publicly branded, but that we are cast into a world that knows no grace. Believing that God will not intervene, or cannot intervene, in our lives we learn to shave down our great dreams and settle for a little happiness along the way.
As long as life doesn’t become too tragic, we know we can tolerate the fact that it always will be a bit dissatisfying. A middle aged manager doesn’t like his job, but thinks he is too old to start again. So he gives up his dreams for making a difference in the world and settles for making money. A single man or woman longs for a relationship that will provide them a partner for life, but having given up long ago, they just settle for a busy life and an occasional one night stand. A couple hoped for a great marriage but now they are just hoping they can find a way to tolerate each other and avoid divorce. All we really want is a little happiness that will put a shine on the dullness of our lives — that’s all we can really expect. So we just keep praying and accept the way that it is.
“Then there appeared to him an angel of The Lord . . . .” The angels never appear to those who have learned to pry a little happiness out of the world’s hands. The people who are good at settling for what they can suck out of life, like Herod, Caesar, and the innkeeper, never get a visit from an angel. Angels only come to those who keep the deepest longing of the soul alive.
The reason we have settled for a little happiness that we can earn or create is because we do not expect God to answer our prayers. While it is no fun for sure, we have learned how to cope with unanswered prayers. We distract ourselves with lesser things. But we are confronted with a different question at Advent. The question of Christmas is not whether you can cope with unanswered prayers but with answered prayers. Do you still believe God can bring salvation into the tired longings of your heart?
Zechariah gets nine months to think about this. During this time he cannot speak. What would a priest who does not believe that God answers prayer have to say? According to the Jewish Mishnah, we know that it was the custom for the priest after being in the Sanctuary of The Lord to walk out to the people and give the Aaronic blessing. “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”
But because Zechariah did not believe that his prayers were heard, perhaps he could not bless the people. I find it even more remarkable that it was a priest who did not believe that God still acts in the world to answer our prayers. Those of us who have been around the church most of our lives often have the most callous faith. We do not know the reason why Zechariah was stopped from speaking exactly. But in a Gospel in which Luke over and over again illustrates for us the blessing of prayer in the life of Jesus, my guess is that Luke is making a point. There is no blessing in giving up your belief in a God who desires to answer your prayers.
Thankfully the grace of God is not limited by our unbelief. When the child was born, Zechariah saw the grace of God and his tongue was released after he wrote down the words, “The child’s name is John,” which means “God is gracious.” As Zechariah and Elizabeth discovered, usually grace shows up late, much later than we were expecting it. It arrives late enough to make it clear that God’s blessings do not come because we ask for them. They come because God is merciful. It arrives late enough to make it clear that the real blessing was talking to God while you waited. All along, you are talking to The Father who will never leave or abandon you.
The deepest longings of our hearts are not for the things we keep asking God to give us. The deepest longing is for God. And if that is true, then even unanswered prayer is a grace because the asking draws us closer to The Savior.
Luke begins his gospel by telling us about Zechariah who was unable to raise his hands and bless the people (Luke 1:22). Luke ends his gospel with these words about the departure of Jesus, “Then He led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up His hands, He blessed them.” (Luke 24:50-51) Luke seems to be saying that Jesus does what we cannot do. He believes what we cannot imagine. He is always the divine response to every prayer. What you will receive is not necessarily what you asked for. It’s better. It’s your Savior.
“Do not be afraid,” said Gabriel. “Your prayers have been heard.” Whatever it is in your life that is missing, whatever it is that you feel has disgraced you, you no longer have to live in shame and fear. Your prayer has been heard. Do you believe this is true?
Back Home in Nashville … At Least for a While
I’ve now been back at home in Nashville for almost two weeks, and it’s been a wonderful experience so far. I don’t know why, but even after seven years, I still can’t call Los Angeles “home”. Is Los Angeles really “home” for anyone except natives? It seems that we all are from somewhere else, and LA never really shapes our truest selves like “home” does. Despite being incredibly “at home” there, I still realize that the deepest parts of me are more southern USA than Southern California, I still like gravy and biscuits better than organic salads with goat cheese, and I still am hung up on this idea that Jesus is pretty cool (so are a lot of other Southern Californians, for the record). I love Los Angeles, and I always am happy for it to be my “home away from home”, but it’s not Nashville.
The culture shock was immediate upon my return. I went to a University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball game for the first time in ten years, and I couldn’t help but notice that most people all wear the same things here (Levis, khakis and shirts tucked in), and fashion sense and taste seems to be a missing dimension of life in Middle Tennessee (with a few exceptions — Ms. Kidman and Mr. Urban). The average waist size is a couple more pant sizes than in Los Angeles, but hey, I can’t talk. People … even fairly sophisticated ones … eat surprisingly unhealthy meals all the time. The sun shone today for the first time in two weeks.
But despite the noticeable differences, I feel still feel incredibly comfortable here. I don’t feel that I have to earn anyone’s approval here because I already have it. LA is a city with many talented, good looking and smart people, and I always feel pushed to do more and be better. That’s not a bad thing altogether. But here, I can relax. I get rest and sleep. And I’m good with just spending hours or days without leaving the house. I’m not sure why my restless LA soul settles so much here, but I suppose because it’s just home. I know how it works, what makes people tick, and who will keep their word. And who won’t. People are not selfish and narcissistic like Los Angeles where most of us have moved to accomplish something or to become something, and thus we obsess until we gain what we have come there to earn or receive. Not many here expect to be famous, or to change the world, or to have the world bow at their feet. So we just relax and enjoy the life we have — to a greater or lesser extent. After seven years of living the other way, I’ve decided that there’s something to be said for contentment and limits. And, I think it goes without saying, Nashville is one cool town, and increasingly so.
Last fall, when I lost my full time job in LA and began dreaming and planning for the future, I decided to expand my own consulting business in public affairs, political consulting and law. Since that time, I have gained new clients, both in Los Angeles and in Nashville, and I’ve developed a small acting and film production career along the way. I have joined a “creative collective” group of talented creatives from cities across the US and London. I’m forming a partnership with another friend to develop a new PR and political consulting firm. I continue to write, blog and speak on faith, culture and spiritual topics. And yes, I’m still teaching at Pepperdine as a summer adjunct and hope to gain some new classes there or elsewhere in the near future as well. What has emerged from the challenge of this fall has been a very interesting combination of opportunities that reflect the diverse parts of me that now feel like a coherent whole. I am not rolling in the money yet, but my gut still tells me that I’m heading in the right directions.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is a stronger light on this end of the tunnel in Nashville right now, as my networks from business, church, law, and politics combine to generate more opportunities than seven years in LA can present to me. For that reason, I did not buy a return ticket to LA. I’m here in Nashville for now — and as long as I need to be to discern what is next, to seize some new opportunities, and to discover along with those who know me best how the future should look and where it should take place.
But I have a feeling I’m not done with LA — or more accurately, LA is not done with me. I’m so grateful for the good friends, the colleagues at Pepperdine, and the work I’ve enjoyed there. As my taxi drove me down Fairfax Avenue through Hollywood and to LAX to come home, I felt for the first time that LA was finally my town, and my life there … and here … is incredibly blessed.
Something is brewing that is very interesting and promising. I have a feeling it may include both places. But for now, I am at home, and it feels good.
The Second Coming of Ted Haggard
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/2074/recovering_from_rejection%3A_the_second_coming_of_ted_haggard/?page=1
Ted Haggard is in recovery, and he tells it how it is about the “Pharisees” on the Religious Right for whom grace evidently is an impossibility.
The Manhattan Declaration: My Thoughts, Part Deux
I confess that I have an antipathy … and I think for good theological and personal reasons … for anything that smacks of alliances between partisan politics and religion, and particularly the Christian Right agenda. So my first blog on the Manhattan Declaration was my initial response to the document, and my sentiments remain the same after I reviewed it again to be sure that my comments were fair. I believe they were, as the whole document is concerned with changes in the law … as well as culture and religion … to reflect these ideals.
The Manhattan Declaration can be found at:
http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/
In my rush to respond to the Declaration, I failed to point out that there is much with which I agree. Christians always should be on the side of human dignity and the sanctity of life, and too often they have not been. As historian Rodney Stark has pointed out, it was the way that Christians of the first century cared for abandoned infants, the sick and the dying that first drew many in culture to believe in Christ. Somewhere along the way, and I would argue that much is the result of the misplaced priority of Christians in the last century with law over charity, we seem to have lost our way. Christians have been quick to war, have not spoken out for the unborn and for those born, have blamed the poor rather than helping them, and have been silent on environmental destruction. This document goes a long way towards repentance for this silence and to clarify the Christian commitment to these ideals. Furthermore, its section on religious liberty is outstanding, and I share the same concerns as these signatories about the violations of the 1st amendment by government in recent years. Because some Christians have been too quick to impose their own religion in public settings, I wish that the document had confessed that Christians too often have sought legal recognition and dominance in violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, then rightly stated that too often government has disadvantaged Christians and other faiths through legal impositions in violation of the Free Exercise Clause.
The document furthermore has no mention of creation care or the environment, a clear responsibility of all those claiming the faith of the Old and New Testaments. The document says nothing about the homeless, the plight of the working poor, the 50 million Americans without health insurance, the loss of manufacturing jobs and factory jobs that take away the dignity of workers, the mentally ill who are not treated equally under law or by insurance companies when it comes to health care treatment, the continuing inequity of women in the workforce and the violence and emotional harm done to gay people (some perpetuated by the church itself by outrageously equating homosexuality with incest and polygamy ). Do those issues not qualify as “life” issues? Do they not have anything to do with the dignity of human life? One does not have to even agree with particular political platforms concerning those issues to acknowledge that they are concerns.
It is here that I find myself in most disagreement with the Declaration, and it’s not on the substance. Why does gay marriage matter more, as a matter of priority, than millions threatened by the scourge of AIDS in Africa? Why does marriage matter more than those who have no home, those who have no health insurance, or those who are the targets of hateful violence and discrimination? I am not denying that marriage is a bedrock institution of our society, and it should be preserved, but I simply can’t equate marriage to AIDS or basic fundamental rights like health care or the protection of the very earth itself.
The Declaration does acknowledge a broader range of issues than past evangelical statements including human trafficking and AIDS. I applaud this. However, these are not politically risky because they largely have been embraced by evangelicals. But there are many other evangelical and Mainline, and Catholic, Christians who believe that the environment, the poor, and the treatment of gay people also are issues about which Christians should speak clearly and unequivocally … if our interest is not in promoting a partisan agenda but rather the full range of issues that are of concern to those who believe in Jesus Christ and who honor the dignity of all life (including creation).
Many books including the book Unchristian have pointed out that our culture … and even the church’s own young people … are weary of alliances between Religion and the agenda of the Right and the Republican Party. This document does little to assure those young people, and people like me, that they really are addressing the full range of issues of concern to Christians and not a particular partisan agenda or section of evangelicalism and Catholicism. I abhor abortion too — but I also care about how we preserve the planet and treat outcast people.
I recommend the blog series by my friend and fellow blogger Tim Spivey as a healthy viewpoint somewhat different than my own. http://www.timspivey.com. I realize that all of us share many of the same common values and aspirations as Christians. I simply wish that this Declaration expressed the full array of concerns that I and many other Christians I know share.
We all may disagree on priorities and methods. My chief concern is that the gospel of grace and good news be heard, and in a culture that has experienced 30 years of attempts by Christians to dominate legal and political institutions, I think it might serve Christians well to first persuade our culture of the beauty of Jesus Christ, the appeal of living in His way, and then persuade our culture of our ideals before we turn to policy and law. There was a reason Jesus told Peter to put away the sword. Force is never the Jesus way. Love, patience, and the rejection of power are the ways of the Kingdom.
The Manhattan Declaration: My Thoughts
Some prominent Evangelicals and Roman Catholics recently signed a declaration in New York City which re-affirmed their common commitment to the sanctity of (heterosexual) marriage, the sanctify of the life of the unborn and other similar issues that mostly just add up to one thing: the agenda of the Christian Right. In fact, my first response upon reading it was, “And this is news because …?” These individuals, which included evangelicals Ron Sider (surprisingly) and Chuck Colson (no suprise there) basically restated what they have been stating for years. I wonder why they assumed that anyone would pay more attention this time, or do things any differently as a result? In fact, the Declaration doesn’t really encourage anyone to do anything at all other than sign the paper. I am still looking for what was groundbreaking other than the fact that we finally can point to a piece of paper that declares that once upon a time some evangelicals and Catholics actually met together and that they even agreed on some things.
These individual Christians certainly have a right to state their ideas in the public square, whether or not the rest of the culture assents or not. My criticism here is not of their ideas, per se, but of their assumptions and methods. I first take great issue with their assumption that this is a Christian nation, or that it ought to be. As many scholars have shown, our earliest founding fathers certainly did not view this country as a “Christian” nation in the way that evangelicals would define “Christian”, and they certainly did not believe that the tenets of Christian morality should be legislated upon everyone else — thus the reason for the 1st Amendment. Furthermore, even if we were intended to be a Christian nation, our nation today is a pluralistic, multi-cultural one of immigrants and religious diversity that the signers of this Declaration evidently struggle to comprehend or tolerate.
And it’s here that I depart with its methodology. It assumes that the affirmations of Christian morality should be enshrined in law. The problem with this assumption is that the commitment of Christians is to the gospel, not to the law or to a code of morality. Once a code of morality that is the fruit of the gospel taking hold in one’s life is enshrined in law so that it is then is a forced code of morality, even for those who do not assent to the Christian religion, then the gospel is no longer the gospel but law and a whipping stick for those who disagree. I believe that Christians should value freedom more than moral conformity, for it is only in freedom that we can choose the gospel in the first place (Gen. 1-2; Rom. 14; I Cor. 8-10).
I can say it no better than the reflections of John Stackhouse on the Declaration:
“The document seems philosophically and politically incoherent. It argues for religious liberty for Christians to dissent from views they don’t like (and this point, alas, needs increasing emphasis in America as well as here in Canada). But it also argues that these particular Christian views of abortion, euthanasia, marriage, and more should be enshrined in American law. It says nothing about the liberty of those who would dissent from those views except to assert that because these Christian views are right, they should be the law of the land. What, then, happened to religious liberty on these important matters? The document doesn’t say.
I’m conservatively prolife and have traditional Christian views of marriage also. But just because I think those views are right doesn’t entail that I believe they should be law. Deciding what ought to be law in a pluralistic, democratic society that welcomes immigrants from, and seeks to influence helpfully, countries all over the world, requires careful political theory. Indeed, it requires fundamental and detailed consideration of a variety of related subjects, including the nature and intentions of divine providence over nations, what God expects of human beings individually and corporately short of the return of Christ, what is politically feasible in a given situation, and more. There is none of that sort of thinking evident in this declaration, but rather a strong sense—common enough among conservative evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox around the world—that particular Christian convictions are simply right and therefore ought to be law.
Furthermore, America is not an officially Christian nation, but rather a Christian-majority one. So if we apply the same logic elsewhere, then Muslim-majority countries should enshrine shari’ah as their laws, since Muslims are equally convinced that shari’ah is right, and should brook no exceptions for non-Muslims. The same would go for Hindu- or Buddhist-majority countries. Then what happens then to religious liberty? Or is liberty important only if your views are correct—namely, Christian?
Others of us, however, will think that God’s will might run to greater liberty for all, greater tolerance for ambiguity and dissent, greater pluralism of belief and practice, and perhaps paradoxically therefore greater opportunity for the Gospel. For it is not clear to us that such declarations, and the outlook that prompts them, really increase non-Christian willingness to respect conservative Christian concerns, let alone to seriously entertain any proclamation of the Gospel. It certainly is not clear that they move anyone closer to prolife, pro-traditional marriage, or pro-religious liberty views.
Indeed, it’s not clear to some of us what good they do at all.”
Me either.
Glee: Anti-Christian, or Christ-Like?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1942957-1,00.html
A Subversive Thanksgiving: Giving Thanks in Scarcity
Responsive gratitude wells up within us when we are paying attention to the blessings of life. You don’t have to be particularly spiritual to do this. You just have to be mindful of life and what you’ve been given. It always could be a lot worse. It is worse for someone. There always is someone who has it a lot worse than you. But that’s just a “bottomline” responsive gratitude. Responsive gratitude also comes from the discipline of opening your eyes to the blessings all around you.
Two attitudes keep us from this kind of gratitude: the desire for more, and the decision to see yourself as a victim. First, the desire for more comes from our instinct to believe that we never have enough. Timothy Miller says in his book “How To Want What You Have” that our natural instinct is to want more. All your discontent and unhappiness in life comes from thinking that life should be “more” than it is right now. Just this past week, I’ve counseled a friend who is in his mid-thirties, he is a lawyer at a prestigious law firm in Washington, DC and he makes almost $150,000 per year. But he is scared that he isn’t where he should be in his life, that others are getting ahead, that his career isn’t taking him toward his goals. Most of our frustration with life comes down to this desire to have something more than we have: a bigger house, a better husband or wife, more money, better sex, more appreciation, a fitter body, or a better location. This desire robs us of our joy because this desire unleashes a voracious hunger in our life that becomes woven into the fabric of our existence. Our daily lives are characterized by discontent. Whatever “more” you need becomes what you are because it is all that you think about, and it leaves no room in your life for seeing the pervasive Presence and beauty of God in your life.
God has surrounded us with amazing gifts and beauty, but it takes discipline to see it. You know the feeling that you get when you hear Louis Armstrong’s song, “What a Wonderful World.”
I see trees of green, red roses too,
I see them bloom for me and you,
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white,
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night,
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow.
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know.
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
That feeling can be yours every day. The secret to happiness is never getting what you want. Drawing on the title of Miller’s book, it is wanting what you have. It is to find the beauty in everyday life: in a child’s smile, in the full moon in the sky, or in the hug of a brother or sister, the sun setting over the ocean, the view of the Channel Islands on a clear day, the satisfying meal, the roses in bloom around our building, the warm air in November, the bright blessed day, and the dark sacred night. “This is the day that The Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)
The secret to gratitude is to hear and see the beauty of God in all the universe, to find satisfaction in the company of the people already in your life, to see in ordinary things and people the sacred Presence of God, to realize that there is beauty and meaning and truth and love and mystery in the world at all times and places. It is to discover your connection to your Creator, the giver of all gifts. Good life comes down to this: to know that our God is the giver of gifts, to know that all that really matters in life is a gift to us. It really is a wonderful world. When we try to obtain what should be a gift, we go back to anxiety and frustration with the “more” that we want but can’t have.
The church of the first century opened their eyes to a world gifted by the Presence of Christ and The Spirit of God, and they became generous people. You can have the life you’ve always wanted, and it comes when you are able to trust the flow of life, accept it all as a gift, and give thanks. When you live every day surrounded by grace rather than by unfilled cravings, you will see so much more than you ever thought possible to see, and do much more than you ever thought imaginable. But it will require you to live every day a conscious recognition that your life is enough, and even when you perceive that it isn’t, your God is. So accept the life that comes to you as a gift, and when it comes, give thanks.
The second hurdle to responsive gratitude is our decision to remain a victim. Some people refuse to give thanks. They focus on their loss, their hurt, the way others have wronged them, and what life has not brought them. But that is their choice. Complaint is not natural, and neither is gratitude. Life often will hurt. But what comes next is up to you. You can respond by complaining, or by giving thanks. Those who choose to give thanks choose not to be victims. Don’t dare allow circumstances to arrest your heart. Insist on your freedom to choose your response, and choose to give thanks. It sure feels better than whining, and those around you will certainly enjoy you a lot more. The irony is that you may just receive from life or others what you were wanting when your life does not communicate need but satisfaction – and that can only come from giving thanks for what you already have.
But there is a more mature form of gratitude than just responsive gratitude. Creative gratitude does not wait for circumstances to set an agenda for you to respond with thanksgiving. Creative gratitude does not respond to the world you are given but creates new worlds. It is subversive and even threatening to the world we read about in the papers and pain-filled lives we see in the mirror because it insists on giving thanks for a world being reconciled to God and a creation being freed from its brokenness.
The Hallel Psalms were sung at Passover when the Hebrews remembered that God had freed them from slavery and brought them through the Red Sea to a promised land. In the Exodus, God miraculously changed the way it is, brought down an enslaving empire and created hope where there had been no hope. So the Psalms remind us that there we are not called just to give thanks while we are slaves, or just when things could be worse, or when there is temporary relief from what is otherwise a miserable existence. The Psalms call us to gratitude that comes from envisioning a world in which God can do impossible things, a world in which God is going to change the way it is. When the crowds on Palm Sunday repeated this Psalm as Jesus rode past them into Jerusalem, they gave thanks with these words and claimed a new world in their midst. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is The Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:26). And so our thanksgiving proclaims our gratitude for a world that is coming to be and not just for the one that is.
Amidst the ravaging plagues upon the population, Muslim invasions from the East, a corrupt church, and unstable kingdoms, the Abbott of the monastery in St. Denis in France had the audacity to construct a church with a new architectural form we call “gothic.” The Abbott was creating a church which represented his vision of heaven touching earth. It was revolutionary architecture that shaped a culture for centuries. New discoveries in science, politics and theology followed. The Gothic cathedral made the extraordinary claim that heaven had touched earth, and when people believe that, they become grateful and then become creative. Sometimes they even become subversive, as when the churches of East Germany declared their freedom in Christ, long before the Berlin Wall came down. It’s the gratitude that Christians in North Korea are claiming now, and Christianity is spreading all over the land held captive by a repressive regime. Gratitude refuses to accept the world as it is but envisions a world where God can do the impossible and will.
If you can see that in Jesus Christ, heaven has touched earth, then your heart can be filled with gratitude. Jesus is all in all, and fullness rather than depravity defines your life. Your thanksgiving refuses to honor the disappointments and needs of the present. It doesn’t take the cravings and the disappointments seriously because the present will not last. In Christ, anything can happen, because the earth is filled with the knowledge and Presence of God. Heaven and earth have met.
So when great human tragedy, natural disasters, war, illness, and unemployment invade our lives, we will not be a victim. We will insist on thanksgiving, and that opens up a whole new wonderful world to us where anything can happen. “I will give thanks to You O Lord, for Your steadfast love endures forever.” (Psalm 118:29)
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