Give Thanks To...?
Sermon by Steve Edington
November 15, 2009
As this church year got underway I said I'd be doing an occasional series of sermons on the subject of "Belief for Non-Believers." My point is that to reject some of the more traditional forms of theism, and traditional ways of believing in God, does not necessarily make one a "Non-Believer." All it means is that some of us - myself included - have different ways of believing. Given the season of the year my next installment in this series is on the subject of Thanksgiving and of giving thanks.
As this time of year approaches I've had some of my more theistic, and non-UU friends, and even at times some of my ministerial friends in other faith traditions say something to me like, "Well, Thanksgiving must be a pretty challenging time for you since you really do not have anyone to thank." It's usually meant as a good-natured joke and I usually manage to take it that way; although I have to admit it's yet another of those UU jokes I do get weary of hearing. And it's one of those jokes with an edge to it; the edge being that you're not really celebrating Thanksgiving unless you're offering prayers of thanks to a Supreme Being Giver who has purposefully bestowed your blessings upon you.
This is actually a variation on the same argument made by proponents of Intelligent Design when it comes to how the universe came into existence. The argument goes that unless there was a willful act by a Creator with a Design in mind, then there is no purpose to the universe and we're all living in a sea of meaninglessness: No meaningful Creation without a Creator; and no Thanksgiving without a purposeful God to thank.
I'm going to run with this Creator/Creation matter for a few minutes and then we'll work our way back to Thanksgiving. Whenever I hear the case made for what is called "Intelligent Design" I think back to my father's version of "How I Met Your Mother."
My father passed away long before that TV series came into existence, and it's not the kind of thing he would have watched anyway. But his story would make for an interesting episode. Unlike the backdrop for the TV series - contemporary urban America - my Dad's setting was Britain in the Second World War. I know I've done versions of this story before. I've discovered that when you speak from the same pulpit for more than two decades some of your stories do come round again. So don't stop me if you've heard this one before. The story:
Once upon a time - like 1943 - there was a sailor who'd joined the US Navy as America entered World War II. He'd never been more than 100 miles from the places he'd lived in southern West Virginia and Ohio before finding himself stationed on a Naval Base on the English Channel in the town of Plymouth. Being a devoutly religious guy the sailor wanted to maintain his devoutly religious ways by going to church whenever he could.
He was a Baptist, but there were no Baptist churches in walking distance of his base so he had to settle for second best by walking to the nearest Methodist church. (You take what you can get.) It was twilight when he entered the church for an evening service; it was pitch black when he came out. No street lights were on, no businesses could turn on their lights, and all house shades were drawn, so as not to be a target for German bombs. It left the sailor disoriented. He couldn't figure out which way to go to get back to his base.
Then he heard a woman's voice say, "I think that American sailor is lost." She was right.
The woman, whose name was Emily, approached the sailor and told him that if he wanted to walk along with her and her three daughters they could show him how to get to his base from their house which happened to be on the way. He gladly walked along with them. Before they split up, after getting to the family home, Emily decided she'd do her bit for the war effort by inviting the sailor to dinner the following Sunday. Military food being what it was he was happy to accept the offer. One dinner invite led to another and the sailor became a regular visitor at the home of Bill and Emily Northcott; and it wasn't too long before the sailor and Emily and Bill's oldest daughter - who was all of 17 years old at the time - discovered a certain attraction for each other. In August of 1944 they got married at that same Methodist church. One year later they had a son who, o f course, is telling you this story.
Even with the occasional bumps in the road, and even with the economic struggles my family knew as I was growing up (or maybe it's because of them), I have a deep sense of gratitude for the life I've known to this point. The rather modest ranch house we live in up on Vespa Lane looks like an absolute palace compared to the various places we lived as I was growing up. One of the late Forrest Church's maxims was to "want what you already have," and I try to live by that notion with a sense of gratitude.
I'm still struck as well by the rather precarious way in which my life came about. Sometimes, in my more whimsical moments, I play a little "what if" game as I think about the man who became my father standing in the dark outside that Methodist Church, far from home, some 66 years ago. What if he hadn't gone to church that night because he drew some kind of duty detail instead? What if there had been another church closer to the base that was more to his liking? What if he'd had his bearings well enough after the service that he didn't need any assistance in getting back to his base? What if Emily and her daughters hadn't gone to church that night? What if...what if...what if?
Given the way my mind works, I can take even the most whimsical of thoughts and get all theological or philosophical about them. I'm not sure whether that's a blessing or a curse; I just know that it happens. Here's where I go when I think about all those "what ifs" in light of the case for Intelligent Design. There are two possibilities here. Possibility One is that is was a purely chance encounter that put Emily Northcott, and her daughter Margery, and Gordon Edington in the same place at the same time - along with all that flowed from that encounter including the entry of yours truly into the world. Or - Possibility Two - there was some Larger Hand, or Designer, or God behind all that brought them together; because my existence had to be predicated, or based upon, some larger Intelligently Designed Plan. I happen to come firmly down on the side of Possibility One. If dear old Dad had known where he was going that night he most likely would not have been dear old Dad - at least not dear old Dad to me.
Ah, but an advocate of Possibility Two - the Intelligent Design one - would say: The very fact that you are here, and that you've had a good and meaningful life for over 64 years, and the fact that you have this marvelously constructed and working body (well, not really all that "marvelous" at this point in my life anyway) - means that it could not have all happened by chance. It's all too amazing to have just happened; you had to have been part of a larger Design with a capital 'D'. And furthermore, as this advocate of Possibility Two would go on, if there was not such greater Design or greater Plan then how could your life have any meaning? If your life is the result of just a random encounter between two people - or, to get biological about it for a moment, a random joining of a sperm and an egg - then isn't your whole existence just a random and meaningless one?
My answer is, in a word, No. I say No because it is how we live our lives and the choices we make in the course of living them that give our lives their meaning - and not whatever processes, capricious as some of them were, that brought us into existence. As noted earlier, I have a deep sense of gratitude for the life that's been given me to date. Part of that gratitude does involve being thankful that my father was in, what proved to be for me, the right place at the right time; which is all it was.
As intriguing as that story is for me, the truth is I don't dwell on it much when it comes to counting my blessings. For the real blessings are contained in what later flowed from that chance encounter. In moments when life feels especially full to me, and when I can just say, "thank you" for the life I have, that's all I need to say or feel. Who or What I'm saying "thank you" to doesn't really matter to me. I simply recognize that I am blessed by a cloud of mystery, a cloud of wonder, and sometimes a cloud of awe - which I have little control over; but in whose presence I feel nonetheless.
This all brings me back to some very wise words by the late Rev. Raymond Baughn - a UU minister of many years - that have stayed with me over the years. Here's the quote: "Giving thanks has nothing to do with who or what produced the gift. It is rather a way of perceiving our life. Even in the midst of hurt and disappointment, when we see ourselves in the universe that give us life and touches us with love, we praise." That sure works for me - thank you Raymond. My prayer of thanksgiving is my way of perceiving life - even when life hurts, wounds, disappoints, frustrates, or angers me. Thankfulness is a way of perceiving life and a way of seeing ourselves in a universe that gives us life, and in which we find love and care. That is all I feel I need to know when it come to my offering my "cosmic thank-you" as it were.
To Ray Baughn's words I add those of the 14th century German theologian and mystic, Meister Eckhart who once said, "If the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'thank you' that would suffice." Eckhart was a Dominican priest who had to endure several charges of heresy over the course of his life for maintaining that one could experience the Divine directly without intercessors - including the church. The fact that the Church of his day considered this a heresy most likely meant that Father Eckhart was speaking the truth. He was one of those persons of faith who could see beyond the particulars of his own faith to certain larger and universal truths.
"If the only prayer you say in your life is 'thank you' that would suffice." Like Rev. Baughn, Eckhart is speaking more about an attitude or stance towards living than he is the content of a prayer of thanks, or to whom it might be addressed. To simply, and profoundly, encounter one of those special moments of blessing in our lives is to offer Eckhart's prayer of Thanksgiving - even if no words are spoken.
There is one more thread of Ray Baughn's words I want to pick up on today before closing. He writes of being thankful "even in the midst of hurt and disappointment." Yes, hurt and disappointment and the pain of loss are realities we come up against as much, if not more regularly than our Thank You moments. As I, and we, live in that push/pull between Eckhart's Thank You, on the one hand, and the disappointments, frustrations, and anger to which I referred a few moments ago, there are truths that can still be held onto. I'll express them in a personal way, while knowing - and hoping - that they reach well beyond me: However I may have gotten it, I am living the only life I have, during the only time that's been given me to live it, and on the only Earth and in the only universe I have in which to live it.
What other choice do I have, what other choice do we have, than to accept these truths and live with them and say 'yes' to them? We are indeed aware of the unfinished and unhealed parts of our lives. We are also aware of the unfinished and unhealed parts of our world in which we live, especially when it comes to the persistence of war and oppression and injustice. But we must still give thanks. If ours were not a life and a world for which we can give thanks, then why would we even care about it in the first place?
We are continually called - called by that which is greater than we know and whose name we do not know - to greater levels of wholeness, both within our own lives and in the larger life of humanity and nature of which we are a part. It is, I feel, the ability to offer Eckhart's prayer that gives us the strength and the will to continue on our personal and shared journeys of faith and spirit. To say "thank you" to the whole of life - however it all came to be - and to live with graciousness and hope is to truly live a life of faith; it is to be a bearer of the abundant.
To say 'thank you' then is not to approve of all that comes your way or all that gets visited upon you - because some of that can be quite cruel at times. Rather it is to face and take all that life does give us and then, using the will, the resources, and the power of the human spirit - by drawing upon the divinity that is contained in each of us - we can become agents of transformation. We become agents of transformation for ourselves, for those with whom we are here in community, and to a world that stands in need of our love and care.
We now approach a season whose themes are thanksgiving, ingathering, and harvest. We will celebrate these things in many ways in the days ahead. I also hope we can use some portion of that time for some reflection, for some discernment, for re-commitment and re-dedication. Let us reflect, in the days ahead, on the content of our lives and of the times in which we live them; for we live in very bountiful and very troubled times all at the same time. Let us be mindful and discerning as well as to what our 'yes' and what our 'thank you' to live means in these times. We are the meaning makers, we are the bearers of life and life abundant - if we can believe it strongly enough. It is not so much who we thank but how we offer our thanks; how we offer thanks in a world that needs our energy, our spirit, our generosity, and our commitment to moving us closer to the day when earth shall be fair and all her people one.
Stephen Edington
November 15, 2009
