2 Corinthians 9:6-15                                                                     Thanksgiving Eve 2008                                                                                                          11/26/2008

Although many countries and cultures have some type of ceremony for celebrating their blessings, no one celebrates Thanksgiving quite the way we do in the U.S. And for good reason. Few people on earth have as much for which to be thankful.

Nightline host Ted Koppel emigrated to the U.S. from England in his early teen years. The Koppels were originally from Germany, but moved to England at the start of World War II. They had lived through food rationing, and had known the scarcity and desperation that accompanies war. So a few years later, when young Ted heard a jingle on the radio about an antacid that could heal the pain of overeating, he began to cry. He couldn’t imagine that he now lived in a country, the U.S., where people had problems with eating and drinking too much. He knew that in his native country, there were still people scrambling to get enough food to feed their families.  We have so much. Newcomers to this country are more conscious of our blessings than many of us are who take them for granted, as Ted Koppel shows us.

For most of us, of course, our Thanksgiving holiday lasts longer than one day; theoretically, it can last as long as there are still leftovers in the fridge. A memorable pun says: “If someone is addicted to eating Thanksgiving leftovers, can he quit cold turkey?”

I have nothing against turkey--and all the good stuff that goes along with it--but that’s not our central focus on Thanksgiving Day, at least not in theory.

Contrary to all the sales flyers that were stuffed into your paper this past Sunday, Thanksgiving is not about shopping either. Over the next few weeks, advertisers will spend billions of dollars trying to convince us that our holidays won’t be complete unless we buy their product, be it applesauce, power tools, or pantyhose. It is amazing to contemplate how much money, resources, and effort will be invested into making us feel discontented with our lives.  We can easily become cynical about the holidays if we focus too much on the commercial aspects.

A stranger to our culture could fall victim to some absurd ideas about the meaning of our holidays. Thanksgiving is about far more than eating turkey, watching football or getting a head start on your Christmas shopping.

St. Paul knew about Thanksgiving even though he did not live in a culture that celebrated it. Paul was continually giving thanks. He had an attitude of gratitude. But Paul did not believe that gratitude was a solitary attribute for the believer. Gratitude is to be linked to caring for others. If God has blessed us, then we should seek to be a blessing to others. In our lesson from the Epistle, he is writing to the believers in the church at Corinth, asking them to take up a collection to give to their poorer brothers and sisters in Macedonia. He knows that the Corinthians want to hang on to their money just as much as we do today. So in order to “sell” his plan, he reminds them of the blessings God has poured out on them.

Eugene H. Peterson, in his free-flowing translation of the Bible titled The Message, translates Second Corinthians 9: 6-15 like this, “Remember: A stingy planter gets a stingy crop; a lavish planter gets a lavish crop. I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.”

“God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. As one psalmist puts it, ‘He throws caution to the winds, giving to the needy in reckless abandon. His right-living, right-giving ways never run out, never wear out.’

And again from our Corinthians text just read: “This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God. Carrying out this social relief work involves far more than helping meet the bare needs of poor Christians. It also produces abundant and bountiful thanksgivings to God. This relief offering is a prod to live at your very best, showing your gratitude to God by being openly obedient to the plain meaning of the Message of Christ. You show your gratitude through your generous offerings to your needy brothers and sisters, and really toward everyone. Meanwhile, moved by the extravagance of God in your lives, they’ll respond by praying for you in passionate intercession for whatever you need. Thank God for this gift, his gift. No language can praise it enough!”

This is quite a remarkable passage of Scripture. What it says is that gratitude and generosity feed on each other. Find a person who is truly grateful and you will find a person who is generous. Find a person who is generous and you will find a person who is grateful.  This is to say that thanksgiving is a constantly renewable resource. Thanksgiving produces generosity. Generosity brings a sense of abundance into our lives, which increases our gratitude.

We’re used to thinking in terms of scarcity, not abundance. There’s never enough to go around. News reports warn us that if we don’t exercise careful stewardship of our natural resources, we’re going to run out of clean water, food, oil, land, etc. Many of us are haunted by the fear that we are just a few paychecks away from falling through the cracks. We’re more conscious of our scarcity than our abundance. There’s never enough time to get everything done, never enough money to make us feel truly secure, never enough love for us to get our fill. You’ve got to hold on to what you have.  But this is only one perspective.  There is another.

Just as the season of Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate our abundance, the spirit of Thanksgiving creates in us an abundance mind set. When we focus on the positives in our life, we feel thankful. The more thankful we feel, the more joyful we feel. And joy is contagious. It overflows. We want to share it with others.

Consider how this story demonstrates that thanksgiving reaches completion when we share our blessings with others. Earlier, we talked about how joy is contagious; it has to be passed on to others. When we share our blessings, we create thankfulness and joy in other people. And those people praise God for our obedience, and they pray God’s blessings on our lives. And God blesses us in response to their prayers. And the thankfulness and joy start all over again.  Here’s the story:

When Amanda was just a child, she dreamed of owning a brand-new purple bicycle. She worked at odd jobs and saved up every penny in order to buy herself the perfect purple bicycle. And every night she prayed for that purple bicycle. But one day, Amanda’s Sunday School teacher told the class about a missionary’s son in Chile who had contracted hepatitis. The teacher wanted the class to buy the boy something to cheer him up. The children voted to buy the missionary’s son a bicycle. Amanda’s little heart broke at the thought of giving up her bicycle money, but she knew that the missionary’s son needed it more than she did. So she gave every hard-earned dollar to the Sunday School teacher. Years later, Amanda fell in love with a college classmate named Phillip. Amanda’s and Phillip’s families came together for a big dinner to celebrate their children’s engagement. At the family dinner, Phillip’s parents shared stories from their years serving as missionaries overseas. One of their hardest times, they recalled, was when the whole family fell ill while serving in Chile. Phillip had contracted hepatitis, and he was the sickest of the bunch. What joy he experienced when he received a brand-new bicycle from the generous kids back in the U.S.! Amanda cried as she realized that her sacrifice of her bicycle money had gone to bless the life of her future husband.

Who knows the effect your thankfulness and subsequent giving will have on the lives of others?  Or on you!  God set up this remarkable system of joy and blessings, gratitude and generosity, giving and receiving and then God backs it up with a lifetime guarantee. Gratitude and generosity feed on one another. Give out of gratitude and your sense of gratitude will continue to grow. It’s an important and time-tested principle of Christian living. No wonder Paul wrote, “Thank God for this gift, his gift. No language can praise it enough!” Jump start the joy cycle in your life today by identifying, counting, remembering, recalling God’s blessings to you and then  looking for ways to share your blessings with others.