Give Thanks: God's Love Endures Forever

We're having a great time in our September/October Study, "The Whole Shebang." I'm sorry for everyone that's missing out on the fun; there are about forty people here who are learning new stuff, making new friends, and getting all excited about all kinds of things that those of you who have been missing out can only guess at. You can still come Tuesday night, as we romp through the New Testament in a single evening.

Last week we stormed through half the Old Testament in an hour and a half, lingering at some of the juicy bits, but getting an overall picture of what the whole thing is about. And what most people soon discover is that it isn't about what you think it might be about.

Get a load of this: The standard religious answers as to why good people sometimes suffer, answers you'll hear from many a pulpit even today, are a load of hot air (Job); It is perfectly all right to be impatient with, get mad at, and even yell at God, who is big enough to take it, and who would far rather have us be honest than pious (Psalms); for a good time on a Friday night, check out that lady whose husband is away on business - but be ready for your life to spiral into misery as a result (Proverbs); much of life is meaningless, and Old Age might be an honour, but is no picnic (Ecclesiastes); finally, our sexuality is a wonderful gift of God, and our bodies are meant to be celebrated and enjoyed (Song of Songs).

And all that is just five books!

And this morning I want to look at one of those books, and the way in which faith and frustration, praise and pain are intermingled; I want to look at how a practise of thankfulness can be transformational, and can bring us beyond our present circumstances into a place of peace and gratitude.

In preparation for The Whole Shebang last Tuesday, I read quickly through the latter half of the Old Testament, including the Psalms. There are 150 Psalms, and a quick reading, while not doing justice to the profundity of the content, does give us an overview of the flow of the Psalter in ways that a smaller daily dose cannot.

And I was particularly struck by a cluster of Psalms found near the end of the Psalter; specifically, Psalms 136, a litany of thanksgiving which we used responsively earlier on; Psalm 137, a Psalm of grief, anger, vengeance and despair; and Psalm 138, a Psalm of thankful determination.

Let me give you a bit of an idea of what is going on in these Psalms. First, a little history: After the glorious reign of King David and his son Solomon, about 1000 BC, the nation of Israel was split by civil war, and national life went downhill fast.

The northern part of the Kingdom was eventually conquered by the Assyrians, who put much of the populace to the sword, and the southern Kingdom fell to the Babylonians shortly thereafter. These wars were as brutal as you might imagine them to be, and the Babylonians took most of the survivors and either sold them into slavery or deported them far from their native country, where they were unlikely to make trouble.

These deportees are the authors of our Psalms from this morning. Still shell-shocked; still mourning the loss of children, family, home, livelihood, friends; still seventh-class citizens in a strange land. And they manage to sing a song of thanksgiving. Listen again (Psalms 136:1-9):

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. O give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.

O give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever; who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever; who by understanding made the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever; who spread out the earth on the waters, for his steadfast love endures forever; who made the great lights, for his steadfast love endures forever; the sun to rule over the day, for his steadfast love endures forever; the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever...

You see, even in Babylon, one can look to the heavens, to the earth, to the sun, moon and stars, and still praise God for Creation, and for the steadfast, enduring love Creation reflects. To be thankful, you can look around.

No matter your circumstances - and it didn't get much worse than the circumstances in which the Hebrew people found themselves in Babylon - you can still look around, look up, look down, and remember God's love, and find a place to be thankful.

But they did more than look around; listen (Psalms 136:10-14): Who brought Israel out from among Egypt, for his steadfast love endures forever; with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures forever; who divided the Red Sea in two, for his steadfast love endures forever; and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for his steadfast love endures forever...

They didn't just look around, they looked back. They looked back to the last time they were in such a spot - slaves not in Babylon, but in Egypt - and they remembered God's faithfulness and deliverance then, and they were thankful.

Despite the misery of their present circumstances - and again, it didn't get much worse than their present circumstances - they were still able to look back, to look back to times of former blessing, and remember God's love, and find a place to be thankful.

And it made everything all right! No it didn't. You see, this is where the Bible fools us. We think the Bible is going to fall into that easy answer, Suzy Sunshine, tomorrow's another happy day kind of claptrap, but the Bible is way too true, way too honest to do that. No, right after this glorious Psalm of thanksgiving, look what we get (Psalms 137 NIV):

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy. O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us-- he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

Not much in the way of thanksgiving here. Not much in the way of anything other than heartbreak, bitterness, vengeance, despair. "Cheer up," say the Babylonians. "Give us a song." And it isn't a happy song they get. Instead, the Hebrews hang their harps on the wall, bury their heads in their hands, and weep, and curse. "I hope that someone does to you what you did to us," they say. "I hope someone takes your children and dashes them against the rocks," they spit out.

And then they weep some more.
Because sometimes that's all we can do. Sometimes we are so overwhelmed by the miseries of our circumstance, weeping and cursing is all we can manage. Sometimes vengeance overwhelms us, and fills our hearts with darkness. Sometimes that's real life, too. Sometimes we want to kick Suzy Sunshine right in the teeth.

And God recognises that. And so, right next to a Psalm of thanksgiving, we find a psalm as far removed from thankfulness as it is possible to be. Because sometimes weeping and cursing is the best prayer we can manage. But that's a prayer too. And that's sometimes how we need to pray. And God hears those prayers as well. Because God's love endures forever.

But the Psalms don't leave us there. For coming next, coming right after the bitterness and despair, is this (Psalms 138 NRSV):

I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness; for you have exalted your name and your word above everything. On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul... Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies; you stretch out your hand, and your right hand delivers me. The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.

See? Things are all better now! Everything has worked out just fine! No, it hasn't. Things haven't changed one little bit. The Psalmist is still in Babylon. The Psalm is still being sung from captivity. "Before the gods - these foreign gods - I sing your praise… I bow down toward - not in, but toward - your holy Temple… though I walk in the midst of trouble - present tense, right now… the Lord will - future tense - will, someday; will, somehow; will, someway; fulfil his purpose for me… Do not forsake the work of your hands. You made me, O God. Don't forget me. Your love endures forever."

Despite all this, O Lord, your love endures forever. I look forward to that love manifesting itself in my life again. I look forward. I look ahead.

Do you see how these Psalms all work together? Do you see how honest they are? Do you see how they are not fooled by easy answers? The Psalmist, in the midst of crippling difficulty, looks around at creation, and sees the enduring love of God.

The Psalmist, in the midst of trouble, looks back, and sees the evidence of God's love in the past. The Psalmist, in the midst of pain, looks around and is overwhelmed by the despairing nature of the current circumstances, is filled with bitterness and despair. But then, lest despair and vengeance overcome all, the Psalmist looks towards the future, and finds again a cause for thanksgiving, as God gives strength:

I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me… The LORD will fulfil his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.

You see, thanking God for the blessings we enjoy is a kind of thankfulness we might wish to call Gratitude. Thanking God for what God has yet to do, in the midst of our present dire circumstances, is called Faith. And faithful thanksgiving can bring us out of despair, and into something new.

Because thanksgiving is a transformative thing. When we're thankful for all that has happened in the past, it enables us to better appreciate our present.

And when we're thankful for all that shall happen in the future - thanking God in advance - it can transform despair into hope, worry into calm, anxiety into peace. I think of a prayer prayed by a friend of mine when he discovered he had cancer: "God, I'm not thankful for this disease. I'm not thankful for the things that have brought it upon me. But I am thankful that when I wake up tomorrow, you will still be with me, your love will still surround me, and in your love, I can carry on another day. And I'm thankful that when the day comes that I don't wake up, you will still be with me, your love will still surround me, and in your love, I will carry on forever." Thanksgiving is transformative - it can transform despair into hope, worry into calm, anxiety into peace.

The Apostle Paul lived some pretty hard days. He was filled with the regret of having done some horrible things, and bringing suffering on the innocent.
He was isolated from friends and family.
He was mistrusted by those he sought to serve.
He suffered physical ailments which crippled him at times nearly beyond his ability to cope.
He was repeatedly arrested; beaten near to death more than once; imprisoned; locked in chains; attacked by mobs; betrayed by friends. But he knew two things: he knew the Psalms, and he knew Jesus.
He knew the transformative power of gratitude and faith, and he knew God's unshakeable, unending, eternal, enduring love in Jesus Christ, about which he said (Romans 8:38-39 NRSV):

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is this same Paul who asked us to remember, in the midst of all our times, good and bad, this advice (Philippians 4:4-7):

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

May God bless us, as we are thankful for what God has done, does, and will continue to do, for his children and for his world. Amen.