Psalm 118:1-6, 15-17
“Giving Thanks in Uncertain Times”
by: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, Soddy Daisy, TN www.graceumcsd.org
It’s just about time for the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and my favorite—pumpkin pie.
Most of us will be celebrating Thanksgiving this Thursday, but this year our outlook may be a bit different than in year’s past.
This year our world is different.
Just this week the jobless rate has surged to a 16-year high, and experts predict that the job market will get worse.
The unemployment rate rose to 6.5% last month.
Citigroup (a Fortune 500 company) slashed 20% of its workforce this past week.
It’s the biggest cut by a corporation in 15 years.
And millions of jobs are at stake—as many as 3 million jobs as the struggling auto industry deals with the weakest sales pace in 25 years.
Automakers GM, Ford, and Chrysler employ hundreds of thousands of well-paid workers and support far more retirees and their families with health care and other benefits.
In addition, dozens of suppliers and thousands of dealerships depend on the BIG THREE.
David Cole, Chairman of the Center for Automotive Research was quoted this week as saying: “The likelihood of one or two of the Detroit Three Manufacturers ending operations is very real.”
I was in a store where they had a cable news network on the t-v a few days ago, and they were doing a story on how the suicide rate has gone up in Detroit as a result of the stress, pressure, and hopelessness that folks up there are feeling due to these predictions and conditions.
I was having a conversation with a woman at Panera Bread Company this past Wednesday morning.
She was telling me that her husband passed away, she lost her home to foreclosure, and was fired from her job—all in one month.
She said she felt like “Job.”
There are thousands of foreclosures happening right now to persons who can’t make their monthly payments because they have lost their jobs.
According to expert, Kathleen Engel, “None of the federal or bank programs will provide any relief [for these folks] at all…They can’t afford their mortgages on any terms.”
Some estimates say another 2 million families could lose their homes to foreclosure in the next two years.
Yes, this year our world is a bit different.
I think the entire world is a bit depressed, and maybe more than just a bit!
For one thing, from talking with my colleagues at other churches, church attendance across the board is down.
And I think it’s because people are depressed and stressed.
Stress saps your strength.
It zaps your motivation.
It makes it harder to get out of bed in the morning.
But when we stay in bed; when we detach ourselves, isolate ourselves from other people and from God—our depression only gets worse.
The only cure for this kind of depression and stress is a continued faithfulness and hope in God’s love for us!
Jesus is the only answer to this world’s problems.
Because at the core, this kind of worry, despair, stress, and depression are spiritual problems.
Yes, things have changed this year but God has not!
And this is one thing…the greatest thing we have to be thankful for!!!
The Psalmist declares: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever!”
If we can give thanks to God during both the good times and the bad, then we will most certainly overcome any and all difficulties this life can dish out!
For God’s love for you; God’s love for me endures forever!!!
The financial mess will not be with us forever—certainly not into eternity.
But God will be with us—through it all!!!
The Psalmist continues: “Let Israel say: ‘His love endures forever.’
Let the house of Aaron say: ‘His love endures forever.’
Let those who fear the Lord say: ‘His love endures forever.’
In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free.
The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?”
As Christians, you and I are part of something which is much larger than ourselves.
It is Christ’s Body—the Church!!!
This gives our lives hope and meaning.
Locally, we are anchored by the local church which calls itself Grace United Methodist.
We have friends here—folks who are nearly as close as family.
We also have a vision and a high calling to make followers of Jesus Christ in order to change the world.
This is the privilege and responsibility of each and every one of us.
And when we become ‘caught up’ in this high calling the things of this world become ‘strangely dim’ in comparison!
We no longer have to worry about keeping up with the Jones’ because we are now praying for the Jones’, routing for the Jones’, and experiencing the liberating freedom that comes through giving one’s entire life to God!
Again, in verse 5 of our Psalm, the Psalmist declares: “In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free.”
And I think many of us can relate to this.
For at one time, all of us were dead in our transgressions and sins.
At one time all of us were lost and confused.
At one time all of us were living lives without hope…without reason to be thankful.
Because when we were dead in our transgressions and sins…
…when we were literally slaves to sin…
…in bondage to sin…
…chained up by sin…
…there was nothing but anguish and pain within our souls.
And sin comes in all kinds of forms.
It can come in the form of not being able to control our tempers…
…and thus hurting ourselves and those around us.
It can come in the form of disobeying our parents, or treating others as if they were not worth the time of day.
It can come in the form of being angry at the world.
I can remember as a teenager actually being angry at my parents for having brought me into this world in the first place.
I was mad because I didn’t fit in.
I was mad because, when I tried to do things my way…according to my playbook I would inevitably fall on my face.
What a painful way to live…what anguish!
And then so many of us turn to drugs and alcohol in order to try and shut the pain of the world out, but this only leads to more pain as we become more and more entrenched by the slavery to sin.
The more we try to fix things according to the rules of the world, and according to the ruler of this world—the more anguish we experience.
But when we call out to the Lord in the midst of our anguish…
…when we honestly call out to God…
…and hand God the reigns…
…God answers by setting us free!!!
You remember, Humpty Dumpty?
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again—but Jesus can!!!
Yes, the whole world has changed drastically since last Thanksgiving, but that change pales in comparison to the changes that take place in a person’s life when they cry out to the Lord for salvation!
In Macon, Georgia, where I was associate pastor of Forrest Hills United Methodist Church, Jeanne and I knew a young man who was dying of AIDS.
His name was John.
And one day, John entered the hospital.
He had grown so weak, and so frail…
…and when I would go to visit him he was completely unresponsive.
We all thought he had gone into a coma, and that he was about to die any day.
But there was a woman in our church who had taken a special liking to John.
She treated him as if he were her son.
And since John’s family had abandoned him, this was exactly what John needed.
This woman would go to that hospital every day…several times a day…in order to sit with John, talk with John, and read to John from the Bible.
One afternoon, this woman came running up to me—her face filled with joy—“John spoke to me today; I think he might be getting better!!!”
And she was right.
John was getting better.
John hadn’t been in a coma at all.
John had just become so depressed that he had simply given up.
But the love of Jesus—shining through this wonderful woman of God had given John a new hope and a reason to live.
I believe that our community, our city and our world is filled with people like John.
People are living in a metaphorical coma because they are so depressed—they have given up all hope.
How can we best share the hope and love of God with them, so that they will be resurrected back to life?
The next time I visited John in the hospital, he told me that he had decided that he wanted to give his life to the Lord.
He had tried in the past, but those attempts had only been half-hearted empty words.
This time John meant it for real!
So in his anguish, John cried out to the Lord, and the Lord answered John.
Soon John was up and around again.
He was eating, and best of all—he was smiling!
It only took a month or so for John to gain his weight and his strength back.
And it took even less time than that for John to join Forest Hills United Methodist Church by profession of faith!
John got involved in Sunday school, and Bible study.
He didn’t own a Bible so I bought him one, and he read it incessantly.
John had been set free, and had been given a real reason to be thankful to the Lord!!!
In verse 6, the Psalmist writes: “The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
When we are assured, through the experience of faith, that the Lord is with us we no longer have reason to be afraid.
In these turbulent and uncertain times, this is truly something to cherish and something to be thankful for!!!
Yes, the world has changed.
The fact that so many have lost jobs is not good.
The fact that, for many of us, it takes all our paycheck just to put food on the table and gas in the car is not re-assuring.
Many have begun to feel a new kind of fear…
…a feeling that, for many, is something we have never felt before.
But rejoice!
God is good and God’s love lasts forever!
And because of this, as the Psalmist says, we “will proclaim what the Lord has done.”
We will give thanks in uncertain times!
What a testimony.
What a witness.
This may very well be the best Thanksgiving ever, for those of us who believe, simply because we will be giving thanks to the Lord!!!
May it be so.
Amen.
