Isaiah 12: 1-6: You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O LORD, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, and you comforted me. Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the LORD GOD is my strength and my might; God has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the LORD, call on God’s name; make known all the deeds of God among the nations; proclaim that God’s name is exalted. Sing praises to the LORD, for God has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
I used to think that the surest way to identify someone with gratitude was to know if they wanted to give back. Now I’m beginning to think that the easiest way to know if someone is grateful is to ask them about what they plan to do in the future. I think that, most of the time, we really don’t have the ability to repay folks for what they have done and we certainly don’t have the ability to repay God. So what’s a grateful person to do? According to our prophet, Isaiah, they invest in the future from the wellspring of gratitude for the past.
Last week we talked about learning gratitude—of gaining an aptitude for gratitude. This week in our continuing series, we are looking at what an attitude of gratitude looks like to the naked eye. Plain and simple, the attitude of gratitude results in action—the action of changing the world. Now less you think that Carol has gone all “corny” as the holiday season approaches, let me tell you what I mean.
Gratitude that does not result in action is merely a mental and spiritual exercise. It is about feeling and it is about us. It is a good place to start. It is not a good place to end. Ultimately, gratitude is not about us. Gratitude is about bursting forth from that place of thankfulness to pass on the gospel of God’s radical goodness and love that we experience every time we are truly grateful. And that, my friends, is a gratitude that can’t keep quiet.
This is exactly the point of our scripture this morning. Isaiah 12 is a song of praise to God; and, more importantly, it follows Isaiah 11. After the first 10 chapters of Isaiah where he describes the judgment of God on a sinning Israel, chapter 11 describes what God’s reign of peace will look like. In Isaiah 11, God promises to raise up a new leader, most likely, the messiah. Then Isaiah describes what the reign of God’s justice under the leadership of this new leader will look like. This new reign of God will transform relationships between people and societies and the peace is described symbolically as animals who usually hate each other lie down together in peace. You know, lions and calves, wolves and lambs, cows and bears…and this change will come about because “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” The prophet knows that this change comes about through the work of God’s spirit, but that God’s people, if they are led by the spirit, can bring this change into the world through their very actions. And here is where we hear the prophet say—“At that time you will say; “I will praise you, Lord.” And concludes with, “Let all the world know what God has done. Shouth and sing for joy, those whom God loves, because Yahweh, your God, does great things before your eyes. “
Notice that Isaiah does not say, sit here and enjoy this sense of gratefulness—no, he says “Let the world know!!!” As we receive our ongoing salvation from the well of God’s grace and love with joy, we go forth to spread the news to “the whole world.” Looking forward, not backward, we seek ways to do just that. And so, as God’s people, our attitude of gratitude causes us to pay forward rather than pay back, as we look for adequate ways to say ‘thank you’ to God and to each other.
I suspect that most of you know about the book, movie, and even foundation called “Paying It Forward”. It starts with an assignment to a bunch of junior high students to figure out how to change the world. And one child, Trevor, gets it. Setting out to do good, he encourages others to do good to someone else to repay his kindness; and, in the movie, people do just that. It’s a pyramid of gratitude resulting in small kindnesses which multiply literally exponentially. It’s a simple premise—you do good to three people, each of those people does good to three people, now you are at nine; and each of those nine people do good to 3 people and, almost without trying 27 people’s lives have been impacted. We’ve almost reached the end of my multiplying talents, but you get the point.
This past week, we celebrated Veterans’ Day and as I was praying and thinking on this sermon, I began to think about how veterans paid it forward with their very lives. President John F. Kennedy said this about gratitude: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” This week as we said “thank you” to veterans and those still serving, we live those words by doing good in our own way in the world. We have a lot to learn from veterans, and teachers, and nurses, among others. All of these people pay it forward every day. Out of the veteran’s gratitude for freedom comes the courage to serve. Out of the teacher’s gratitude for knowledge and education comes the ability to lead little and not so little children on the path of learning. Out of our nurses’ gratitude for health and wholeness comes their passion for helping others regain their health.
Each of us, in our own way, pay it forward with our lives, leaving a legacy, if you will. About 2/3 of the way through my 25 year career in child welfare. I made a conscious decision to focus on the legacy that I was leaving behind me knowing that there would come a time when those who had worked for and with me would be doing the primary work. I went out of my way to find young, competent, workers to train and to, hopefully, pass on my passion for helping children and parents that was born from my own gratitude to those adults in my life who had long ago told this little girl that they cared.
We are, here together, doing the same thing, here in Open Circle. Planting a new church is the ultimate legacy leaving. We build not only for ourselves, but we build for future generations of LGBT and other marginalized people who will want and need a place to find the gospel of radical acceptance and extravagant welcome that we already experience every week. And I believe that our passion for building this church body comes from our gratitude for having found such a place. You are a generous and loving congregation—more generous and loving that I have ever experienced—you pay it forward every week. Someday this church will not be planning its first anniversary, it will be planning its twentieth. I want to pause for a moment and let that sink in—20, 30, 40 years and more from now, people, including some, at least a few, of us, will be sitting here celebrating the legacy that this very room full of people left to them. That feels sweet, indeed!
But think with me for a moment about what would happen if we decided to become more conscious and deliberate in our paying forward. Right here, right now! What if I challenge each of you to find three people or families between now and Christmas to deliberately seek out to do good with? That, in itself, will be life-changing for all of us—but here’s the thing—in order to start a movement, you must respond to their thanks with a challenge for them to pay it forward as well. As I told you my math skills are limited, but even by my rough calculations, if the cycle was repeated once every week between now and the end of the year, over 2100 people would be touched by each one of us by our first acts of gratitude. That means if most of us participate, more than 100,000 people will be touched by our initial acts of generosity between now and the dawn of 2011. Think of the power we hold in our hands. Last week, the choir sang “More love, more power, more of You in my life”. This, my friends is that love and power. And so, after praying about it, I have decided to give all of us just such a challenge. We have the power to change the lives of over 100,000 folks in the Lake, Sumter, and Marion county area! And as we share what is happening with each other, we start a revolution of gratitude right here, right now.
And so, my friends, today we put feet and hands to our gratitude. We say thank you for all that we enjoy by walking boldly forward, out of our comfort zones of quiet meditative thanksgiving into the world at large, at least our world at large right where we live. And we call each other to come along with these words: “Let all the world know what God has done!” Amen and amen.
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