Give Thanks. Enjoy Life.

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship
November 27,2010
Preliminary draft

On Thanksgiving, I had one piece of pumpkin pie. It was perfect. It was enough. I did not eat a second piece because eating a second piece would have interfered with the memory the first piece.

I had one piece. And gave thanks. Gave thanks for the perfect crust. Gave thanks for the lush filling and the hand-whipped cream.

I gave thanks for my daughter, Bonnie, who grew the pumpkins, harvested them and transformed them into perfect pies. I gave thanks for my wife, Karin, who passed on the art of pie making to her daughters.

I gave thanks for the horses who created the manure which we used to fertilize the pumpkin plants.

I gave thanks for the dairy farmers who produced the milk Bonnie used in the pie filling and produced the cream we whipped and spooned on top the pie.

I gave thanks for the Mexicans who work at the dairies in our area. Their labor keeps our milk relatively cheap.

I gave thanks for the Native Americans who taught the early immigrants to America to eat and cultivate pumpkins.

I gave thanks for the generations of Native Americans stretching back through thousands of years who cultivated pumpkins. Without the farming practices of those people, pumpkins as we know them would not exist.

Then I gave thanks for the wheat farmers who produced the wheat that was used to make the perfect crust on this perfect pumpkin pie.

I even gave thanks for the corporations that delivered sugar and salt to our local grocery store. What would pumpkin pie be without sugar and salt? And who of us could produce our own sugar and salt?

Pumpkin pie. An exquisite occasion for giving thanks—thanks to God for creating pumpkins and Native Americans, my wife and my daughter, cows and agricultural corporations, the magic of seeds and photosynthesis.

What food gave you the most powerful impetus to give thanks?

Stuffing? Cranberries? Mashed potatoes? Yams with marshmellows? Salad with avocado and grapefruit? Martinelli's?

One of the highest forms of spiritual life is discerning the benevolent hand of God in the down-to-earth realities of life. When we receive good things as gifts, it is natural to give thanks to the giver. The more vividly we discern the benevolence of God, the kindness and generosity of God in the good things of life, the richer will be our joy.

This is one of the benefits God has in mind for us when he calls us to give thanks.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.
Psalm 107:1 and Psalm 118:1; 29

Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.
Psalm 105:1-2

When we obey the command to give thanks, we experience joy. In fact, giving thanks is one of the most potent sources of joy and happiness available to people. Thanking people for their kindness to us causes us to enjoy even more their kindness.

Thanking God for his kindness to us intensifies the pleasure his gifts bring into our lives.

So, give thanks to the Lord. . . . tell of all his wonderful acts.



The message about God's presence in the goodness that touches our lives is one of the central messages of the Bible.

One of the few stories about Jesus that is reported in all four gospels is the feeding of the 5000.

Jesus has headed out of town hoping for some quiet time away from the crowds, but the “bush telegraph” works too well. About the time Jesus and his disciples arrive for their time of retreat, the crowds show up. Jesus shelves his plans and turns his attention to needs of the people. He heals many. Preaches. The people are enthralled. They lose track of time. As sundown nears, Jesus talks to his disciples about dinner. What are we going to do for all these people?

The disciples have different strategies: send the people out to villages in the area so they can buy some food. Send some of the disciples go to the villages to buy food and have it carried back to the venue. Panic was an obvious option. There are 5000 hungry men there. The fact is there is no obvious workable solution.

Even if the disciples went into the nearby towns, could they possibly rustle up enough food for this crowd? Could they find people willing and able to do the transportation to bring sufficient food out from the villages? Not likely.

Jesus tells the disciples not to send the people out on their own. He's worried they might faint from hunger on the road.

Andrew speaks up and says, “I have found a young man who has five loaves and two fish.”

Let's see: Five thousand men. Five loaves. A thousand men per loaf. That was not likely to do much good. For Jesus it was enough.

He had the disciples seat the people in groups. Then Jesus gave thanks, broke the bread and had the disciples distribute it. He did the same with the fish. And all five thousand ate and were satisfied. They were stuffed to the gills.

Note: Jesus starts with a boy's lunch. Gives thanks to God for the food. Then feeds 5000.

I'm sure that Jesus and Andrew thanked the kid for his lunch. But what is mentioned in the story is that Jesus gave thanks to God.

Jesus had extraordinary vision. When he looked at that kid's lunch he saw God's provision for feeding 5000. And gave thanks.

When we eat the world's best pumpkin pie, it's a fairly natural instinct to give thanks to the person close at hand who created that masterpiece. It takes a more discerning eye to see that the skill and affection of that person are an expression of the creative intention and affection of God.

The foundation of our faith is the belief that God is the creator. Life flows from the intention and purpose of God.

When the Jewish people were rescued from slavery in Egypt and given the privilege of their own homeland in Palestine, God gave them very specific rituals to help them remember that the bounty of their harvests depended on God's benevolence as well as the skill and hard work of the farmer.

When the harvest was gathered in, the people were to take the first portion of the harvest and dedicate to God as a reminder of his involvement in their harvest. Now, it's important to recognize that to an unenlightened observer, God was completely invisible. Undetectable. If you were a plant scientist working in the days of Joshua, you would not be able to design and experiment to show that God was involved in Jewish agriculture. As Jesus reminded us: God sends his rain on the just and the unjust. God pours his creative power indiscriminately into our world.

God's benevolence is to human existence what water is to a fish. It is the reality we swim in, the reality we see in, the reality we breathe in. It is so much with us that we can miss it, unless we are looking specially for it.

Giving thanks is one of the most important ways we cultivate the ability to discern God's favor, God's benevolence and favor.

When we eat. Before we take the calories into our stomach, we pause to receive God's grace in our hearts. We give thanks for the food.

Maybe it's McDonald's take out.

Maybe it's world-class, home-made pumpkin pie.

Maybe it's a peanut butter sandwich we brought with us for lunch.

Whatever it is, we pause and for a moment focus on the grace God is pouring into our lives with this food. And the meal becomes an occasion of worship. The act of saying thanks for our food transforms the biological act of acquiring calories into a spiritual practice that opens us to God's presence and favor.


A couple of other points.

Giving thanks is a powerful statement to our own hearts that we have enough. And since we have enough, we move from hungering for what we do not have to savoring, to enjoying, to treasuring what we do have.

One piece of pumpkin pie fully savored brings more pleasure than a dozen pieces of pie eaten hurriedly or absent-mindedly. To fully picture the contrast, imagine the experience of people who participate in food-eating contests. How much pleasure does eating give to a person who is competing to see how many hot dogs or watermelons or pieces of pizza he can eat in five minutes?

Now imagine slowly eating a small bowl of ice cream sitting in the shade on a hot summer afternoon with a dear friend?

Which is a picture of heavenly pleasure? Which can teach us more about the presence and intentions of God? Which whispers to us of the eternal pleasures God has in mind for his people?

Gratitude is the ultimate protection against addiction. In addiction we pursue pleasure. In gratitude, we enjoy pleasure. To put it bluntly: gratitude is more fun. Vastly more fun. It is richer, sweeter, deeper, more exquisitely good.

Giving thanks can rescue us from the tyranny of greed, the restless drive for more. Of course, there is a place for striving to earn money, to build our retirement funds, to save for college or a down payment for a house. There is effort in caring for a garden that will produce a rich harvest. God blesses our efforts. We were made to strive and work.

And we were made to stop. To rest. To enjoy. To savor. To sit back and say, “It is enough. Thank you.”

“It is enough. I have enough.” These phrases describe one of the most blessed conditions of life. And learning to say thank you is one of the most powerful aids God has given us for entering that experience.

So, I join the psalmist in inviting you, “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good.”