CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA)

Rev. Dr. Thomas J. Boone PhD.

November 25, 2007

SERMON TITLE: “Thanks for What Really Matters”

Jeremiah 23: 1-6

Colossians 1: 11-20

“Glory be to God for dappled things.” Thus begins Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “Pied Beauty,” praising God for imperfection. “All things counter, original, spare, strange; whatever is fickle, freckled...Praise him.” Come to think of it, nature’s probably at its most amusing when it’s dappled. A male ostrich will try to attract the attention of a female ostrich by flapping his wings and moving his long neck from side to side. It’s a dappled and hilarious thing to watch. And who hasn’t laughed when seeing a small blowfish expand into a basketball-sized ball looking like it had eaten a Thanksgiving day turkey in one swallow? Dappled things in nature show off God’s humor, and when things are humorous praising God isn’t difficult.

A few weeks ago I was going through some pictures of Carrie when she was a baby and toddler. Maybe you have some pictures just like these and can relate. There’s the picture with her staring down at something with great intensity, yet she has a Christmas present bow on her head. Then there’s the picture of her in diapers proudly standing next to her new plastic kitchen set but what makes the picture funny is that she’s wearing my black baseball cap that’s way too big for her head. There are plenty of others and if she knew I was sharing them with you she’d glare at me. My point though is that when I look at those pictures I praise God for those funny dappled moments.

As we come off the Thanksgiving break what did you praise God for this year? I couldn’t contain myself just to one thing so this year I mentioned three: I praised God that my mom survived her kidney transplant, that Carrie is in Mobile, and that I completed my Ph.D. Again, I ask, what are you thankful for this year?

It’s good to praise God for the good things in life. But, I wonder if you, like me, noticed anything missing from the list? Most of our lists probably didn’t include the dappled things, the things we had to endure. Was God not involved in the times that were neither fun nor funny? There were likely moments this year that we wish never to be repeated, why didn’t we thank God for these?

The passage from Colossians challenges us to praise God not just for the good moments, but even in the dappled ones. Paul writes, “endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the authority of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1:12-13). There’s a lot to unpack in these two verses.

First, Paul’s not talking about giving thanks during times of ease and when merriment flows through a room like water through a funnel. He says “endure,” and we don’t have to endure the good times. It’s the dappled times that Paul’s describing here. And while we’re enduring them we’re supposed to do so with patience and thanksgiving defined by joy.

Now, think back to your thanksgivings to God this holiday. What would it have been like for you to thank God for those dappled moments? That person at work whose your constant Judas or Yeltsin. That family member whose struggle with sinful behavior has brought heartache to the family this year. That news that the cancer, which was in remission, has returned and this time it may very well claim your life or the life of someone you love. The mistake you made with your spouse which may have cost you more chips than you have as you watch your marriage die on the vine.

I had a visit with an angel the other day. Yes, I believe in angels and I believe they are in disguise sometimes. I’ve never met one until this day though. He was by himself at a restaurant and going to sit down at a table and my friend invited him to sit with us so he wouldn’t have to sit alone. Turns out that he was a Christian, a member of an Anglican church and our conversation quickly turned from the shallow and cursory stuff to the deeper stuff that strangers seldom get a chance to explore together. We talked about Calvinism and Scottish Presbyterianism, spiritual gifts, covenant theology, and then the conversation became pointed for me.

I don’t know how we ended up talking about it, but this stranger said something that made me cringe in revolt. “God’s word says we are to thank God for everything.” Time out. “That’s not quite what it says,” I responded. Paul writes that we are to thank God in everything not for it. He looked at me and said, “What’s the difference really?” As a Bible scholar I’m trained to think about the minutia, those small words like “for” and “in” and know the difference between thanking God for something versus thanking God in something. My friend witnessed me move from the mind to the heart as I thought about the experiences I’ve had personally and those I’ve witnessed as a pastor in other’s lives for which I would never dream of thanking God. I think of the sixth grade boy whose drug addicted father was killed in Prichard and his mother’s death is the reason his father chose drugs in the first place. Thank God for that? I protested with this angel in disguise.

I think of the parents who were driving their kids to visit friends over a vacation. A truck driver who was drunk not only put an end to their vacation, but far worse to the life of their teenage son. Thank God for that? I protested with this angel in disguise. I think of my first trauma counseling call when I was in seminary. It was 10 PM when one of the youth in my charge called me about his friend who was in the hospital. I went and saw for the first time what a face looked like after it had been beaten in with a baseball bat by an abusive father angry that his son had come home late. Thank God for that? I protested with this angel in disguise.

Unjust and cruel things that happen in life, and anger, not joyful thanksgiving seems to be the most natural way to respond. Its not that we blame God for the injustice and cruelty. Rather, we know that we live in a fallen world and the cruelty that we visit on each other must break God’s heart far more than it breaks our own. But, this is precisely the stuff he’s talking about in Colossians, and he charges us to “endure everything.”

And not only are we to endure it we’re to do so with patience and joyful thanksgiving. Humans can endure most anything. We can put up the walls around our hearts and guard ourselves. But, the challenge here is that we’re supposed to endure with patience and joyful thanksgiving. Therein lies the struggle. How is it possible to thank God with joy while life’s not-so-humorous dappled things happen? Why would we want to?

What God did through my encounter with his angel-in-disguise was to force me reflect on my faith in light of something that C.S. Lewis wrote, “We are far too easily pleased” (The Weight of Glory, 2). What he means is that we settle for the vain things when what should really please us are the eternal things. Praise isn’t something we add to our faith, and it’s not some by-product of our worship and experience. Rather, it’s the essence of our faith. We praise God, we delight in Jesus, not because of anything we’ve experienced, but simply because God’s worthy of delight and praise.

When Paul was in prison in Rome he wrote, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). He didn’t view his imprisonment as the unjust act of a careless God. His faith had matured to the point where he could see that some way, some how Jesus would be exalted through Paul on account of what was happening to him. He thanked God for what he was enduring not because he celebrated martyrdom, but because God’s exaltation over death had become Paul’s constant reality and anything of death wasn’t enough to knock God down.

John Piper writes “Nothing makes God more supreme and more central than when people are utterly persuaded that nothing—not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends—is going to bring satisfaction to their aching hearts before God” (The Dangerous Duty of Delight, 57). How else will we be able to know for sure whether or not our praise of God, comes from being pleased by earthly things or if it comes because of who God is, if God didn’t allow our lives to be marauded by dappled things? How else would we know that the true source of our praise, joy, and thanksgiving is beyond anything this world supplies?

I have to admit to you, with great humility, that I still wrestle with this. I admit this so you know that just because I’m preaching about it doesn’t mean it comes easy. I’ve not yet reached that point in my faith journey when I can stare down into the belly of pain and thank God for it. Endure it, yes. Endure it with patience, most of the time yes. But praise God through it with joyful thanksgiving? Not yet. But this I do know. I can see the point of God letting the dappled things invading my universe.

If God only allowed us to have lollipops in life we’d never know the value of one, and we’d certainly underestimate the value of the Giver. If God didn’t let us taste the sting of death and sin, then we’d not ever learn that He’s defeated these things. If life were always safe, then we’d never value His victory over that which would destroy us. Paul writes, “He has rescued us from the authority of death.” Perhaps your translation reads “power” of death, and the Greek word here can mean power. But it’s the type of power that’s authoritative. Death and sin not only had power before Christ, it held authority over us. It was inescapable. Through Christ “death has lost its sting” (1 Cor 15:55-56). We’re free because Jesus destroyed death, but how else can we know it unless he proves it to us in this life. And for this, and this alone, we elevate our praise even though God may allow all but our breath to be stripped away from us.

I’m going to close by reading an account of praise that I’ve strung together from a book titled 31 Days of Praise. “My heart rejoices in You, O Lord, for You are my strong shelter in times of trouble and danger and stress, my hiding place to whom I may continually resort. I sing for joy as I take refuge in the shadow of Your wing. Fairest Lord Jesus, You alone are my heart’s desire...my chief delight...my soul’s glory, joy, and crown. Every advantage life can offer is like rubbish, compared with the overwhelming gain of knowing You. You are worthy, Lord—worthy to be thanked and praised and worshipped and adored. What a delight to know that as I focus on Jesus, You transform me into His image by Your Spirit within me. How much I praise you that it was impossible for death to hold Jesus in its power...that He is able to save me completely. I glorify You, my Father, with gratefulness and joy. You hold in Your own power my breath of life and all my destiny. And every trial that You allow to happen is a platform on which You reveal Yourself, showing Your love and power, both to me and to others looking on. I praise You that when the time is ripe You will end all sin and injustice, all corruption, all immorality...that You will right all wrongs and reward all loving service and suffering for Your sake. I choose to thank You for my weaknesses, my infirmities, my inadequacies, for the ways I fall short of what people view as ideal for my feelings of helplessness and inferiority, and even my pain and distresses. In Your infinite wisdom You have allowed these in my life so that they may contribute to Your high purposes for me. I thank you for all that has gone wrong, the wounds of old hurts, the unmet emotional needs, and the mistakes of other people upon my life, for through them I learn that Your grace is sufficient for me. I glory in Your holy name, alone. I magnify You with thanksgiving, my Father, for I belong to You forever. You will never be voted out; no coup will ever dethrone You. For all eternity You are the King of kings and Lord of lords. To You be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Hallelujah. Amen.”