Christian Gratitude and Hope 11/28/48
Scripture: I Corinthians 2: 10-16
Text: I Corinthians 2: 12; “... we have received ... the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
Probably no human being exists who does not at times feel grateful. Dreams may be unrealized and life may even have turned bitter for some. But even when this is so we have our moments when we are thankful in spite of ourselves or in spite of our circumstances.
This is not a human trait alone, for the lower animals also exhibit something akin to gratitude. A dog will display his affection; a cat purr her contentment; even a hog has a satisfied sort of grunt when fed and well bedded.
One would suppose that the higher we look in the scale of life, the more evidence of gratitude we would see. At least if we were especially privileged, would we not feel an especial urge to thanksgiving? Actually, the reverse may be true. The chronic complainers may be as readily found in our homes of comfort and plenty, as in the county hospitals. One often finds shining examples of the sense of appreciation in the most straightened circumstances. And such a discovery, each time one makes it, is enough to send us to our own homes in a chastened and penitent mood.
Where do we find ingratitude? It may as readily appear among the most favored as elsewhere. During the war certain restrictions were imposed on all of us indiscriminately. Some of the loudest wails came from those who would seem to suffer least, but who were unwilling to accept cheerfully a democratic share of the burdens and dangers of national crisis. The quality of gratitude springs not from the circumstance of plenty, or of want. Neither is it correlated with high IQ or an average intellect.
Someone, coming away from a meeting of learned men, recently remarked that the mood of futility and the sense of despair that hovers over a meeting of intellectuals these days is enough to cause the angels to hang their harps on the weeping willows and come down to examine this queer earthly phenomenon!
A professor in a great university [Prof. W. T. Stace; Princeton; Atlantic Monthly 9-48] --- one of those schools originally founded by consecrated church folks --- recently broke into print in a magazine with this blunt confession: “I believe in no religion at all,” he wrote. He pictured a “meaningless world and a meaningless human life,” and insisted “there is in the universe, outside of man, no spirituality, no regard for values, no friend in the sky, no help or comfort for man of any sort.” He seems to feel that this state of affairs is a calamity, but insists that idealistic systems of thought were “born of the refusal of man to admit the cosmic darkness.” He describes the “warm glow” of idealistic systems as “comforting illusions” in which “tender-minded intellectuals shelter themselves from the icy winds of the universe.”
Well, there is certainly no confusing that kind of thinking with the lofty thankfulness of the 145th Psalm: “ the Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy -- and his tender mercies are over all his works.” [Psalm 145: 8,9].
The Princeton professor is a man of able mind. No doubt the Psalmist rated well, also, intellectually. One man sees the whole business of living as futile, with only a glimmering of chance; the other sees it as a living universality wherein “the Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him in truth.” [Psalm 145: 18]. The Psalmist had none of the skepticism which asserts that “moral rules are merely an expression of our own likes and dislikes.” He believed in God, and he was thankful to him for abundant mercies. A lively sense of obligation is a part of the normal makeup of a sane and well-ordered personality. Unbalanced types are graspingly selfish or unmoved by emotions of appreciation. By this standard, the Psalmist was a normal person and not an unbalanced type.
Of course, the modern skeptical intellectual is not necessarily unbalanced or grasping. He simply declines to admit feeling aught except what can be measured by his “science.” Within the limits he sets for himself, he is at least honest in his conclusion that there is no plan, no purpose, no heavenly Father in all this world.
It is interesting to note one glimmer of hope in the Princeton professor whose outlook we have been discussing. Though he doubts that there can be much happiness in his way of life, he thinks it can be lived in “quiet content, accepting resignedly what cannot be helped, not expecting the impossible, and thankful for small mercies!” How could that last phrase have crept into a discussion of a meaningless and godless world? How be thankful if there be nothing or no one to thank?
True gratitude, as Christians think of it, is a product of the religious spirit. Only by this spirit can we realize the blessings God has given us. A man is not likely to discover even “small mercies” if he has no faith, no Holy Spirit to illumine his life. It is a faithful spirit, a divine spirit, that makes us really appreciate a world that abounds in great mercies. Without this spirit, intellectually honest men may find “truth” and yet miss the spirit of truth which is the only truth that sets men free. True gratitude will be the result of a life dominated by the Spirit.
“Except a man be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” [John 3: 5]. If one cannot see that Kingdom nor enter into it, he may doubt its existence altogether.
It is not so with the person who knows himself “born of the Spirit.” He is aware of another dimension. A bouquet of flowers or a natural landscape may become, for him, not just an aggregate of blossoms or trees, but an evidence of beauty and purpose; not just a circumstance, but a creation. Such a one lives for his spiritual kingdom and gladly serves its interests. He rejoices in its reality, and his heart is full of gratitude. That gratitude is the result of what Paul so clearly saw, the Spirit which “makes us realize the blessings God has given us.”
I wonder how much good it does to exhort people to be thankful for abundant harvests, good health, full employment, any external blessings. The annual Thanksgiving proclamations may remind some; and may help a few constant complainers to cease their whining. But true gratitude will come unbidden from a heart that is touched by the Spirit. It may be expressed in the vocal “thank you” of correct manners and good breeding. And it may issue in increased devotion to the source of the blessing, like the response of a little child who has forgotten to say “thank you” but whose eyes sparkle with pleasure and love at some simple favor.
The communists, seeing religious people accept hardships, and seeing them actually find cause for thanksgiving when their way has been hard, have altogether misunderstood this mood of gratitude. They have labeled religion an “opiate.” That term may have its merit when applied to the selfish privileged prescribing religion for the contentment of the restless underprivileged. But for the person of any estate who knows the things of God, religion is not dope or dodge or escape. It is a thankful acceptance of the good, too often not seen by the skeptic, and an awareness of what can be done by the first person singular, with others, to make matters better.
The real opiate of the people is skepticism and irrelgion. That leads to hopelessness and frustration and futility.
A city minister told of visiting a little old lady in a poor house. She asked him if he would conduct her funeral service when the end of her life came, and he said he would. She said she had in mind a song she wanted sung. The day came, and the city pastor kept his word. He took along the best soloist in the church and a bouquet of flowers to be laid on the cheap casket. No relatives were present to mourn. But the words of the chosen song echoed thankfulness in a place where the affluent would hardly expect to find it. It was the concluding, and perhaps crowning, testimony of a grateful life:
My Father is rich in houses and lands,
He holdeth the wealth of the world in his hands;
Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold
His coffers are full, he has riches untold.
I’m a child of a King, a child of a King.
With Jesus, my Savior, I’m a child of a King.
That kind of gratitude, born of the Spirit, can see through the darkness to breaking day. It brims over, not on one day of the year, but all through the years.
Let the national day of thanksgiving be a continuing day in our lives. It will brighten the next season, and all times.
Today is the first Sunday in advent when, by the arrival of the season, we are reminded of the hope that sprang to new life with the coming to earth of the Savior. It is the beginning of the Christian year. In it may we keep bright the spirit of gratitude and of hope - not just the expectation of festivity, but the hope of the Savior in whose spirit alone we may build peace and good will.
Let the coming of the lord of life find no doors among us closed against his entrance, but gladly thrown open to his presence and purposes.
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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, November 28, 1948.