Sunday, October 25, 2009
St. David’s Episcopal Church, DeWitt
The Rev. James C. Bresnahan
Stewardship and Gratitude

Sometimes we don’t see what is right in front of our nose.  Sometimes we are so enmeshed in a situation that we don’t see what we are in.  But when we pull back, things become clearer, as when you step back from a painting to view it at a distance.

During the four years after my retirement, when I had pulled back from serving as congregation in any pastoral way, a lot of things became clearer.  Things I had not particularly noticed before because I was too close to them or too enmeshed in them jumped right out at me.

I’d like to share with you today as part of a larger sermon on stewardship one of those things I came to see in stepping back.

That something has to do with prayers at church and particularly what we pray about or don’t.

I’ve always felt that if we prayed as much for ourselves as we did for others, each of our lives would be dramatically different and we would all be living in a more powerful way. Sometimes prayer for others can be an escape from praying for oneself.  We will for things out there to change but not for us to change. But that’s not the aspect of prayer I want to address today.

Rather this aspect has to do with thankfulness and the relative absence of expressions of personal thankfulness in prayer.

Much has been written in recent years about gratitude and the power of speaking thanks. I spoke about that in an earlier sermon – how when we thank people we are blessing them.  We are affirming their words, their deeds, their very life.  At the same time, in the very act of giving thanks, we are focusing our own life on goodness and not getting stuck in our problems or living in cynicism. Giving thanks is powerful. Giving thanks is needful.  As we say at Eucharistic, “It is right to give God thanks and praise.”

Communally, we do give thanks – in the words of our Holy Communion.

But personally at worship, that’s a different matter.

After stepping back from serving as a priest I began to see how little emphasis there was in the prayers of the people on expressions of personal thanksgiving – how the needs we expressed so outweighed thanksgiving we offered as to make gratitude a very minor matter.

I began to wonder how transforming it would be if we spent as much time giving thanks at worship individually as we do praying for things wrong or bad or disjointed to improve.

Gratitude for children, gratitude for wisdom gained through wrenching experience, gratitude for friends, gratitude for a kind word spoken, gratitude for this new day, gratitude for hymns to sing, gratitude for an experience of awe and wonder, gratitude for a roof over our head, gratitude for one more day to live, gratitude for work to do, gratitude for our physician, gratitude for our spouse.

Offering thanks for hardworking wardens and Vestry, for the long labors of our treasurer.  Thankful for an altar guild that every week prepares for our Holy Communion, and for a flower guild that adorns our worship space.

Thankful for meals prepared by Gretchen and co-workers, thankful for Sunday School leaders having to struggle with too few kids, thankful for a capital campaign that has kept our roof from leaking and dripping rain upon us.

Thankful for wisdom shared, thankful for questions raised that challenge us. Thankful for disagreements that cause us to rethink.

Thankful for those who speak from their head, thankful for those who speak from their heart, and thankful for those who speak from their soul.

Thankful that we are not all like each other, that we think differently and act differently, yet can and do work together.

Thankful for a parish administrator who is like glue among us.

Thankful for difficulties that give pause for reflection and deeper prayer.

Thankful for the resurgence of interest in serving those in need beyond our walls.

So much to be thankful for, so many things beyond what I’ve noted, to be the object of thankful prayer.

That is what I, from a distance, began to see lacking to a great degree in the Sunday mornings prayers within congregations I attended. We interceded for others, but neglected giving equal thanks for others.  We prayed for things to change, but neglected equal thanks for blessings received. We prayed for help needed but less in gratitude for help given.

And that relative neglect of offering personal thanksgivings within the prayers of the people has led me to reflect further on stewardship.

I’ve come to see how every genuine act of stewardship is rooted in thanksgiving and not in obligation.

Our first thought as stewards is not about what we need to be doing, and not with what needs to be done.  Our starting point is neither need nor obligation.  It is not what we do with our time, our talent, or our treasure. 

Stewardship begins at a deeper place.

It begins with thanksgiving.  It is rooted in a life of gratitude.  It is grounded in the deep knowledge and joy of being a recipient of the manifold and ongoing gifts of God

It is out of a grateful heart that generosity of time, talent, and treasure flows. If it does not, then stewardship and giving take on a lifeless and forced character.  Giving becomes dues-paying, and doing for others becomes laborious.

So, I invite you, grounding your life deeply in gratitude, to bring gratitude to greater expression in our prayers together and your prayers alone, to give as much weight to expressing thanksgiving as we do expressing problems, hurts, and needs.

As we work toward concluding our listening posts and begin working on a parish profile, we look forward to calling a new rector whom we will thank God for.

We will need your generosity born of a thankfulness of heart to bring that about  - for us to have a rector with the qualities and qualifications we need, someone to lead us in giving thanks.

I want to conclude with one of my favorite quotes – from Thomas Merton’s “New Seeds of Contemplation.”

If we could let go of our own obsession of what we think is "the meaning of it all," we might just be able to hear his call and follow him in this mysterious cosmic dance.
We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that dancing.
When we are alone on a star lit night.
When we see by chance the migrating birds of autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat.

When we see children in a moment they are really children.
When we know love in our own hearts.

Or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash.

At such times, the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the newness, the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a vision of the cosmic dance.......

The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair.
But it does not matter very much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.

Indeed, we are in the midst of it and it is in the midst of us for it beats in our very blood whether we want it to or not.
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose and cast our awful solemnity to the winds, and join in the general dance."

When we live and pray as grateful people, we have joined in the dance.