Grateful Praise
Isaiah 12
November 18, 2007

Do you enjoy Thanksgiving? Do you love having family and friends around, engaging in lively conversation, and falling asleep during the football game? Do you look forward to going back for seconds or thirds after you wake up from your nap… Warming up some of the turkey and taters or going back for just a little slice of pumpkin or pecan pie? I know most of you really enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday—though a few of you have confessed that you are a little nervous about preparing a meal for your relatives for the first time.

If you are concerned, you are not alone. For the past 25 years or so, a team of experts has been available on Butterball Turkey’s Talk-Line on Thanksgiving Day. They have answered every conceivable question about how NOT to foul up your fowl. But, occasionally, they do get a call from an odd duck. One woman called to ask how long it would take to roast her bird. The Talk-Line expert said, “How much does the bird weigh?” The woman said, “I don’t know—it’s still running around outside.”

I also like the story about the man who offered to help his wife with the Thanksgiving meal. She wasn’t feeling well, so he volunteered to go grocery shopping. He was picking through the frozen turkeys at Kroger’s and couldn’t find a bird that was big enough to satisfy his wife’s request. He asked a nearby store employee, “Do these turkeys get any bigger?” The young man said, “No, sir. They’re dead.”

Hopefully, your bird will also be dead by the time it makes it to your table! Do you have any special Thanksgiving traditions? One of the things that we do at our house—and I have heard some of you describe similar practices—is to take time during the meal to go around the Table and share something for which we’re thankful. Of course, our children groan every time their mother launches into this “Call to Thanksgiving.” But they have also come to expect it over the years—and I think they even enjoy the exercise.

But I realize that not all people find meaning in this kind of sharing. One young person proposed a series of statements that are bound to liven things up around the Thanksgiving table. Say, “I’m thankful for the turkey. Mom, I told you not to worry; no one noticed that the turkey was four months past its expiration date.” Or try this line: “I’m thankful I didn’t get caught.” (Refuse to say anything more.) Or, prepare at least ten pages of notes with every conceivable thing for which you are thankful. This is especially effective if you share your comments right before the meal is to begin! It’s almost a sure bet that somebody will break in, say “Amen,” and “Please pass the sweet potatoes.”

Here is another question for you: Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving song or hymn? During worship the weekend before Thanksgiving, we sing some of the favorites. Maybe yours is “Now Thank We All Our God” or “We Gather Together.” Perhaps it is a more contemporary song like “Give Thanks.” One of mine is “For the Beauty of the Earth.” I have memories of singing that song as a child in the old sanctuary of Morgan Park Christian Church in Chicago. Do you know that one? If you do, sing it with me so that we can teach it to those who don’t. (Sing first verse, 56 in the hymnal or on screen.) The refrain, the last line of each verse, is beautiful.
(Sing) Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

During the course of my comments today, I will invite you to sing this line with me a few more times.
SPEAKING OF HYMNS, OUR SCRIPTURE LESSON FROM ISAIAH FALLS INTO THIS CATEGORY. Isaiah 12 is composed of two short hymns of praise and thanksgiving. Each of the hymns begins with the phrase, “You will say in that day.” The hymns echo the messages in the previous 11 chapters of Isaiah. And these two short hymns in Isaiah 12 are like a musical quilt. They are a patchwork of lines and phrases from other hymns and psalms of God’s people. The passage is constructed from a recipe of generations of praise. You’ll find a phrase from Psalm 12, 18, 116, and 118. You’ll get a taste of a line from Exodus 15. The two hymns offer a balance of judgment and grace. Verses 1-3 refer to the difficult times from the past. Verses 4-6 anticipate a time of salvation, singing, rejoicing, telling the nations, and shouting for joy.

And it is helpful for us to get a whiff of the aroma of the word “proclaim” in verse 4. The word can carry the meaning of both “praise” and “confess.” Why is that significant? Because it highlights the connection between our worthiness to receive God’s gifts—and the generous, graceful God who gives them to us anyway! The last words of Isaiah 12 have a forward-looking message. In the midst of a difficult situation, the prophet helps God’s people anticipate a better time—a “New Exodus.” There will come a day for deliverance and freedom.
Words like these, and many others throughout the Bible, offer hope for the “exiles” in any generation for liberation from oppression. (Sing) Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

WHEN WE THINK ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF OUR OWN THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION IN AMERICA, IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT IT AROSE OUT OF DIFFICULT TIMES. Most of us are familiar with the stories of the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in 1621. When they feasted with members of the Wampanoag Indians, tribe members brought gifts of food as a gesture of goodwill. The custom grew in various colonies as a means of celebrating the harvest. In 1777, over 100 years later, the Continental Congress proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving after the victory at the Battle of Saratoga. Twelve years later, George Washington proclaimed another national day of thanksgiving in honor of the ratification of the Constitution. He requested that the Congress finally make it an annual event. But they declined! How can you vote against Thanksgiving?! American historians will remind us that it wasn’t until we were in the midst of the Civil War that our Thanksgiving holiday was officially recognized by Congress. In 1865, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving. And apparently Lincoln’s official Thanksgiving was sanctioned in order to boost the Union’s morale. Many folks in the South saw the new holiday as an attempt to impose Northern customs on their conquered land. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s that the tradition really caught on. And we didn’t settle on the 4th Thursday of the month until FDR’s proposal in 1939!

Thanksgiving today is a mild-mannered holiday full of football, hot apple pie, and family reunions. But that’s not a realistic national or biblical historical picture of Thanksgiving. Many of us have lost touch with the tradition that thanksgiving was more often the result of adversity and difficult times. So many of the greatest expressions of thanksgiving have occurred under circumstances so debilitating one wonders why people give thanks. We remember the Apostle Paul writing from a prison cell, knowing that his death was fast approaching: “I give thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” We remember people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor, who was executed for his political and Christian opposition to the Nazi regime. On the day of his death, he led a worship service for the other prisoners. One of those prisoners, an English officer who survived, wrote these words: “Bonhoeffer always seemed to me to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident, and profound gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive.” “Right before his execution, he took me aside and said, ‘This is the end; but for me it is the beginning of life.’”

More recently, we have heard stories about people like those who survived the wildfires out west. My wife, Ellen, has a college roommate who lives in the Rancho Bernardo community in San Diego; her home was spared, but after the evacuation, half of her neighbors returned to ashes. But the following Sunday, people of faith gathered for worship, despite their losses, and gave thanks for life, for families, for friendships—for the BIG things. In our own church family, Rev. Mary Beth Guy taught us much about thanksgiving—even during a barrage of debilitating chemotherapy treatments and surgeries, even from a hospital bed, even with one foot in the grave—thankful. Out of great suffering have come some of the greatest expressions of gratitude. (Sing) Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

FRIENDS, I SUGGEST THAT WE HAVE ALL THE MORE REASON TO CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING! Leander Keck says it well: “Authentic praise of God acknowledges what is true about God; it responds to qualities that are ‘there’ and not simply ‘there for me.’” “In other words, God is to be praised because God is God, because of what God is and does, quite apart from what God is and does for me.” “Anyone can, and should, praise God when the Lord blesses one and keeps one; gratitude is indeed often expressed as praise, and rightly so.” “But that does not make praise and gratitude identical.” “Does God cease to be praiseworthy when gratitude has fled because the Lord seems to withhold blessing?” “Does God cease to be praiseworthy when the Divine Face appears to be set against us and when agony drives out peace?” The lessons from our foremothers and forefathers—from our families, from our communities and country, from our faith, from the Apostle Paul to Jesus to the prophet Isaiah—would proclaim a resounding, “No!” In all things, be thankful. At all times, be thankful. In the valley of the shadow of death and during our mountaintop moments, be thankful. (Sing) Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.