November 20, 2005

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Radical Gratitude

Psalm 100

            I often wonder why we who live in the United States of America, and have life so good, seem to be so discontent at the same time.  How can we have so much of this life’s goods and pleasures, freedoms and privileges, resources and comforts, yet be so miserable?  Perhaps we have too much.  I am often overwhelmed by the choices I have in a store.  I don’t just have peanut butter available to me, I have smooth peanut butter, chunky peanut butter, extra-chunky peanut butter, processed or natural peanut butter, peanut butter with jelly already in it so I don’t have to open another jar, Jiff Peanut Butter, Peter Pan Peanut Butter, Smucker’s Peanut Butter and a hundred more brands and subtle flavors — plus the jars come in several sizes or a 5 pound bucket.  I can buy peanut butter in the middle of a chocolate cup, or peanut butter in candy shells.  I can get peanut butter in cookies or pies.  I typed in “peanut butter” on a Google search and got 8,500,00 hits.  So many choices, so many privileges, so much abundance, and so much unhappiness.  It has to point to the core problems in American culture: We are out of touch with God, out of touch with life, and we live only for the present with no hope of eternity. 

            We keep wanting this life to bring us satisfaction in itself.  We keep wanting it all and wanting it now.  We want to believe in God without having a relationship with God, or being accountable to God and responsible for our behavior.  We keep wanting this world to be perfect, fulfill us and make us happy.  We keep wanting this world to be heaven without the hope of the real heaven.  No wonder we are in a spiral of misery.  Meanwhile the advertisements grind on, promising us that we will attract the opposite sex if we only have the right car or clothes.  We will find fulfillment by buying the latest, greatest thing they are offering.  Life will be good for me if only I can get the new Razr phone with Bluetooth wireless technology and built-in camera, video cam, internet capability, remote headset, iTunes, etc.  I am sure life would improve for me if I could afford a Wi-Fi PDA  or the latest ipod.  The newest diet will solve our problems with self-esteem.  Maybe we will win the lottery, or one of the financial gurus on television will help us get rich and our lives will improve exponentially.  More education will get us further and a better career.  We are in a spin cycle of false hope and unhappiness, and there doesn’t seem to be a way out. 

            There is a way out, but the problem is you have to give up your false hopes in order to find real hope.   Walk the Line is the new film that opened this week on the life of Johnny Cash.  Near the beginning of the film a twelve-year-old Johnny Cash is talking with his older brother Jack, whom he greatly admires.  Johnny asks how Jack is able to remember so many of the stories in the Bible.  Jack, who wants to be a preacher, says, “You can’t help people unless you can tell ‘em the right stories.”  True it is.  This culture is telling us all the wrong stories that lead us to false hope, dysfunction and despair.  The Bible is telling us the right stories that led us to life and peace. 

            One of the stories the Bible tells us is the necessity of gratitude, if life is going to be meaningful.  We read of Job being tempted to curse God and give up because of the suffering in his life, but he is a man who continues to trust God with his life and his future.  That is radical gratitude.  We read about King David who, faced with a mountain of problems in trying to lead his nation, continues to look to God and writes a whole book of songs praising God.  We read about Paul being persecuted, beaten, jailed and left for dead who could say: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3).  In spite of all his difficulties, he could say, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). 

            There are three simple messages I believe the Bible is telling us about life that come from the Psalm we have read together today.  The first is: You cannot be grateful until you believe with all your heart that God is good.  The Psalmist wrote: “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations” (Psalm 100:5).  You can’t have a grateful heart and think of God as a cosmic sadist.  You cannot have a grateful heart and think of God as the cosmic sadist.  The starting place of gratitude is believing God is good.  If you don’t believe that, then life will be chaotic and confused.  It will seem hopelessly evil and out of control.  At the center of our faith is the belief that there is a Person at the heart of the universe who loves the world and loves us.  It is our belief that he is in control, and that helps us stay in control.  It is in trusting in his heart that we are calmed in the calamities of life.  It is in believing that he has our best in mind that we walk with quiet assurance through life.  Pity those who scoff at the idea of God and believe that there is no Creator, no Designer of life, no Author of history, no purpose to any of this.  Life would seem horribly depressing, directionless and futile. 

            Douglas Coupland wrote a book titled Girlfriend in a Coma. In the book, a young woman comes out of a coma that she has been in since ‘79.  After she has been out of the coma for quite awhile, someone asks about her impressions of people who live in the ‘90s.  She says, “A lack.  A lack of convictions, of beliefs, of wisdom, or even of good old badness.  No sorrow, no nothing.  The people I knew when I came back, they only, well, existed.  It was so sad.”  But what would you expect from people who have crammed their lives with everything but God.  

            Fortunately, the Bible tells another story.  It is a story about a God who created a world and called it good.  It tells about a God who says he loves the world and has loved its people into existence.  It says that he came to redeem people even if it meant dying for them.  It claims he came to show us that death has no power over us, and that this world is not all there is.  The Bible’s story is that history is headed somewhere and that there is a divine purpose to our lives and the world.  It’s message is that there can even be meaning in suffering.  The problem is that many people, even those claiming to be Christians, have somehow not gotten the message. 

            Corrie Ten Boom, who was a survivor of the holocaust, talks about the goodness of God even in the terrible circumstances she faced.  She writes in her book: “Often I have heard people say, ‘How good God is!  We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!’  Yes, God is good when He sends good weather.  But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp.   I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there.  Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart.  I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us.  ‘No, Corrie,’ said Betsie, ‘He has not forgotten us.  Remember His Word: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.”’” Corrie concludes, “There is an ocean of God’s love available — there is plenty for everyone.  May God grant you never to doubt that victorious love — whatever the circumstances.”

            The Psalmist tells us: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Psalm 100:4). 

            The second message of the Bible is: You can’t be grateful until you believe with all your heart that life is good.  Even some Christians I know major on how terrible the world is.  There is so much sin and evil, and the idea is that the world is so horrible that we just can’t wait until Jesus comes again.  Somehow in all that we have missed out on what the Psalmist understood: that life is good and God’s wish is that we would revel in it.  Life is not to be endured, it is meant to be enjoyed.  What’s the purpose in making a good world if no one is going to enjoy it?  How can we hate the world when God loves the world? 

            At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. there is a large wooden altar from a Jewish synagogue.  It was vandalized by Nazi soldiers who had come to remove all Jews from that city.  The soldiers had tried to destroy the altar.  You can still see the hack marks of their axes, but still decipherable across the altar is a single phrase of Hebrew carved deeply into the wood.  Though the axes of man attempted to delete the words, the phrase is still reads: “Know before Whom you stand.”  The problem with our pagan culture is that we do not know before whom we stand, therefore we do not understand the value and purpose of life.  We cannot stand at all.  Is it any wonder that we have such a low view of the world and life itself?  It is not a surprise that we have missed the clues about how good and wonderful life is since we have tried to erase the fact that we are to live before God in this life. 

            Life is good even when there are difficulties and sufferings.  The Psalmist knew God, and therefore understood the world and what life was to be like in the world.  He said, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.  Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.  Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:1-3). 

            Too often we are afraid of life.  But how can we be afraid when Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  Erwin McManus tells us about an experience with his son who had become afraid: “One summer Aaron went to a youth camp.  He was just a little guy, and I was kind of glad because it was a church camp.  I figured he wasn’t going to hear all those ghost stories, because ghost stories can really cause a kid to have nightmares.  But unfortunately, since it was a Christian camp and they didn’t tell ghost stories, because we don’t believe in ghosts, they told demon and Satan stories instead.  And so when Aaron got home, he was terrified.  ‘Dad, don’t turn off the light!’ he said before going to bed.  ‘No, Daddy, could you stay here with me?  Daddy, I’m afraid.  They told all these stories about demons.’  And I wanted to say, ‘They’re not real.’  He goes, ‘Daddy, Daddy, would you pray for me that I would be safe?’  I could feel it.  I could feel warm-blanket Christianity beginning to wrap around him, a life of safety, safety, safety.  I said, ‘Aaron, I will not pray for you to be safe.  I will pray that God will make you dangerous, so dangerous that demons will flee when you enter the room.’  And he goes, ‘All right.  But pray I would be really, really dangerous, Daddy.’” We can be afraid of life and retreat from it, or we can become dangerous and face life with boldness.  But you can only do that if you believe God has created a good world. 

            Finally, You cannot be grateful until you believe with all your heart that there will be a day of restoration.  In other words, you have to know that there is a God shaped future for you and the world.  All the sufferings, all the injustices, all the pain of life will one day be redeemed.  As the Bible says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.  He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” (Revelation 21:4-5).  This is what Isaiah prophesied when he spoke for God saying: “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth.  The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17). 

            Dr. Dale Robbins writes, “I used to think people complained because they had a lot of problems.  But I have come to realize that they have problems because they complain.  Complaining doesn’t change anything or make situations better.  It amplifies frustration, spreads discontent and discord.”  Complaining makes us miserable — not to mention everyone around us.  It is a failure to realize that God is not through with the world.  God is up to something wonderful.  He will redeem the world in the end.  He will restore all things.  He will make, “justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24).  The innocence of the world will be restored and goodness will be renewed.  God is up to something wonderful and he invites us to be a part of it.  The world is not going around in circles, it is going in a definite direction.  God will prevail over all human sin and arrogance.  He will make new heavens and a new earth.  With the blast of one word from his mouth all violence and quarreling will cease, and he will usher in his unshakeable kingdom that will never end.  God is about saving the world, not destroying the world.  The question is not about why this thing is taking place in your life, but what is God doing in the world and where is he taking it.  The answer is that he is taking it to a glorious end.  If you read the book of Revelation you realize that the world does not end with judgment, punishment and destruction, rather it ends with triumph, blessing and the renewal of all things. 

            In her book Mystery on the Desert, Maria Reiche describes a series of strange lines made by the ancient Nazea people in the plains of Peru, perhaps as early as 200 years before the time of Christ.  The area where the lines are covers over 37 miles.  It is impossible to make out what these line drawings are from the ground, and people at one time assumed they were irrigation ditches.  No one really knew what they were until 1939 when Dr. Paul Kosok of Long Island University studied them by flying over them in an airplane.  There is an assortment of perfectly straight lines, many running parallel, others intersecting, forming a grand geometric form.  In and around the lines there are also strange symbols, and pictures of 70 animal and plant figures that include a spider, hummingbird, monkey and a 1,000-foot-long pelican.  One geometric figure goes in a straight line for nine miles across the plain.  All of them are etched on a giant scale that can only be appreciated from the sky.  When viewed from high in the air, these seemingly random lines form enormous drawings of art.  They have meaning. 

            People often assume that since they cannot see the purpose of something from their perspective that there is no purpose — no reason or rhyme to what they are facing.  But from God’s perspective it makes perfect sense.  There is not only order and design to what he is doing, it is a work of art.  It doesn’t matter if you are too small to see the whole masterpiece, it is still there.  And one day, looking from heaven, the mystery of what God has been doing will be clear to us.  What looked like a ditch to us will be seen as a part of God’s design that has been stretched out over his universe.  All the beauty and purpose of what God has done will make us say: “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations” (Psalm 100:5). 

Rodney J. Buchanan

November 20, 2005