Today is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. It is known as Christ the King Sunday, a theme that is reflected in our readings.
This image of Jesus as king has never really resonated with me. Maybe that’s because the founders of this country deliberately chose not to be ruled by a king.
And maybe it’s because this year the last Sunday of the liturgical year is the Sunday before Thanksgiving. My guess is that for most of us our thoughts are about that upcoming holiday. Traveling or getting ready for guests, making plans for dinner with family or friends.
Or maybe we’re approaching this day of giving thanks not feeling particularly thankful.
Maybe we dread a holiday without a familiar, beloved face at the table.
Maybe in this time of deep division in our country we’re concerned about spending that day with family or friends whose views are very different from our own.
Maybe we are remembering the people of Western North Carolina, still impacted by Hurricane Helene.
But gratitude is a lot like love. In scripture most often love is not a romantic love. It’s an action, a choice to treat someone lovingly, with dignity and respect.
We’re commanded to love our neighbors and enemies, not to like them. In the same way we can choose to be grateful even when we aren’t feeling particularly thankful.
Theologian Henri Nouwen explains that.
“Gratitude…goes beyond the ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift,” he wrote. “In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline.
“The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
“Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint.
“The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier, a little freer, a little less self-conscious. . . . There is an Estonian proverb that says: ‘Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.’ Acts of gratitude make one grateful because, step by step, they reveal that all is grace.”
This conscious decision to choose gratitude does not negate or ignore feelings of grief, fear, and despair. It is a decision to say that in the face of all those realities, we still choose to find gratitude.
This week I came across a Thanksgiving prayer written by my friend Diana Butler Bass, who has preached and lectured here several times. It resonated with me, and I offer it to you.
A Thanksgiving Prayer: We Choose Gratitude
GOD, there are many days we do not feel grateful.
When we are anxious or angry. When we feel alone. When we do not understand what is happening in the world or with our neighbors. When the news is bleak and confusing. When there are threats, injustice, violence, and war.
We struggle to feel grateful.
But this Thanksgiving, we choose gratitude.
We choose to accept life as a gift from you, and as a gift from the unfolding work of all creation.
We choose to be grateful for the earth from which our food comes; for the water that gives life; and for the air we all breathe.
We choose to thank our ancestors, those who came before us, for their stories and struggles; we receive their wisdom as a continuing gift for today.
We choose to see our families and friends with new eyes, accepting them for who they are.
We are thankful for our homes, whether humble or grand.
We choose to appreciate and care for our neighbors whatever our differences or how much we feel hurt or misunderstood by them.
We choose to open our hearts to those who dwell among us in the shadows of uncertainty and fear, recognizing their full dignity and humanity.
We choose to see the world as our shared commons, our home now and the legacy we will leave to the generations to come.
God, this Thanksgiving, we do not give thanks. We choose it.
We will make this choice of thanks with courage, knowing that it is humbling to say “thank you.”
We choose to open ourselves to your sacred generosity, aware that we live in an unending circle of gratitude. We all are guests at your hospitable table around which gifts are passed and received.
We will not let anything opposed to love take over this table.
Instead of giving into fear, we embrace grace, love, and the gifts of life at this table. In this choosing, and in the sharing of this meal, we are strengthened to pass gratitude on to the world.
Thus, with you, with all those gathered at this table, and with those at tables far distant, we pledge to make thanks.
We ask you to strengthen us in this resolve.
Here, now, and into the future. Around our family table. Around the altar. Around the table of our nation. Around the table of the earth.
We choose thanks.
Amen.