Happy Grateful Day

May we all live into action out of an attitude of abundance and thankfulness

Happy Thanksgiving friends. This is a transcript of a podcast I did last year around gratitude. I hope it might be meaningful for you today.

How would you like to be an expert in Gratitude? Sounds pretty cool right?  As I was doing some reading on Gratitude this week, I stumbled on an article written by Dr. Robert Emmons, professor at UC Davis and the leading scientific expert on gratitude. His field is the psychology of religion.  

Here’s what he had to say,

“Research has proven that gratitude is essential for happiness, but modern times have regressed gratitude into a mere feeling instead of retaining its historic value, a virtue that leads to action. Just as great philosophers such as Cicero and Seneca conclude in their writings, gratitude is an action of returning a favor and is not just a sentiment. By the same token, ingratitude is the failure to both acknowledge receiving a favor and refusing to return or repay the favor.” 

Hmmmm….Gratitude is a virtue that leads to action.  

In Emmons article he points towards the story of Jesus and Lepers in Luke chapter 17 as an example of this virtue in the Samaritan leper healed by Jesus.  

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy[a] met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”  - Luke 17: 11-19 

We can assume that all ten of the men were certainly grateful for being healed, but only one returned to Jesus to offer thanks and praise.  Only one acted out of the virtue of gratitude to offer thanks in an active way.  Very active!  He threw himself at Jesus’ feet.  

Bible scholars have said that Jesus use of “faith” in “your faith has made you well” really refers to thankfulness or “your gratitude has made you well.”  

All ten men were healed of their leprosy, but the man that practiced gratitude was made well, which is perhaps healing beyond his illness.  A deeper healing.  A healing that Jesus names for the man, but a healing that the man’s response to Jesus made manifest.  

There is a give and take at work.  A divine exchange. A spiritual economy. 

Perhaps what best exemplifies this exchange is to look at the opposite of the action of gratitude - hoarding.  I don’t mean hoarding in the way that people with mental illness hoard things.  I mean hoarding as a sense of entitlement or out of a sense of scarcity.

Here’s an example. When the pandemic started I watched a lot of tv.  One of the shows I watched was Alone, an adventure reality show where the participants were dropped into difficult terrain with only the bare minimum to survive.  They had to forage and fish and build their shelters.  Whoever stays out in the wilderness the longest wins.  If, however, anyone gets below a certain body weight or gets ill, they are taken out of the contest.  Watching how people lived offered huge lessons. 

One woman, who was not particularly a survivalist but who had an attitude towards abundance and gratitude seemed to live quite well.  When she caught a fish, she happily ate it.  She spent her time gathering food from the woods and she spent time creating things that made her life enjoyable.  She made a chair so she could sit and look at the water.  She made a musical instrument so she could sing.  She ate when she had food and she sang when she didn’t.  

On the other side, there was a man who was an intense survivalist.  He lived out of an attitude of scarcity, where he fished constantly and created a method to dry his fish so that he could store them up for the colder weather.  Smart yes, but he rationed his food so stringently that he was getting sick.  You watched as he started losing his sense of reality.  There was no joy in his life.  He ended up having to be taken out of the competition because he had lost a dangerous amount of weight even though he left behind 23 fish that he had been literally hoarding.  

When the Samaritan Leper responded to Jesus with gratitude, he no longer stood at a distance. He lived into the abundance of his healing by coming close and touching Jesus.  Gratitude is living actively into abundance with a heart of thankfulness.  And perhaps it is even singing in times of scarcity trusting that we will be provided for.  

Sometimes when people ask me what spiritual direction is I ask whether they’ve seen the Mister Rogers movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks.  There’s a beautiful scene where Rogers is sitting with the journalist Lloyd Vogel in a Chinese restaurant and in the midst of their conversation, Rogers asks if Vogel will right there take a minute of silence to contemplate the people that have “loved him into being.”  In an unprecedented film moment, the whole set quiets and in a full 60 seconds of silent magical realism Mr. Rogers, looking at Lloyd, turns his head ever so slightly and looks directly into the camera inviting us to join them in entering into the silence.  It’s astonishingly beautiful.  Perhaps the most sacred moment I’ve ever felt in a theater.  

In the spirit of Mr. Rogers, I’m going to ask that we sit for 60 seconds and consider all the people in our lives that have loved us into being.  See them.  Remember.  This is a moment of prayer.  A prayer of gratitude in remembering.  

Take a moment.  

As you sat and thought of all those people who’ve loved you into being, can you choose one person.  One person that you have the ability to be gracious towards.  Someone you can repay with thanks in an active and meaningful way.  Let’s take another moment where you can envision what you will do to thank this person.  Make a plan to do so.  Make a commitment to do so.  

Dear God, 

We recognize that we have been loved into being by so many 

And yet we often fail to offer thanks.  We move forward too quickly. 

We ask that you give us the opportunity to be gracious in a meaningful way. 

Allow us to live fully into abundance, into love.  

Show us where we might be hoarding.  

Hoarding privilege, hoarding power, hoarding time. 

Teach us to leverage our privilege,

Step outside our power,

And give generously of our time. 

And Lord, we do this because you have loved us into being. 

You have healed us.  And yet 

 It is our gratitude that closes the circle.  

Teach us the importance of our participation in the divine exchange.

How awesome that you would want our gratitude.  

Like the Samaritan, the leper, the outsider, our thanks matters. 

It marks us as yours. 

And we are grateful. 

Amen

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Take this blessing and may your day be filled with opportunities for gratitude. 

Go and don’t just BE grateful. 

DO grateful.. 

Step into its virtue and take action. 

Throw yourself at the feet of Jesus 

And participate in your own spiritual healing. 

Go and be well. 

❤️- Kelley