Gratitude as a Way of Life
June 13, 2010
June 13, 2010
Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: 1 Kings 21:1-21a; Luke 7:36-8:3
These stories are so different, and in this case, the differences between the stories tell us more than either story on its own.
And, as usual, there is more going on in these stories than is clear to us at first hearing. The story from 1 Kings starts off with a fair amount of information – it says “Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria.” The Jezreel valley is home to Naboth and has been home to his family for some number of generations, but it is not Ahab’s home. Ahab lives in Samaria, and his palace in Jezreel is a summer palace. Ahab and Jezebel are the king and queen during the stories of Elijah the prophet. They are also the poster children for abuse of power. They are not nice folks. So Ahab spies the family vineyard of Naboth, and wants it – not for what it is, but so that he can rip out the vineyard and plant a little vegetable garden. And when Naboth turns him down, probably an unusual experience for Ahab, he pouts and Jezebel determines to get him the land. She persuades Naboth’s friends and neighbors to lie about him, probably through making them offers they couldn’t refuse, and then she can have him killed, and present the land to Ahab. And of course, Elijah then carries out the most important role of a prophet: speaking truth to power.
In the second story, Jesus is at dinner at the home of a Pharisee named Simon – and we should remember that Pharisees aren’t bad guys. Pharisees were those devout Jews who were trying to define what faithfulness looked like. They tended toward a checklist approach devoid of ambiguity, but if we’re honest, we have to admit that we would like that, too. And so when a woman known to be a sinner comes in and washes the feet of Jesus, Simon has a category for this – woman touching man = bad, unrighteous woman in house = bad. And he is disturbed that Jesus, a holy man, doesn’t recognize this.
So Simon is finding the behavior of Jesus pretty baffling, at best, and then Jesus tells him the parable about forgiveness, and as prophets do, he helps Simon see how things really are. Jesus shows that the important thing about the woman is not that she had sinned, but that she is forgiven. And she knows this, and so her response is one of gratitude.
And we’ll get back to gratitude, but first I want to go back to where I began, and that is that these stories become more interesting in counterpoint. King Ahab is the king. He is wealthy, and has at least a winter palace in Samaria and a summer palace at Jezreel. He also has immense power. And yet, with all that he is and all that he has, all he can think about is what he doesn’t have – and he is dissatisfied and wants more.
The woman, unnamed, is known for her sin – we don’t really know much else about her, whether she is wealthy or not, whether she is married or not. It’s reasonable to speculate that she is a prostitute since she is described as a sinner, but we don’t know. What we do know is that her focus is not on what she has or doesn’t have, but on this moment of welcome and forgiveness. And she is more than content – she is grateful.
And from these stories together, we can see that happiness is not really dependent on circumstances – it comes from our attitude toward those circumstances. And contentment comes from being able to see our circumstances as they really are – good or bad – and being able to see ourselves as we really are.
Looking at Ahab, I’m reminded of the saying, “We can never get enough of that which we don’t really need.” Ahab doesn’t need more land – he doesn’t need, and because somehow he’s tied his own success to what he has – he will never have enough.
The woman, on the other hand, sees exactly how she is, and how her circumstances are – and she is able to accept both herself, and the forgiveness, and so she is overwhelmed with joy. She is able to be fully present to this moment – she is not stuck in the past, wallowing in guilt; nor is she moving ahead to the future, worrying about what might or might not come to pass. Life as it is, just as it is in that moment, is enough for her. Perhaps this is what the Apostle Paul means when he writes in his letter to the Philippians, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.”
This is why truth, and facing the truth, is such an essential part of maturity and contentment. This is why being truth-tellers is of the essence of being people of God. As we learn that being present to what is, just as it is, is essential to joy, we will want to pay attention, to become aware, to accept ourselves and the reality of the moment.
One of my favorite quotations comes from USC professor of philosophy Dallas Willard who wrote, in his marvelous book, The Divine Conspiracy: “Your life is not something from which you can stand aside and consider what it would have been like had you a different one. There is no ‘you’ apart from your actual life. You are not separate from your life, and it is in that life you must find the goodness of God. Otherwise, you will not believe that he has done well by you, and you will not truly be at peace with him.”
So when we hear someone say, “I want my life back,” we know we are listening to someone who has not yet been able to fully face reality – because in each moment, the way that moment is IS our life. Now, let us be real with each other right now: any of us can understand the person who says “I want my life back” – this is usually someone who is experiencing a hard change, a dislocating change in their life. Perhaps they have been diagnosed with cancer, perhaps a loved one has died, perhaps they have had a crisis at work, or a loved one is facing an unbearable challenge.
And yet, in the hardest of times, the first step toward getting unstuck is to accept the reality of our lives. Ironically, that is also the first step toward hope. First of all, no matter how difficult our circumstances are, they are much easier to bear if we stay present to the moment, and don’t get distracted by the past and a litany of “if only” or “why me”. Equally important is to stay in the present moment and not let ourselves get distracted by the possibilities of the future – with the choruses of “maybe” or “what if”.
Being fully present to the moment is increasingly difficult in our culture which cultivates distraction as if it were a virtue. Our text-messaging, iPod-wearing, BlackBerry-scanning, channel-surfing habits are making us less and less present to where and when we are. I should be clear – I’m not speaking from a point of virtue here. In my efforts to be available as needed, and being someone who has always worried about missing things, I am far too easily distracted by the BlackBerry, and am trying to discern how to keep availability and presence in appropriate balance.
Also, being practical people who need to function in a complex world, we know that we need to have some awareness of the future and the past, in order to understand the present contextually. Nonetheless, we can choose to develop a greater sense of mindfulness, a fuller ability to be present to the moment. When we walk or drive, we can leave the iPod behind and the cellphone in our pocket, and we can notice what’s around us. We can choose practices like bird-watching, or fishing, or drawing, or photography, that naturally orient us to the present moment, and then we can be sure to be present in those activities. We can undertake spiritual practices like Zen meditation, or contemplative prayer, to help us learn to be more present. Teachers like Kim Boykin, who wrote Zen for Christians or Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are are very helpful to modern Western people, and are able to help us move beyond getting stuck in the distraction of our own thoughts to being able to see our thoughts as paths to mindfulness.
Now it may seem counterintuitive that being present to the moment is a path to contentment. After all, we aren’t all in happy circumstances. And yet, mindfulness is being taught as a means to coping with the stress and anxiety of illness. And in the present moment, we can choose to be thankful – whatever our circumstances.
Some of you may remember the movie Pollyanna. Pollyanna was the child of missionary parents who had died, and she was sent to live with her aunt, a wealthy and powerful woman in a small town. And as Pollyanna made her way around town, she both annoyed and delighted people with her practice of playing what she called “The Glad Game”. She explained to the pastor in town that her father, also a minister, had once counted all the verses in the Bible that said something like, “Rejoice…” or “Be glad…” and there were over 800 of them. He reasoned that if God had told us over 800 times to be glad then it must be important, so they developed The Glad Game, which was just a name for the practice of gratitude, of choosing to count our blessings instead of focusing on what’s wrong. It’s a choice we can each make, and it’s easier to make when we stay in the present and choose to ignore guilt or anxiety.
The woman who stopped into Simon’s house and washed the feet of Jesus was not dwelling on the things she had done wrong – she was rejoicing that they weren’t a barrier to God’s love. She was focusing on the reality of the present – that God was caring for her and welcoming her – rather than regretting her past, or worrying about what would come next.
Practicing mindfulness helps us to choose our thoughts. King Ahab could have chosen to be grateful for all he had, but he chose to dwell on what he didn’t have. This was a choice. While we can’t always choose our circumstances, we can choose the way we respond to them. And prayer can be a way to help us shape our response – some of us are uncomfortable praying regarding circumstances – we don’t really believe that God is going to change the way things are. But God can always work in us to help shape our response – and if we aren’t comfortable with prayer in that way, we can at least learn to practice more mindfulness and attention to the moment, and even this will lead to greater contentment.
Today, during communion, let’s take a few minutes to practice what was preached. Let’s first remember the quote of Dallas Willard: “Your life is not something from which you can stand aside and consider what it would have been like had you a different one. There is no ‘you’ apart from your actual life. You are not separate from your life, and in that life you must find the goodness of God. Otherwise, you will not believe that he has done well by you, and you will not truly be at peace with him.” One of the words for communion is Eucharist, which comes from the Greek for thanksgiving: being able to connected to one another and to God in integral ways is indeed an occasion for thanksgiving.
During communion, [or, at home, just take some time quietly] let us practice any one of three approaches. Either use that time to consider how the goodness of God is present in your life as it is right now: where is love present? What is true in your life? How are relationships nourishing you? Where do you exercise creativity? And in experiencing those dimensions of your life where you can observe the goodness of God, be grateful.
OR, instead of reflecting in that way, just pay attention to the music. If your mind wanders off from the music, and you notice that you are having other thoughts, use those thoughts as something to detach from in order to pay attention to the music again. The thoughts aren’t bad – they are a way to help you choose again to pay attention to the moment.
OR, instead either of these, try paying attention visually – really notice your surroundings as if you were going to paint the scene or to describe it carefully to someone else. Don’t judge, just notice. Again, if your mind wanders, it’s not a failure – when you notice your thoughts, just leave them and return to observing.
AND in the course of our days, another mindfulness exercise is to take a walk without iPod, and practice noticing our surroundings.
In each exercise, we will be present to life as it is, just as it is – not as we might wish it to be. These are ways of learning gratitude and mindfulness that can be practiced several times a day briefly – or once or twice for a longer time. Learning to be present, learning to give thanks, will help us to live life more fully and richly in each moment, and in that way, our life is enlarged, deepened, and available to be lived. Thanks be to God…Amen.
Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: 1 Kings 21:1-21a; Luke 7:36-8:3
These stories are so different, and in this case, the differences between the stories tell us more than either story on its own.
And, as usual, there is more going on in these stories than is clear to us at first hearing. The story from 1 Kings starts off with a fair amount of information – it says “Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria.” The Jezreel valley is home to Naboth and has been home to his family for some number of generations, but it is not Ahab’s home. Ahab lives in Samaria, and his palace in Jezreel is a summer palace. Ahab and Jezebel are the king and queen during the stories of Elijah the prophet. They are also the poster children for abuse of power. They are not nice folks. So Ahab spies the family vineyard of Naboth, and wants it – not for what it is, but so that he can rip out the vineyard and plant a little vegetable garden. And when Naboth turns him down, probably an unusual experience for Ahab, he pouts and Jezebel determines to get him the land. She persuades Naboth’s friends and neighbors to lie about him, probably through making them offers they couldn’t refuse, and then she can have him killed, and present the land to Ahab. And of course, Elijah then carries out the most important role of a prophet: speaking truth to power.
In the second story, Jesus is at dinner at the home of a Pharisee named Simon – and we should remember that Pharisees aren’t bad guys. Pharisees were those devout Jews who were trying to define what faithfulness looked like. They tended toward a checklist approach devoid of ambiguity, but if we’re honest, we have to admit that we would like that, too. And so when a woman known to be a sinner comes in and washes the feet of Jesus, Simon has a category for this – woman touching man = bad, unrighteous woman in house = bad. And he is disturbed that Jesus, a holy man, doesn’t recognize this.
So Simon is finding the behavior of Jesus pretty baffling, at best, and then Jesus tells him the parable about forgiveness, and as prophets do, he helps Simon see how things really are. Jesus shows that the important thing about the woman is not that she had sinned, but that she is forgiven. And she knows this, and so her response is one of gratitude.
And we’ll get back to gratitude, but first I want to go back to where I began, and that is that these stories become more interesting in counterpoint. King Ahab is the king. He is wealthy, and has at least a winter palace in Samaria and a summer palace at Jezreel. He also has immense power. And yet, with all that he is and all that he has, all he can think about is what he doesn’t have – and he is dissatisfied and wants more.
The woman, unnamed, is known for her sin – we don’t really know much else about her, whether she is wealthy or not, whether she is married or not. It’s reasonable to speculate that she is a prostitute since she is described as a sinner, but we don’t know. What we do know is that her focus is not on what she has or doesn’t have, but on this moment of welcome and forgiveness. And she is more than content – she is grateful.
And from these stories together, we can see that happiness is not really dependent on circumstances – it comes from our attitude toward those circumstances. And contentment comes from being able to see our circumstances as they really are – good or bad – and being able to see ourselves as we really are.
Looking at Ahab, I’m reminded of the saying, “We can never get enough of that which we don’t really need.” Ahab doesn’t need more land – he doesn’t need, and because somehow he’s tied his own success to what he has – he will never have enough.
The woman, on the other hand, sees exactly how she is, and how her circumstances are – and she is able to accept both herself, and the forgiveness, and so she is overwhelmed with joy. She is able to be fully present to this moment – she is not stuck in the past, wallowing in guilt; nor is she moving ahead to the future, worrying about what might or might not come to pass. Life as it is, just as it is in that moment, is enough for her. Perhaps this is what the Apostle Paul means when he writes in his letter to the Philippians, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.”
This is why truth, and facing the truth, is such an essential part of maturity and contentment. This is why being truth-tellers is of the essence of being people of God. As we learn that being present to what is, just as it is, is essential to joy, we will want to pay attention, to become aware, to accept ourselves and the reality of the moment.
One of my favorite quotations comes from USC professor of philosophy Dallas Willard who wrote, in his marvelous book, The Divine Conspiracy: “Your life is not something from which you can stand aside and consider what it would have been like had you a different one. There is no ‘you’ apart from your actual life. You are not separate from your life, and it is in that life you must find the goodness of God. Otherwise, you will not believe that he has done well by you, and you will not truly be at peace with him.”
So when we hear someone say, “I want my life back,” we know we are listening to someone who has not yet been able to fully face reality – because in each moment, the way that moment is IS our life. Now, let us be real with each other right now: any of us can understand the person who says “I want my life back” – this is usually someone who is experiencing a hard change, a dislocating change in their life. Perhaps they have been diagnosed with cancer, perhaps a loved one has died, perhaps they have had a crisis at work, or a loved one is facing an unbearable challenge.
And yet, in the hardest of times, the first step toward getting unstuck is to accept the reality of our lives. Ironically, that is also the first step toward hope. First of all, no matter how difficult our circumstances are, they are much easier to bear if we stay present to the moment, and don’t get distracted by the past and a litany of “if only” or “why me”. Equally important is to stay in the present moment and not let ourselves get distracted by the possibilities of the future – with the choruses of “maybe” or “what if”.
Being fully present to the moment is increasingly difficult in our culture which cultivates distraction as if it were a virtue. Our text-messaging, iPod-wearing, BlackBerry-scanning, channel-surfing habits are making us less and less present to where and when we are. I should be clear – I’m not speaking from a point of virtue here. In my efforts to be available as needed, and being someone who has always worried about missing things, I am far too easily distracted by the BlackBerry, and am trying to discern how to keep availability and presence in appropriate balance.
Also, being practical people who need to function in a complex world, we know that we need to have some awareness of the future and the past, in order to understand the present contextually. Nonetheless, we can choose to develop a greater sense of mindfulness, a fuller ability to be present to the moment. When we walk or drive, we can leave the iPod behind and the cellphone in our pocket, and we can notice what’s around us. We can choose practices like bird-watching, or fishing, or drawing, or photography, that naturally orient us to the present moment, and then we can be sure to be present in those activities. We can undertake spiritual practices like Zen meditation, or contemplative prayer, to help us learn to be more present. Teachers like Kim Boykin, who wrote Zen for Christians or Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are are very helpful to modern Western people, and are able to help us move beyond getting stuck in the distraction of our own thoughts to being able to see our thoughts as paths to mindfulness.
Now it may seem counterintuitive that being present to the moment is a path to contentment. After all, we aren’t all in happy circumstances. And yet, mindfulness is being taught as a means to coping with the stress and anxiety of illness. And in the present moment, we can choose to be thankful – whatever our circumstances.
Some of you may remember the movie Pollyanna. Pollyanna was the child of missionary parents who had died, and she was sent to live with her aunt, a wealthy and powerful woman in a small town. And as Pollyanna made her way around town, she both annoyed and delighted people with her practice of playing what she called “The Glad Game”. She explained to the pastor in town that her father, also a minister, had once counted all the verses in the Bible that said something like, “Rejoice…” or “Be glad…” and there were over 800 of them. He reasoned that if God had told us over 800 times to be glad then it must be important, so they developed The Glad Game, which was just a name for the practice of gratitude, of choosing to count our blessings instead of focusing on what’s wrong. It’s a choice we can each make, and it’s easier to make when we stay in the present and choose to ignore guilt or anxiety.
The woman who stopped into Simon’s house and washed the feet of Jesus was not dwelling on the things she had done wrong – she was rejoicing that they weren’t a barrier to God’s love. She was focusing on the reality of the present – that God was caring for her and welcoming her – rather than regretting her past, or worrying about what would come next.
Practicing mindfulness helps us to choose our thoughts. King Ahab could have chosen to be grateful for all he had, but he chose to dwell on what he didn’t have. This was a choice. While we can’t always choose our circumstances, we can choose the way we respond to them. And prayer can be a way to help us shape our response – some of us are uncomfortable praying regarding circumstances – we don’t really believe that God is going to change the way things are. But God can always work in us to help shape our response – and if we aren’t comfortable with prayer in that way, we can at least learn to practice more mindfulness and attention to the moment, and even this will lead to greater contentment.
Today, during communion, let’s take a few minutes to practice what was preached. Let’s first remember the quote of Dallas Willard: “Your life is not something from which you can stand aside and consider what it would have been like had you a different one. There is no ‘you’ apart from your actual life. You are not separate from your life, and in that life you must find the goodness of God. Otherwise, you will not believe that he has done well by you, and you will not truly be at peace with him.” One of the words for communion is Eucharist, which comes from the Greek for thanksgiving: being able to connected to one another and to God in integral ways is indeed an occasion for thanksgiving.
During communion, [or, at home, just take some time quietly] let us practice any one of three approaches. Either use that time to consider how the goodness of God is present in your life as it is right now: where is love present? What is true in your life? How are relationships nourishing you? Where do you exercise creativity? And in experiencing those dimensions of your life where you can observe the goodness of God, be grateful.
OR, instead of reflecting in that way, just pay attention to the music. If your mind wanders off from the music, and you notice that you are having other thoughts, use those thoughts as something to detach from in order to pay attention to the music again. The thoughts aren’t bad – they are a way to help you choose again to pay attention to the moment.
OR, instead either of these, try paying attention visually – really notice your surroundings as if you were going to paint the scene or to describe it carefully to someone else. Don’t judge, just notice. Again, if your mind wanders, it’s not a failure – when you notice your thoughts, just leave them and return to observing.
AND in the course of our days, another mindfulness exercise is to take a walk without iPod, and practice noticing our surroundings.
In each exercise, we will be present to life as it is, just as it is – not as we might wish it to be. These are ways of learning gratitude and mindfulness that can be practiced several times a day briefly – or once or twice for a longer time. Learning to be present, learning to give thanks, will help us to live life more fully and richly in each moment, and in that way, our life is enlarged, deepened, and available to be lived. Thanks be to God…Amen.