We asked thirty or so people what they were thankful for. Kiley had a camera. Janna had a microphone. Both were on when the question was asked.

People were good sports. People answered. They mentioned family. They mentioned God. They mentioned church and food and candy and laughter. Different ages, different life stages, different stories of struggle.

We asked another forty people to tell their story of faith in a handful of words on two sides of a piece of cardboard. They spoke of cancer and abuse and struggles. That was on one side of the cardboard. On the other side they talked about God’s presence and about hope and about community.

Between those two simple projects, more than 70 people spoke simply and powerfully in our church gatherings this weekend.

No one preached a thirty-minute sermon. No one said more than fifty words. No one had long outlines, footnotes, or theological references. Instead, they told the story of their lives and of their moments.

Is there a place for longer discourse? By all means. It is part of learning, of training, of teaching. The long pieces we do, whether in sermons or blog posts or essays or books provide explanations and underpinnings and understanding.

But all that means nothing if there are not dozens of simple stories for every one of those longer pieces. The good news of the kingdom is that it is good news of great joy which shall be to all people.

So here are my questions for us this week:

What’s your simple answer to what you are thankful for this moment? If you had to say something with a camera in your face, what would you say?

If you had 15 words (or fewer) to tell the story of your following Jesus, what would they be?

It’s the day after the ritual.

We are exhausted and confused. Our bodies aren’t used to that much food, to this much time out of the routine, to the tension between expectations and reality.

The antidote for the day after Thanksgiving confusion is not shopping. It is giving.

Giving thanks.

The best way to make sure that our thankfulness is not limited to one day but becomes part of a life of gratitude is to spend the day after thanksgiving giving thanks.

There are people in the Bible who have a life of gratitude even when the conditions of their lives weren’t great.

Paul constantly thanks God for the people he writes to, even when all he can thank God for is the fact that He is working on them. And Paul had physical and emotional and spiritual challenges all the time, from inside and out.

David constants thanks God, except when he is talking about oceans and mountains thanking God. And when he is inviting everything that has breath to thank God.  And David spent the first part of his life being picked on, the next part of his life being chased, the next part being king, and then next part of his life dealing with a fractured family.

I know that sometimes it is hard to thank God for. “Thank you for this horrible experience” feels wrong somehow. “Thank you that“, however, can be just as accurate. “Thank you that I was preserved, that you were present, that you think outside of time, that justice isn’t momentary.”

It may be challenging today to be thankful. That’s fine. It’s a good test of how much gratitude we have.

We gotta start somewhere.

“I thank God every time I think of you.” See? Not so hard. Of course, meaning it…

go do it.

(But know that I am thankful for your continued support and encouragement.)

Jesus sits down for supper with a small group of friends. He’s hosting the party. He’s got everything covered.

He takes some bread, breaks it, and gives thanks. He takes the cup and gives thanks.

It’s chilling if you think about it. Jesus is thankful for the bread and wine which he then says stand for his body and blood which will be drained out in less than twenty-four hours.

Facing his own destruction, knowing of the plot to kill him, predicting for weeks that this day and crossroads was coming, he still is thankful.

Most of us, when we know that something awful is about to happen, find it difficult to muster the quietness to be thankful. Instead, we are jumpy, we are chatty, we forget the simplest things.

On the other hand, the times that we are thankful are times when we are anticipating something good, when even the smallest provision elicits abundant gratitude.

Do you see what I see in this simple action of Jesus?

Father, here we are, at this table, with these guys. I am in the presence of my enemy, but you have prepared this table. You have given us this bread. You have given us this wine. This bread, a perfect metaphor. There will always be bread. This will always be available for telling the story. And a cup of wine. Perfect. exactly right. The blood-redness of it will resemble blood. This story, written in our creation, and my blood. It will hurt like hell. It will limit hell.

Thank you.

Jesus knew where the bread came from. He knew the story it would tell. Because he knew the plot, he could be thankful for what seemed awful.

Our invitation? To trust that story. By trusting, to join it. And to be thankful.

We find it easy to say thanks for people who are great.

• “Thank you, God, for Chris who encourages me and takes time to talk with you about me.”
• “Thank you, God, for Mom and Dad who are patient with me and care for us and are always looking for ways to encourage.”

Being thankful for people who benefit us makes sense. But Paul offers a different kind of thankfulness. He is specifically thankful for cranky people.

In Philippians 1, Paul writes,

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  It is right for me to feel this way about all of you…

Paul thanks God for these people and carefully says that he includes everyone. Must be perfect people, we think.  Must be a perfect place.

Until you get to chapter 4. There Paul singles out two women:

I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord.

There was some argument about something with these two that was more than just a momentary thing. It was a reputation for them.

But Paul still remembers then with joy.

The secret? The joy of community and the confidence that God could actually work in community allowed Paul to be joyful in asking for God to work in this group even as he knew that they weren’t perfect.

He could have focused on the problem: “If you were to fix this, then I could be happy.” But he joyfully accepts growing people.

He’s right.