H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
23 November 2003
THE THANKSGIVING ANTIDOTE
2 Kings 4:38-41
I love this story of the prophet Elisha. During a time of famine, Elisha’s buddies manage to scrape together the basic ingredients for a pot of stew. Just
before the stew is finished somebody picks a few wild gourds, chops them up, and pitches them into the kettle. Unfortunately, the gourds are poison, and
now the whole batch of stew is inedible. The poison gourds have tainted all the good and wholesome things in the stew.
In a time of famine this is a tragic loss. The little band of hungry prophets is bitterly disappointed and they cry out to Elisha, “O man of God, there is
death in the pot!” In a spirit of sympathy-and perhaps because he, too, is hungry-Elisha decides to remedy the situation. He calls for a handful of flour,
throws it into the stewpot, and miraculously the stew is made wholesome and safe again. The prophets eat their fill and give thanks to God.
I offer you that story as a parable. There is so much in life that is good and precious, but one bad gourd can poison the whole batch. It’s so easy for us to
focus on the negatives, the setbacks, the sorrows, the losses, the things we don’t have. A multitude of good things can be overshadowed, utterly poisoned by
a handful of disappointments. But there is an antidote-a miraculous, life-changing, God-given antidote for that poisoning. It’s called thankfulness.
For instance, thankfulness is the antidote for bitterness. In a book about personal struggles, a Methodist pastor tells about a pale-faced, red-eyed young
woman who sat in his office grieving the death of her twenty-six year old husband who had been killed in a farming accident leaving the young widow with
three small children. In the course of the conversation, the widow said, “I don’t know how to get through this. I only know that it’s up to me whether I get
better or get bitter.”
We can’t decide to avoid all pain in life. We don’t have that option. The choice that is before us is how we will respond to pain. We are allowed to choose
whether we will grow better or grow bitter. A woman told me about her father dying when she was only twelve years old. She said the grief was terrible and
seemed to get worse as the years went by. Her father had been so loving towards her, and the loss of that love was indescribably painful.
But one day the woman decided to change her way of thinking and feeling. It occurred to her that twelve years of a father’s love was really a great gift, a
grace many people never experienced in a lifetime. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her, but she made up her mind that she would stop being resentful that her
father was taken away from her. Instead, she would be thankful for twelve years of love, twelve years of games and hugs, twelve years of golden memories.
Thankfulness is like getting glasses with a new prescription. Through the eyes of thankfulness the world looks different. Life looks brighter. Unnoticed gifts
and graces suddenly come into focus.
Thankfulness is also an antidote for discouragement. The apostle Paul wrote this advice to his friends in Philippi: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think
about these things,” (Philippians 4:8 NRSV). The word translated as “think” carries the idea of pondering something and reaching a conclusion, making up
one’s mind. The idea is that we have to make up our minds about life.
If we decide that life is essentially miserable with an occasional lucky break, we will mostly be miserable. We’ll know better than to work hard for victory,
and sure enough we won’t encounter many victories. If we look for problems and reasons to fail, we’ll find plenty of both.
On the other hand, we may take Paul’s advice and fix our vision on honor and justice and purity and truth. We can decide that, in spite of some bad stuff here
and there, life is fundamentally good. If we look for things that evoke praise, if we look for kind and unselfish people, if we look for uplifting events, we will
find exactly what we’re looking for.
We can always find reasons for lamentation and breast-beating. We can always justify discouragement, but is that how we want to live? The pilgrims gave
thanks even though many of their number were freshly buried in the cold soil of this new land. In the Letter to the Philippians, the most joyful letter in the
New Testament, Paul gave thanks from a prison cell. Abraham Lincoln established the first formal Thanksgiving Day in the darkest hour of the Civil War
when the butcher’s list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival.
Thankfulness is a way of experiencing life. Thankfulness is not denial. Thankfulness doesn’t ignore the horrible things or the tragic things, but thankfulness
refuses to define life in those terms. Thankfulness professes and believes that life is a gift, a gift to be celebrated, a gift to be savored, and a gift for which to
give thanks to the Giver. Thankfulness is the antidote for discouragement.
And thankfulness is also the antidote for arrogance. In his farewell address to the people of Israel, Moses urged them to keep a thankful spirit. Here is part
of what Moses said, words that are hauntingly relevant to folks like you and me.
“Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land-a land with
streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey;
a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.
“When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God,
failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine
houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will
become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful
desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the
desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, ‘My
power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce
wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.”
You may work hard each day for the material things you enjoy. You may work hard at the gym for your health. You may work hard at your marriage. And
because we work hard for these things we may come to believe that we have gotten these blessings all on our own, by our own efforts and our own goodness.
That is the arrogance for which thankfulness is the antidote. Thankfulness reminds us that life is not a matter of earnings but of blessings, not a matter of just
deserts but of undeserved graces. This is not to say that our efforts don’t matter; but from the Christian perspective ultimately every good thing is a gift from
God.
People sometimes use the words “thankfulness” and “thanksgiving” interchangeably, but they are not quite the same. Thanksgiving is something we do;
thanksgiving is the act of saying thank you to God-before meals, before bed, after the promotion, after the healing or the escape.
Thankfulness, on the other hand, is an attitude-an attitude of gratitude, if you will. Thankfulness is a perspective on life, an acknowledgement that we live
and move and have our being in the God who fills our lives with good things. Thankfulness leads to thanksgiving, and thanksgiving in turn encourages
thankfulness.
We read the story of Elisha and the poisoned stew. There’s another similar story in which Elisha visits a village where the water supply is contaminated.
There’s sickness among the people and no babies are coming to birth. So Elisha takes a handful of salt and throws it in the spring, and Elisha says, “Thus
says the Lord, ‘I have made this water wholesome.’“
A little flour in the stew, a sprinkle of salt in the water and by God’s grace all is well. Sometimes in life you just have to know the antidote, the antidote
God puts within our reach, the antidote by which bitterness becomes sweetness, sickness becomes health, and sorrow becomes joy. When the world is dark,
try throwing in a handful of thankfulness. When life is bleak, sprinkle a bit of thanksgiving and see if it doesn’t make a difference.
Soli Deo Gloria!