2 Timothy 1:1-9 “Thi-Anking God”
Last month Grace Kamai’s little great granddaughter, Little Gracie, was over at the food pantry helping out as she does. She is of course only six years’ old. She was on the cart that we use to move boxes around. She was sitting in a box on the flat roll cart. I started pulling her around. I kidded her that since she was in the box on the cart I could take her down to the post office and mail her off on her vacation. I said that I might mail her off to Honolulu. In doing this, I asked her where she would be going on her vacation. She said that this was her vacation.
“Do you mean that coming to the church is your vacation?” I asked.
“Yah. Coming to the church is my vacation.” She replied.
I really liked that answer. Yes, coming to church can be just like a vacation: a place to get away from it all. Church is where you leave the world behind and find refreshment of the soul. I hope that is what you are feeling this day.
Now, what were we doing at the food pantry at the church that day when Gracie was there? We were going through the food to make sure we did not have any expired dates on the goods. We were warned in advance that there might be a surprise inspection. I ended up tipping out a few cans of old grapefruit juice that not even the clients at the food pantry want to take off our hands. I punctured the cans one by one and poured the contents down the drain. While I was doing this I could not help but think of the amount of effort that went into putting the grapefruit juice into those cans in the first place.
I thought about the fact that someone had to grow the trees. Replant them. Graft them to bear fruit. Fertilize them. Water them. Get workers in to pick the fruit. Process the fruit. Pasteurize the juice. Dig tin and iron out of the ground. Smelt it. Form it into cans. Sterilize the cans. Fill them with juice. Seal the lids. Print the labels. Ship the cans to the distributor. Ship them to the markets. Ship them back to the distributor because the end dates were being reached. Ship to the USDA who shipped it Oahu. Barge it over to Kauai. Truck it to Waimea. Then in the end of this entire process, have the pastor of the church have to pour the contents down the drain and chuck the cans in the garbage.
I was a little distraught at the thought until I reversed my thinking. You see, trees were being planted. That is good. Farmers were making a living. That is good. Fruit pickers were making some livelihood as well. The canners were making a living. The shippers and distributors had something to ship and distribute, the Food Pantry had something on its shelves in the case it were to be needed and in the end it was not needed, which means the people generally had enough to eat. I thought to myself that instead of being angry, I should be really very thankful.
Paul in his letter to Timothy seems to come to that same realization as he complains about his own circumstances; that is, he has been abandoned by a lot of those early Christians that were supposed to be working together. He is imprisoned. He has a serious medical condition. In spite of all this in the opening line of his letter to Timothy, he talks about the grace of God: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the ‘grace’ of God.” (Our pew Bibles say by the “will” of God, but the word in the Greek is “charis” which is better translated as “grace.” Paul makes it clear that he is still thankful to God in his very opening remark.
This thanksgiving is echoed again in verse three: “I am grateful to God. . . .when I remember you.” Indeed, just thinking about Timothy and his call to be the bishop of the church in Ephesus causes him to want to thank God. For Paul, when he starts thinking, he starts thanking! The actions seem to be intricately interwoven.
This idea really shines throughout all of Paul’s writings, but I want to lift up just one more passage that puts “thanking” and “thinking” together. This is from Philippians 1:3-7, “I thank my God every time I remember you. . . .It is right for me to think this way about all of you.” This is the way that we must also think, constantly thanking God.
Have you noticed of late all of the street signs along the main highway going to Lihue that say: “Drive attentive, drive safe.” I know that many of you have seen them because we all shared the fact that we have noticed the poor grammar. These signs are lit and flash at you as you drive by. You cannot miss them. However, I have personally wondered if they are not a distraction to actually driving attentively and safely.
So, I am driving along through Lihue and I see another big sign. This one says, “Mahalo Nui.” You have all seen it. It is on the marquis of the old Lihue Theater. Right there as you are driving along, there is the sign “Thank you much!” I was thinking about this then that indeed I should be thankful. Every time I get in the car and drive to Lihue and actually make it without being in an accident or having a breakdown then I should be thankful. We have all known of people who have set off to Lihue and have never come back because they were killed in an accident on the way. And, if we all do start thanking God every time we actually make it out to Lihue and back, then maybe, just maybe, we would all become more attentive drivers because we would be constantly thinking about making it there alive.
Applying this same idea, what if we were to thank God for every morning we wake up and get out of bed? Would that not cause us to think about the preciousness of life all the more?
One of the things that I have noticed in my many years of providing pastoral care in hospitals is this strange thing that people say to the doctor when the doctor comes out to consult the family in the case of terminal illness. The family always thanks the doctor afterwards. I found myself doing it when my stepfather was in hospital and the doctor came out to tell the family that it was only a matter of time that nothing else could be done. I shook the doctor’s hand and said “Thank you, doctor.” Why didn’t I say, “My stepfather’s going to die? NO THANK YOU, doctor!”
Here is what I think is happening: We realize that the doctor him or her self must truly dislike coming out to tell the family the bad news. The doctor’s calling is to heal, not be the harbinger of death. I believe that families in that situation naturally understand the difficulty the doctor faces in making the determination to share such news with the family. The doctor may not have to come out and say anything at all. However, because the doctor does, we have time to prepare ourselves and to say out final farewells. When we think about it, we come to a point of thanksgiving, and we say thank you in response.
So, whether we are thinking about something and that causes us to be thankful or we are thankful and that causes us to think, the two do go together. When they come together, something happens. This is a little bit hard to explain because I do not know if everyone experiences the same thing as I do; however, when I am truly thankful to a person I have a warm feeling in my chest. In other words, there is a physical reaction. Do you know what I am talking about?
You see, I can be thinking about a person and not have that warm feeling come to me. I can say thank you to a person and not have that warm feeling come to me. However, when I am thinking about a person and then suddenly feel gratitude towards that person, then the warm feeling comes in my chest. And, it feels wonderful.
Maybe I go to the supermarket and buy some food for dinner. I pull out my credit card to pay. The clerk rings up the charge. The clerk hands the card back to me with the receipt, and so I say “thank-you.” I know that I am not really so grateful to the clerk. After all, I just gave the store my money. This is an act of courtesy really. In fact, in most cultures the customer would never say “thank-you” after a business transaction. That is what the clerk is supposed to do. It is an oddity that in America the customer ends the transaction with a “thank-you.”
Just as an aside, also, I have noticed that in the last ten years fewer receipts say “thank-you” on them anymore. I seem to recall that it was just standard that the merchant’s receipt always started with the words “Thank you for shopping at. . . .(name your place)” That is not always the case anymore! Some say “We appreciate your business,” but that is not the same as a true “thank-you” in my book.
A courtesy thank-you is an unthinking kind of thank-you that has no chance of creating that warm feeling in the chest. One must think and thank simultaneously to get that true warmth of gratitude going.
I wanted to close today by doing my Apostle Paul interpretation for all of you. When I think about this church, and I have had a couple of weeks to reflect sincerely recently, I am just amazing thankful for all of you. I get that warmth in my chest. Yes, you give me heartburn! You know what I mean!
At the end of every worship, you all line up at the back to grasp my hand. So many of you come up to me and say “thank-you.” I just want to make sure you hear back that I am thankful for all of you. Every time I think of you I thank God for you.
Amen.