I zipped through heavy traffic rushing to Smyrna for the first available appointment to renew my passport. When I arrived I checked the time, it was 6 minutes before the requested “arrive 15 minutes before your appointment”, but six people before me waited for one post office clerk. At the window a loud customer was angrily arguing with the clerk who refused to release mail without a photo ID. The angry man left with his mail, but one last shout from the door set the room on edge. I decided to pocket my phone and pray.  When I am feeling anxious, I sometimes set my phone’s timer for 7 minutes, put the phone down and prayerfully think of nothing- letting my mind wander. I keep my eyes open, maybe noticing the clouds ors birds, or on that day grayish blue tiles and the stressed out postal worker.   

21 minutes after I arrived a second clerk emerged and seeing me holding a file folder demanded “do you need fingerprints or a passport?”  I said “a passport”  “Name?”  “Purdue.” He pointed, “sit right on that bench. “ I sat and waited some more.  

After 27 minutes  of waiting, the second clerk re-emerged and ushered me into a small room with a table. He pointed to a chair and said “sit here, I’ll be right back.”   As I waited I decided to lay out my paperwork in neat rows facing the clerk’s chair: two passport photos, photo ID, original birth certificate, unsigned but completed application, my checkbook and I suppressed my normal cheery chit-chatty(ness).  He said, “Sorry for your wait, we can’t get enough workers.” He read my application, asked a few questions, affixed a photo, made some copies and took my check.  As we stood up to leave, he checked his watch and laughed a bit, “Thank you for having your stuff together, you can not imagine how some people…”  a little chuckle interpreted his lament and he smiled and said “Thank you, thanks, I’m almost back on track.”  How often does someone say: “Thank you for having your stuff together!”?

A few days later, I set my timer, closed my eyes, and sought to center my soul in silent praise: immediately that postal worker’s smile slid into my soul’s inbox.  I felt a surprising amount of joy and too much pride upon hearing, “Thank you for having your stuff together!”  But maybe my joy at remembering his smile came from a nobler place, my little victory over a stressful wait or better yet the joy of making someone’s day a little better. 

Pastor Kate Fields calls us into mindfulness and thankfulness with a beautiful prayer 

We bless you,

God of seed and harvest,

and we bless each other

that the beauty of this world

and the love that created it

might be expressed though our lives

and be a blessing to others,

now and always. 

Thankfulness might be an essential survival skill in this world of constant notifications. 

Today is the last day of the liturgical year- it once was called “Christ the King Sunday” but today we call it “Reign of Christ” Sunday.  Next week we begin our Advent journey, the theme is beautiful “a weary world rejoices”. Thursday was Thanksgiving, an official national and liturgical holiday and so today we have a choice: Thanksgiving or Reign of Christ.    

Although early Methodist began with the Book of Common Prayer’s lectionary lists by 1792 the General Conference removed these suggested preaching texts. We added them back into the Book of Worship  again in 1992. (umc.org “Why do United Methodists use the revised common lectionary?”).  I initially decided to preach on Thanksgiving, as an annual pilgrimage to thank God for the harvest goes back at least until Deuteronomy 16. “Count out seven weeks from the beginning of the grain harvest and then perform the Festival of Weeks for the Lord your God. Offer a spontaneous gift in precise measure with the blessing the Lord your God gives you. Celebrate in the presence of the Lord your God—you, your sons, your daughters, your workers, the Levites, the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows who are among you.  Remember how each of you was a slave in Egypt, so follow these regulations most carefully. (Duet 16)”  God knows our souls need to give thanks, without thanksgiving, we live in the lowlands of constant consumption, craving and competition.  

Thanksgiving begs the question,  to who, or what, or why are we thankful?  The market gods preach self-sufficiency or some kind of veiled divine right rooted in place and privilege.  Such worship of achievement leaves most people spiritually hungry and alone. 

We surely should be thankful for the great web of farmers, pickers, packers, truckers, groceries, employers, researchers, climate scientists, food safety experts, cookbook authors, engineers, utility workers, electricians and oven makers who helped send the beautiful smell of roasting turkey through our homes. “We bless you, God of seed and harvest, and we bless each other.”

 In his Christmas Sermon on Peace, Dr. King preached, “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of an interrelated structure of reality.” Be thankful and bless each other. 

Beyond thanking others, who or what do we thank? Religious language moves us beyond the particular reasons of science or theology to embrace the wonder and awe beyond us. Thanksgiving pauses our scientific questioning, theological deconstruction, and honest lament and dwells in the beauty that often evades and always surrounds us.  Praise the Lord or Hallelujah, let go of the “how” and even “why” for a few minutes and embrace the “wow”.  As the Psalmist said, “even silence is praise” and silence may at times be the deepest praise. Scratch a dog’s neck, hold a loved-one’s hand, hear a favorite melody and the love we feel often exceeds the capacity of our words- it may exceed even the totality of the experience and feel a bit child-like or even foolish. The other day, I told my dog she is the most wonderful dog in the world, I have no evidence for this. .    

My beautifully low-church Baptist mother blended the Reign of Christ Sunday and Thanksgiving Day, nearly every day as she proclaimed to no one in particular  “thank you Jesus” for the most mundane things.  She merged gratitude, joy, exaltation with that one simple phrase. Cardinals red and brown against the snow perched on her heated bird-bath: “Thank you Jesus.”  A Kentucky ball player hitting a clutch free throw,  holding a hot cup of coffee with cold hands,  sunsets, children laughing, or a completed task: Mom lifted up her “Thank you Jesus.  Richard Rohr names this Praise for the presence of Jesus as the Cosmic Christ or Universal Christ: who is bigger and broader than just the stories in the Bible- for Christ is Risen, Christ is going ahead of us, Christ is present with us and friends we just passed the peace of Christ with each other. Thank You Jesus! Our souls need to let go of the particulars and fall into imprecise praise and wonder.  When we learn to practice thanksgiving, see beauty and vocalize praise, somehow our practice of thanksgiving lifts us up into a more abiding gratitude. 

The ancients knew the valleys did not literally sing, but the sheathes do still shout out in joy. And so not with the deconstructive prying of science or theology but with poetry and imprecisions of parables, poems, stories and songs the Bible calls us into praise.  

God of Zion, to you even silence is praise.
You are the hope of the ends of the earth,
        You make the gateways of morning and evening sing for joy.
  You crown the year with your goodness;
    your paths overflow with rich food.
the hills are dressed in pure joy.

The meadowlands are covered with flocks,
    the valleys decked out in grain—
        they shout for joy; they break out in song

May we see Christ around us  as we practice stepping into wonder, letting praise linger on our lips, with the hope that gratitude might grow in our hearts. Amen