Philippians 4:4-9
“You’re Welcome”
November 20, 2022
In just a few days, folks around tables in fancy restaurants groaning under the weight of the bounty of the season and hospital cafeterias during a long shift away from family and in cozy apartments with just a few friends and in homeless shelters where the staff and volunteers have worked hard to make a house of strangers feel festive, will celebrate our uniquely American Thanksgiving.
What will bring people together all around our country on Thanksgiving, regardless of whether turkey or hot dogs are on the menu, is a sense of gratitude.
Gratitude was the reason that President Abraham Lincoln established the last Thursday of November as a national holiday for the purpose of giving thanks in 1863 when our nation was in the middle of a bloody civil war which had divided America for 3 years by that point.
Lincoln realized that in the midst of the worst of times there was a vital need for gratitude.
Paul here is writing to his beloved church in Philippi, acknowledging that the trouble that is brewing there when right before today’s passage he recognizes that all is not well in the church.
There is a disagreement of some sort between some of the leaders of the church there. We also remember that Paul is writing this from jail.
He is missing those in Philippi and his long absence from them has made the joy they had when he was with them, sharing the Good News, begin to fade.
His command to rejoice does not negate the very real problems within the church and his own life…and still, Paul’s response is to call for rejoicing…always.
Paul was ahead of his time in promoting the concept of gratitude with such vigor.
Scientists have proven that people who practice gratitude regularly have stronger immune systems and lower blood pressure.
Their tendency is to take better care of their health, exercise more and sleep better.
From a psychological perspective those who practice gratitude enjoy life more.
When one practices gratitude regularly there is a tendency to be more helpful, compassionate, generous and forgiving.
Those who are grateful are more focused on the present.
The pleasures in life are magnified because that is where the attention of the grateful person is focused.
The joy that is found in Christ has frustrated many political leaders over the centuries because they can’t understand where it comes from.
The word gentleness is used here in Paul’s letter but a better translation would be forbearance, figuring out how to get through a situation.
Joy does not get rid of the pain of life.
Instead, it is a way to approach life from a different and freeing perspective.
We can let go of the need to be our own savior.
Prayer allows us to consider the pain of life from another angle.
The key sentence in this passage is “The Lord is near.”
That is the cause for thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is all over the Bible – 138 passages about it.
There are not, however, very many hymns devoted solely to the idea of giving thanks.
The one we will close today’s Service with, Now Thank We All Our God is one Christians in Germany sing regularly in the same way we sing the Doxology.
The writer of this hymn was a Lutheran pastor from Saxony named Martin Rinkart.
Rinkart was raised as the son of a poor coppersmith.
He responded to the call to ministry and was just beginning his work as a pastor during the Thirty Years’ War in Germany.
His walled city was flooded with desperate refugees and inside the walls of the city there was plague and famine.
People were dying in dramatic number and 800 homes were destroyed.
The pastors in the city were stretched to the limit trying to minister to the sick and dying and burying the dead.
One right after another, the pastors got sick and died and Martin Rinkart was the only one left, sometimes having to do as many as 50 funerals in a single day.
The enemy Swedish army demanded an enormous ransom to stop this destruction.
Martin Rinkart ventured outside the relative safety of the city walls and negotiated with their enemies.
He was so brave and faithful that soon the hostilities and the suffering was ended.
Rinkart was very aware that without thanksgiving there would be no healing.
He wrote Now Thank We All Our God for the survivors of his devastated city.
We will struggle.
We will lose people we love – these candles symbolize that.
Paul is not dismissing pain but rather describing the practice of prayer as a way to look at that pain from a different perspective.
The congregations that Paul started and led in person and from a distance certainly gave him a boatload of grief and struggle but they also were a source of joy and that joy was part of who he was.
Prayer, in a spirit of thanksgiving, is an act of joy.
Let us then lift this prayer from the president of Xavier University:
Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God.
Loving Creator,
We asked for strength, and you gave us difficulties to make us strong.
We asked for wisdom, and you gave us problems to solve.
We asked for prosperity, and you gave us purpose and brains to use.
We asked for courage, and you gave us fears to overcome.
We asked for patience, and you gave us situations where we were forced to wait.
We asked for love, and you gave us troubled people to help.
We asked for justice, and you called us to be just and to lead with integrity.
Lord, we have received nothing that we asked for or wanted.
And yet, we received everything that we needed.
For this, we give thanks. Amen.