The Giving and Receiving of Thankfulness
I have been following my friend’s blog about her experiences with having breast cancer. Her name is Tina Frey, some of you may remember her and her husband Nathan, and at that time their new born son Logan. They were parishioners here at St. Paul’s for about a year, but moved out of state two years ago for another job.
In her latest blog entry, Tina reminds us about a poem written by Robert Fulghum, “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”. As I read what Tina has to say, I can hear in her words what is most important to her…the things that are most important to her is her relationships. I read about her relationship with God, her husband and other extended family and friends…. I read about Tina’s relationships with her two boys; both who are under the age of three. Through the way Tina is living her life she is teaching her boys about what is most important in life; she is teaching lessons about faith, hope, trust and love... Faith, hope, trust and love are the foundations of all relationships… and these lessons begin well before that first day of Kindergarten.
Through the process of growing up we are often formed by the stories we hear our family tell and the stories that are read to us, both at church and at home. My daughter Lucy is an avid reader…or at least she is an avid page turner. Her understanding about what is most important is continually being formed by those pages and the stories on them.
What stories formed your understanding about what healthy relationships look like? What stories did you read as a child? What stories did/do you read to your children or grandchildren, or other special child?
Here is the all time top 10 list of children’s stories.
#10: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
by Judith Viorst
#9: Harold and the Purple Crayon
by Crockett Johnson
#8: Tikki Tikki Tembo
by Arlene Mosel
#7: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
by Judi Barrett
#6: Corduroy
by Don Freeman
#5: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
by Eric Carle
#4: Where the Wild Things Are
by Maurice Sendak
#3: Green Eggs and Ham
by Dr Seuss
#2: Goodnight Moon
by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd
#1: The Giving Tree
by Shel Silverstein
None of these books are considered “Religious Books” but each of them contains God within their covers.
Today we are going to experience and be formed by the #1 book on the list.
When we hear this story we can’t help but feel for the tree.
The tree gives unconditionally over and over again and yet the boy does not seem to appreciate it.
The theological question, or “God” question that comes to mind is: Should the tree's giving be contingent on the boy's gratitude?
If we relate the tree to being God, then is God’s giving to us contingent on our gratitude towards God?
The answer has to be NO. If it were so, most of us wouldn’t have much of anything.
God’s giving to us, God’s unconditional giving to us is called Grace.
We can’t earn it and we can’t buy it. God’s Grace flows freely into our lives.
Yet…in The Giving Tree we more often than not feel compassion for the Tree. The tree gives and gives and gives some more… yet again, we secretly relate to the boy as we take and take and take.
Our hope is that if we were the Boy, we hope we would respond in a way that corresponds with the Gifts that were being given.
This book is about relationships and the Grace in which we should live them. In the story our hearts connect with the tree and we yearn for the boy to simply say Thank you. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for the Apples, for the branches, for the trunk and thank you allowing me to rest on the stump.
How do we respond to God’s grace,… to God’s giving and giving and giving.
As a child the boy was in a relationship, a healthy relationship, but then “life” got in the way and the boy forgot to love the tree; but the tree never stopped loving the boy. Grace is such that no matter what, God will straighten up the stump and allow us to rest in the grace it has to offer…resting in the grace of God.
What lessons do we want our children to learn? Children learn from hearing our stories, but they learn even more by watching us and how we are living out our story and living out our relationships. We become an outward and visible storybook…what story do we want to tell?
Today is “Ingathering Sunday”, the day that we as a parish present our financial pledges to the church for the coming year. Pledge cards are an outward and visible sign of our response to God’s grace in our lives. The pledge card is not something in which the amount represents how much we love God, or the more we give the more God loves us. The pledge card represents our understanding that everything good in our lives comes from God and that we are thankful to God for the Grace we have been given.
Many of you have already turned in your pledge cards and they have already been placed in the pledge baskets. Some of you are still praying about your pledge and don’t have a card to offer today. For those of you who have already sent in your pledge card or are still praying about it, I ask that as the basket comes to you that you would hold the basket and place your thankful heart in the basket and as I bless the pledges, your thankfulness will be blessed too.
I shouldn't have to tell you that two of my favorite books of all time are on this list: The Giving Tree is one that I have always loved - showing us that we give 100% and expect 0%, but that the ones we give 100% to will eventually give 100% right back. And then Alexander's...My Big Sis Tiff still reads this to me when I am having a bad day. Alexander wants to move to Australia to get away fro his bad day (my choice would be Fiji, but close enough)...and then we are reminded at the end that people have bad days all over...even in Australia. You can run, but you can't hide!
ReplyDeleteGreat sermon...thanks for the God wink!
~Tina Frey (and family)