Christmas Eve Reflection 2019

In all sorts of ways we celebrate Christmas  with lights.  We put ligts around houses, on trees here in church we light candles.  Christmas isn’t Christmas without some lights Some of this makes more sense in the northern hemisphere where its winter and darkness comes early. 

Light is essential for us.  We need it to find our way.  Without light nothing grows.  We need it to see each other clearly and to see the beautiful world we live in.  Christians talk of Jesus as a light.  He helps us find our way in life.  He helps us discover what is important and true.  The Bible says that somehow the world is in darkness and needs a light to shine on what is good and true, a light to show us the way. The light of Jesus takes many forms.  In the darkness many of us doubt our value and worth.  When I call Jesus light in my life one part of that light is his teaching that each one of us precious and each one with a purpose.  It is a light that it opens our eyes to see the sacredness in others.  There will always be people I find it hard to get along with in this world, because we are all different, but the light of Jesus calls us to respect others and to look for the presence of God in others.  The light of Jesus helps us see in another way.  Every one of us is meant to be, called into being by God, uniquely crafted by God.  We need Gods light to build communities where people are valued and we treat one another with compassion.

As we look back over this past year we remember March 15^th.   51 people killed in our city, families left without fathers and sons, many facing ongoing disability, and mental trauma.  The outpouring of compassion and the renewed effort to look over the fences that divide, the work put in to build bridges was a sign of the light.   ‘Them’ became ‘us’.  I trust you can reflect on ways you embraced the light. 

We all have this ability to look at others who are different and pull out the label ‘them’.     I like to put someone else down because it makes me feel better.  It gives me self worth to find fault in others.  The light of Jesus encourages us to see that we are all cracked in some way.  Every one of us is flawed.  We actually all know that deep down and we have to find a way to deal with that.  The us and them way is not the way of the light.  Put a box around them and load our stuff on them – it’s called transference and we all do it. 

But there is another way.  Bring the light of Jesus into the narrative.  This light invites us to tell a story of valuing ourselves and each other just as we are, cracks and all. We are valued, we are loved by God as cracked imperfect human beings.  Within that light we can begin the work of transforming and healing ourselves, and the communities of which we are part addressing issues like systematic inequality, our consumptive lifestyles, the crazy busyness, climate change. 

It begins when we begin to see with the light of Christ. 

If there is one sentence that sums up the light of Christ it is this great truth he gave us ….love God and your neighbour as you love yourself.  Respect God and respect your neighbour as you do yourself.  It is not easy but this is the light that will heal the darkness in our world.  This is the light that I celebrate in the birth of the Jesus the Son of God.

Isaiah 2:1-5

    Ami, who was the first born in her family.  But now Mum was pregnant again and she was very excited..  The day arrived and she became the proud sister to a little brother.   Just a few days after the birth, with her brother back in the family home Ami made a request to her parents.  She wanted to be alone with her new brother in his room, with the door shut.  Her insistence about being alone with the baby had her parents worried.  What was Ami planning to do to him?  They had detected no hint of jealous behaviour, but was she planning some dastardly deed as a jealous sibling.  Thankfully they had installed an intercom system in anticipation of the baby’s arrival, so they agreed to their daughters wish knowing they could listen in, and if they heard the slightest indication that something untoward was happening they could be in the room in an instant.

   So Ami was allowed into the room alone and the door was carefully shut.  The parents raced to the intercom to listen in. They heard their daughter’s footsteps moving across the room, and imagined her standing over the bassinet, and then they heard her saying to her little two day old brother, “I’m Ami, and you can help me.  Mum and Dad tell me you are a gift from God.  Can you tell about God – I’ve almost forgotten.”

   Children often delightfully open us to realities about ourselves.  As often happens children reveal things about us.  Ami is telling us in her question to her young brother that we come from God, but somehow in the process of growing up, of learning about this world, we forget God.  In fact in our secular culture we forget about God easily.  God doesn’t get a mention on the news, God doesn’t feature in the Press, and God has been removed from just about every sphere of public life.   

   The strange thing is that even within church circles God is hidden away.  Outside the golden hour of church on Sunday God often doesn’t seem to exist.  I was telling our Session a week ago I have had three people talk to me recently about the reality that when we finish our worship services where we have prayed with God, sung hymns of praise to God, and herd the minister talk about God we leave the worship space and suddenly God is off the radar.  Jesus is never mentioned.  I wonder why that is.  We can talk weather, cricket, garden, children, even politics but God is hush hush.

  I have a suspicion it has something to do with the church we have been brought up in.  The culture in  that church kept God removed from everyday life.  God was a Sunday only God and dare I say it but a clergy mediated God.  Many people I think believed that because we are not very expert at spirituality or God stuff that they should leave it to the experts.  Not being expert meant you kept your mouth shut. Maybe if we have had some experiences that might be God related we also kept them quiet because we thought others would label us as kooky if we shared them. ]

Whatever the reason the consequences are the same.  God is kept locked away. Jesus is hidden and ignored in our discourse with one another.

     I have a simple plea this morning….. can we start talking about God?  Can we with Ami ask more often of each other….tell me about God.  Can we re-introduce God into our thinking and our conversations?  Can we live as if God matters to us instead of hiding God away?

   I ask this for two reasons.  Firstly I do find it odd that in my ministry most of my God conversations are with people who don’t go to church.  Especially in recent years I keep bumping into people who tell me they don’t go to church but they want to talk about God and their experiences of God.  Sometime they even say they’ve tried church but they didn’t find people willing to talk about God.  I’m simply puzzled why this might be so.  I talk with other ministers and I find this is not uncommon.   Sociologists tell us that people are more interested in God and spirituality than they used to be but they don’t make strong links between this interest and church and I guess the answer stares us in face.  But secondly I’m interested in some research by an American author Dorothy Butler Bass who took some time to research why some mainline churches like ours were growing in North America when most are slowly declining and dying.  We are not talking mega churches here but traditional mainline protestant churches.  If you boiled down her findings she discovered that the churches that were growing were churches where people talked about God.  God was alive in their midst in some way.  Pushed further she says that growing churches have people in them that commit time to nurturing the presence of God with spiritual practices. Healing practices like Reiki, prayer practices like meditation, intentional hospitality practices, regular testimony, working for justice, and people asking questions about how we should live as followers of Jesus.

  Remember  Isaiah’s prophecy we read this morning.  Come to the Lord’s house that we may learn of God’s ways, and seek guidance.  We learn most through conversation and sharing our conversation.  We learn most as we honestly engage with one another and encourage one another with our stories and our learnings.  We need to see God in each other, feel God in each other, touch God in each other, experience God in each other.  We need to walk together with God.   That’s why we have church, so we can be a community that talks about God and Jesus together, learn together and encourage each other.  We can help one another see God more clearly in our lives rather that walking with a hidden God.

    Often we are blind to God’s presence in our lives.   We simply don’t see the acting of God in our lives.  Two people can watch the same beautiful sunset, and only one may say “praise be to God for the wonderful gift of creation”.  Two people can hear a thrush singing as the dawn breaks but only one may ask so why is that bird singing with such praise?  Two people will see the same act of kindness but only one may say, “I see the presence of God in this action.”  Two people will suffer the same tragedy, but only one may sense the deeply everlasting arms of God.  God is alive in our world but sometimes we need the encouragement of another to help us see, hear, know.  And each of us can be the person that encourages another to see God and know God more truly. 

There is a practice I want to encourage you to engage in in this season of Advent.  I’m not asking you to recite the apostles creed to each other, or to go out on street corners and tell the world about Jesus, (but feel free).  What I am asking is that you might ask questions of each other.  While you have a cuppa after our service would you simply ask, ‘what did God whisper to you today at worship?’ or ‘what do you take away from worship?’  Another way of asking could be ‘what warmed your heart today in worship?’, or ‘what is sitting with you after our time together?’  I’m trying to think of questions that are not just head questions but open us to the possibility that God moves in all sorts of ways as we gather to worship.  It may be a line in a reading or hymn, it may be the music, it may be the address, or it may be the silence.  Often it will be something you feel inside and often it will be tentative and nudging.  Can we help one another be more aware of God whispering, encouraging.  Tell me about God I seem to have forgotten….. 

If you want to push this a step further I invite you to ask these questions of yourself, and not just after worship on Sunday but every day.  At the end of the day take just 5 minutes to ask yourself where did I meet God today, and what did God say to me.  Who did I just bump into out of the blue and what message from God did they bring me?  When did I feel my heart warmed?  When did I feel most alive and why?  There are other ways of engaging with this question.  I know some who regularly have a coffee with a friend and they ask these sorts of questions of each other. 

And a final word.  There will usually not be dramatic messages shared.  Most commonly I think God is whispering words of encouragement and love.  Be yourself, know my love, know you are precious. 

Most commonly God is simply nudging you and me into our true purpose.

Can we build practices into our lives that will help us rediscover God as a presence that is alive in our midst, encouraging us, and calling us into true life where we no longer need to be fearful of others, and where we can beat our swords into ploughshares and nurture life together..  Let us help one another discover God again.

Dugald Wilson

1 Dec 2019

As you are aware as we look to the future and the possibility of calling a minister full time we face the issue of finances.  Put bluntly we need to find another $35,000 each year, and we are currently looking at how that might be achieved.  We look over the fence at Hoon Hay congregation which is smaller than ours which has employed a full time minister and is looking at employing other ministry staff. 

We are slowly building up the usage of the complex to gain an income from the building.  We are looking at other ways to raise capital, but a key area we must look at is the income we receive from regular giving to our church.  Money and church is a touchy subject, but if we are going to go ahead and search for a full time ministry we have to be able to show we can meet our commitments, and our special workgroup looking at this has estimated we need to increase giving by $15,000 per year which is not chicken feed. 

As this has been talked about  several people have asked me about the practice of tithing.  The question has been asked about the practice In some churches that people will give one tenth of their income to their church.  I don’t think it’s that simple.

Tithing is a practice that is found in our scriptures.  We are told Abraham established the pattern of giving one tenth of what he received as an offering to God.  Just what that was used for is a little unclear.  The pattern is also followed by Jacob.  (Gen 28:20-22) Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you.”  The word tithe literally means “tenth,”  and the giving of a tenth to God seems to be a pervading pattern.  A key teaching was that all they had was gift from God, and this returning the tenth was a practice that built this teaching into their lives.  Because God cares for those at the bottom of the heap it was also used to help others who may not have had an income.

This pattern was established in the laws of Moses.  Originally the tithe was an obligatory offering requiring 10 percent of an Israelite’s first fruits. Because God provided the harvest, this first part was returned to God. It wasn’t something considered after all the bills were paid, but was a first call on the income which for most was in the form of harvest and food.  It was a show of thankfulness for God’s provision. It also provided for the Levitical priesthood, festivals, and the needy.

As the Israelites became a more settled community the annual tithe was largely used to sustain the places of worship and the leaders involved in the worship and teaching of the faith.  But this wasn’t the only obligatory tithe. They also tithed to support a special jubilee festival (Deut. 12) and took a third tithe every three years to take care of orphans, widows, and the poor (Deut. 14). Baked into God’s law was a special provision to take care of the most vulnerable citizens. Interestingly, this included caring for people from outside of their community.  Someone has worked out that if you average these mandatory offerings you come up with a figure of about 23 percent of your income was given in this way each year.  With introduction of kings and rulers there were also the introduction of other taxes and it all became quite complex.

On top of these compulsory tithes, there were regular opportunities for freewill offerings. These were generous gifts that expressed the Israelites’ gratefulness through voluntary giving to special projects.  At a bare minimum, they gave 23 percent a year, but there was no ceiling on their generosity. They could—and frequently would—give exorbitantly out of their excess. In response to Moses’ call for contributions to the building of the Tabernacle, the Israelites literally gave so much that Moses had to command them to stop giving (Ex. 36:2–7).

Jesus doesn’t mention the tithe as a requirement that his followers should adhere to.  Instead he promotes the idea that we need to get our priorities right in our lives.  Jesus praises the widow who dug deep and sacrificially to give alongside those who gave a little from their abundance.  For him there was aa focus on the new earth or reign of God in all things and that extended very clearly to money.   Maybe I’m just speaking to myself here, but the need to set our priorities carefully, and in all our money dealings we need to consider is this benefiting the kingdom.  Is this helping to bring God’s reign on earth?   Promoting the kingdom of heaven should be our first priority in life and not an afterthought when all my wants and desires are taken care of.  The widow raises some hard issues for us all. 

He also addressed the issue of calculating exactly what the law required in terms of tithing but not caring about the true intent.  Giving to the work of God should come from the heart and not the law.  The law if you like sets some guidelines, and Jesus was more interested in growing a generous heart and giving generously to support the provision of worship the teaching of the faith, and caring for others.  Super religious people it seemed were good at nailing down to the last cent how much was to be given, meeting the demands of the tithing law, but they failed to see others who were struggling in life.   In several teachings he warns that true religion is not about reaching targets of giving, but is about genuine caring and having a concern about justice and why for instance some are poor.  You may also remember that parading your giving also gets the thumbs down from Jesus.  (Matt 23:23, Luke 11:42)

What does this mean for us?

Some churches teach the tithe as a law that applies today with the church as the recipient.  Some may have seen the movie In My Fathers Kingdom which came out this year and focused on a Tongan family here in New Zealand.  Dad in his retirement took up a paper round to provide money for the church and when it came to the annual tithing Sunday he would ring around his kids to ask for a thousand dollars from each of them to give to the church.  Often how much you give becomes public knowledge so an impressive donation gives mana.  His commitment to give almost destroyed his family.  Other churches stress the benefits of giving saying God will bless those who give much.  I live with the principle that we are constantly blessed and while I have no doubt God loves a cheerful and generous giver I don’t think we get special rewards.  There is something wrong when giving to the church almost destroys families and is manipulated by the church to provide blessing.  There’s nothing new here.  Martin Luther was motivated to call out the church in his own time for providing tickets to heaven or indulgences for those who gave generously. 

Thankfully we maintain a highly confidential system of giving in our church.  Our giving is a matter between us and God. 

It is a sobering exercise to work out what 10% of our gross income is.  I don’t want to get into strict tithing rules, but the principle should sit there at the back of our minds and hearts as we consider our budgeting. We are called to commit sacrificially to support Gods work and not hoard it for ourselves.

We need to recognise our taxes are part of the command of God to ensure that those at the edges are taken care of in our society.  Our giving to other charitable organisations or causes are also part of this obligation to serve the purpose of God’s reign or kingdom.   What we give should however not be governed by law, but by a cheerful and generous heart that mirrors the heart of God. 

In all things we should consider all we have as gift from God and ask how can we use it wisely and well:

 to live with joy and appreciation for the good things and gift of life,

to support others in need,

and to invest in promoting God’s kingdom. 

Our church is a key part but not the only part of God’s work in our community.  Therefore we should carefully consider how much we will invest in our church as a means of promoting God’s kingdom.  This should be a conscious and sacrificial decision and not a ‘I think I can spare a few bucks’ for the church commitment.  The Israelites gave 10% of their first fruits, and that represented not what was left over, the crumbs from the leftovers, but was a first call on their income.  Our church deserves a high priority.

My invitation is simple.  Over the next month will you review your giving in the light of our scriptures and our situation?  Next Sunday we will have a letter prepared to give you which will outline our situation in more detail and ask for a response so we can plan for the next ministry.  

There is one other thing I want to say, and that is “thank you!”  I know many of you have over the years maintained a regular giving practice in your lives.  There have been wonderful results to that giving and the teaching and presence of Jesus in our community has been promoted with care and compassion.   We now face a society that more than ever needs to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.  I believe we are called to keep the flame burning, and indeed to turn up the gas so it burns brighter. 

Let us pray  – 

[Pearl, Florrie, and the Bull is a great little true story you can find on You Tube]

Pearl Florrie, and the Bull is a great little video about a true story.  For me the punch line is when Florrie and Pearl were fighting the bull, and Florrie says, “do you know what we haven’t done?”, and Pearl is puzzled.  But Florrie says “we haven’t prayed.”  And amidst their wrestling they pray.

Note there’s no magical answer that delivers them from their dilemma.. there is no lightning bolt that strikes the bull dead.  Instead Pearl decides she really must go for help and as she does she continues to the most earnest prayer she has ever prayed to keep her sister safe.  A cynic may say what use was that and what a waste of time. Prayer didn’t magically make the bull placid and peaceful and take away the threat the women were facing….. but something did happen. Florrie received a flash of inspiration to lie across the bulls face.  Where did that arise from?  How was God involved in that flash of inspiration?  Did prayer somehow open a door to receive a message from God?  Prayer didn’t magically fix things but brought another dimension into the scene.  Prayer opens our eyes to see things we didn’t see before. Prayer gives us courage to face things with renewed hope.  Prayer helps us see what is really important amidst the chaos of life.

Praying as I have said many times is a mysterious business, but it is a business that lies at the heart of our faith journey.  Prayer is a vital part of our lives as Christians.  Jesus used to rise early each morning to pray, and prayer is a vital part of every great person of faith.  In our own time it has become a neglected spiritual practice and I speak as someone who knows this truth personally.  Busyness, lack of encouragement from others, and the trivialisation of prayer into a shopping list and ‘what can God do for me” practice, a lack of personal discipline has meant prayer drifts down the priority list in our lives.  We often fail to take spiritual formation seriously in our lives.

An old saint of the church, Clement of Alexandra, said prayer is simply “keeping company with God”.   It is a little like plugging in an electric jug and making a connection with God which allows a flow of electricity that can warm the interior contents. With God there is a power called love which flows, an illumination of the mind which occurs, and a mysterious inner transformation that somehow changes how we see things.  It’s like opening a door to another dimension of life.  In essence it’s not hard, there are no magic formulas, we just need to find the way that works for us.  I’m interested that even hardened atheists can find a way to pray.  During the heady days of communism in Russia, party stalwarts used to keep pictures of Lenin in places where traditionally Russians might have kept an Orthodox Christian icon.  Pravda the national newspaper had this advice to readers in the 1950’s:

“If you meet with difficulties in your work, or sudden doubt in your abilities, think of him – Stalin – look at his picture and you will find the confidence you need.  If you feel tired, think of him, and your work will go well.  If you are seeking a correct decision think of him – Stalin – and you will find that correct decision.”  It sounds very much like prayer to me!

Sadly in our consumer driven world prayer has often been reduced to asking God for things.  God is often asked to bend normality to give us a special favour.  It’s the capitalist consumerist take on prayer.  I learned a lesson early in my life about prayer.  I tried to enlist God’s help to ensure the All Blacks beat their dreaded foe the Springboks in South Africa. As a young boy I set about some very earnest praying in the Roslyn Presbyterian church, all through a service of worship.  I was devastated afterwards when I learned the Springboks had defeated my team.  Didn’t God listen to me and yet I had prayed so earnestly.  I learned that God was simply quite happy to let the best team win on the day.  I’m sure God did care about my sense of loss and my passion for my team, God also desired that I might grow up and see a bigger picture of life!   Just focusing on my wants and the desires of my ego wasn’t going to really benefit me nor the kingdom of God.  It’s a pretty silly example but it does reflect the modern state of prayer. If only we can twist God’s arm we can get God to do things for me.  I still find it interesting that people can ask me to pray to pray for things believing that as a minister I may have more pulling power to influence God’s mind. Some may suggest thats what our little gospel story we read this morning is all about.  Piling the pressure on God so God will give in and give us what we ask for.  Simple answer: NO. Go back and read the introduction and the point of the story is persistence of prayer. 

When you hear the word widow in our scriptures think downtrodden, neglected, isolated.  Women weren’t expected to seek out judges (that’s men’s role), and clearly she has no means to bribe the court officials like everyone else did to get their case heard.  Her only weapon is her voice and her passion for justice.  And note it’s not some individual want she is after but justice and justice is dear to God’s heart.  She doesn’t give up, she persists, and she believes she will be heard even by a corrupt uncaring judge!  How much more will the source of love and life listen.  We may pray in a half-hearted way when we need or want something, but most of the time we are content and manage life by ourselves.  Jesus is saying prayer is something that should persistently be part of our lives, anchoring our lives, guiding our lives, connecting with what God wants in our lives.  Constant, persistent, part of our everyday pattern.  

What is needed in our consumer world is a new understanding of prayer as paying attention to what God wants.  In our time I believe the purpose of prayer that God wants to emphasise is transformation – transformation of our very beings.  I believe we need to see prayer as a spiritual practice or discipline which helps transforms our lives, to make them truer, more authentic, more centred in God.   Prayer is like opening a door to a friend.  It’s not rocket science, but we need to bear in mind we have two ears and only one mouth. When we open the door and engage with a friend there may be words, but we may simply share silence.  Instead of sending words off out there somewhere to get God to do things, we need to recapture prayer as a time God connects with us deep to deep.  I go for a morning walk, and sometimes I talk to God on the walk, but mostly I just walk in stillness.  I hear the birds singing greeting the new dawn, and something within is transformed.  As you are aware I have started a mediation group that meets weekly but encourages a daily practice of mediation.  I’m still working into that daily practice, but I can report I find it encouraging and helpful to meet with others to meditate and pray. You are welcome to join us, but I know it’s not for everyone.  In the quietness of mediation which happens as I focus on a word as a mantra I believe I connect with God deep to deep.  It’s not a matter of words, but of a deep connection in the silence and in the moments where my chaotic ego driven mind stills.  I am transformed.  It’s not dramatic and it required ongoing discipline and effort. There are other activities that  may encourage this deep connection.   

I think this is why Jesus so often stressed the need to find a quiet place to pray.  He talked of going into the inner room which I see as the deeper place of my being.  In the stillness I am aware of being opened to a bigger presence, being embraced by a deep love, an enlightening power.  Prayer is about changing and transforming me, so that I am no longer blown this way and that by the hungers and desires of my ego but instead find a deeper moral foundation that allows me to stand against the tide. 

Of course that doesn’t mean we give up on words.  Like the widow we should cry out to God and voice our deepest longings.  Recently I was wrestling with an issue in my life and I prayed that God might give me insight.  About two hours later someone phoned me and talked for a while about some issue in their life.  In concluding they happened to just mention something out of the blue which just seemed like an answer to the question I had been wrestling with.  I guess someone might say it was all coincidence and wishful thinking but I choose to believe otherwise.  When we share our deepest desires and longings with God expect an answer.

Prayer, like all spiritual practices, is about becoming more centred in God. It is about learning what matters to God in our lives.  Centring in God changes us and transforms us.  If you know me you’ll know there is plenty of transformation still needed!   Paul said prayer should bear fruit…. These fruits are many but the most important are compassion, authenticity, courage, and gratitude. 

I don’t know if you caught the last line of this morning’s parable.  I suspect the gospel writer saw a community around him that neglected prayer and so adds a little note.  When Jesus returns will he find people who are faithful in prayer.  I with Luke want to say that without constant practice of prayer together and as individuals we will wither as communities of faith.  We all know the institutional church is dying.  My response is to say look at our prayer life. I often hear messages like we need to do more in our community, or we need to change the way we do things to be more relevant as a church.  I think if there one thing we need it is a more persistent and active practice of prayer.  My deep hope for us as the St Martins church family is that as a community of faith we might all know the importance of prayer and we might like Florrie say “let us pray” more often.   

Dugald Wilson 20 Oct 2019

If you want to watch the movie

Google Pearl, Florrie and the Bull and you should be directed to the You Tube clip of the movie.

Importance of saying Thank You…. Luke 17: 11-19

There is something I think I can guarantee we all want.  There is something that we all look for.  There is something you would spend a lot of money for.  There is something I bet you wish your neighbour has too.  I’m thinking of happiness.  You and I want to be happy, we want everyone to be happy.

Happiness is a strange thing.  Actually I don’t think you can buy it. 

Rich people are often unhappy people and people with not so much are often happier people.

Maybe happiness can be linked to circumstance.  When everything goes sweetly in our lives we can be happy.  But then I think of people I know who seem to have all sorts of misfortune and who radiate a sense of happiness. 

I have a hunch that happiness is closely connected with something else in our lives – our sense of gratefulness.  Happy people are grateful people.  One of the quotes on our service sheet says simply, ‘you cannot be truly happy without being grateful first’.  

Wealthy people are often unhappy because they simply want more and they are not grateful for what they have.  People who have great misfortune can radiate happiness because they still have a sense of gratitude even though life has dished up some hard times. 

Without gratefulness I don’t think we can be truly happy.

But what is gratefulness?  Where does gratefulness come from.  Two people can watch a magnificent sunset and one goes, ‘ho hum the sun has set nice colours’, and the other goes, ‘wow, what an amazing  magnificent sight, how fortunate I have been to be part of it.’  Gratefulness arises within us when we experience something we value as a gift.  We experience something we value like a magnificent sunset and we know we haven’t made it happen, we haven’t earned it, we haven’t purchased it.  It’s generous gift to us.   Religious people will often say it is a gift from God.  You can probably think of some amazing experiences for which you’ve been grateful.  Sun rise, birth of a child, someone listening, the love of a friend, shelter in a storm.  When we are grateful happiness is not far away.

Have you noticed some people are grateful people.  They radiate a deep happiness.  You sometimes wonder what they’ve been smoking.  I wonder how they do it?  Part of coming to worship every Sunday is an opportunity to be grateful.  We sing songs of thanks, we offer prayers of gratefulness and thanksgiving.  Our liturgy encourages us to develop thankful grateful hearts through our worship together.  I think we often miss the opportunity. 

 I think we often miss the opportunity in our daily lives to be grateful.  We are too busy, we are too preoccupied and living out of the moment, we are anxious and fearful, we are too worried about what others think, or standing out in some way.  What if we saw every moment of our lives as amazing gift, as opportunity?  I think we would be happier.

I’m not saying we should be grateful for everything that happens, because there are plenty of things in life that we should not be thankful for… violence, war, loss of someone we value, uncaring hurtfulness, but we can be grateful in every moment even when we are confronted with pain and conflict.  In every moment there will be opportunities for good.  I can be grateful for that.  Why is it for example that when I show you a piece of paper with a little black dot on it we tend to notice the black dot and not be thankful for the rest of the sheet which has all sorts of opportunity to write and draw on or even the other side which has complete opportunity to do something creatively with.  It’s just the black dot we notice rather than the opportunity of the blank page!

I think we can learn to be grateful and happy.  We can build what I call spiritual practices into our lives to enhance our sense of gratitude.  There is a little technique we learn when we are young about crossing the road.  It is just three words: ‘Stop, Look, Go’.  I  invite to take these words into your life as a spiritual practice that will bring more gratefulness and happiness into your life. 

Stop – Make time in your life to be still – hit pause more often in your day to make space to ponder and be aware of what is happening.  Build some stop signs into your day where you reflect on simple things like turning on the tap and getting a supply of fresh clean water.  Saying grace before a meal is one of those stop signs.  Maybe it’s making time at the beginning or the end of the day to reflect.  Some people write a gratefulness journal.  Someone else I know has a practice in their life of spending a few minutes each night to review their day and name at least three things they are grateful in that day.  But we all need stop time if we are going to build gratefulness and happiness in our lives. . 

Look – ponder, reflect.  Savour the experiences of life in your heart.   Some of us have lived in places where there is little fresh clean water and we know the value of this gift that comes at the turn of a tap.  Or when you switch on the light pause for a moment and reflect on the ingenuity that gives us energy so easily.   Notice the intricacy of the flowers in your garden, the hard working bees pollinating, the trees converting carbon dioxide into oxygen so we can live.  Notice the love that others share with you. When someone asks ‘how you are’, notice the love and concern that is behind the question.  We take so much for granted in our busy lives and we are the poorer for it.  It is not a giant clockwork universe we live in, but wonderfully rich, gracious world where we are constantly on the receiving end of gifts.  Notice this and you will be more grateful and happier.  Notice the buds opening, the birds singing, the fresh scents the sunset and think ‘gift’.    

Go – and as you stop and look and notice, let your life be changed.  Let the gratitude make you a happier person, and more generous person.  Let your life be healed.  Let it be well.  Let it be thank-full and let the thankfulness radiate from you.  Let it bring shalom into the world.  Don’t keep it bottled in but share it, affirm others with it.  Psychologists are now telling us that there is a huge amount of scientific research behind the positive impact of showing gratitude.  It enhances the neurotransmitters, serotonin, and dopomines. When we are grateful we change our cognitive processes and we notice more things to be thankful for.  Another quote…God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today.  Have you used at least one to be thankful... to express thanks.  Saying thank you is one of the most powerful things you can do for others, and it’s a great way to give witness to your faith in God the amazing gift giver!

A grateful person will help save the planet because they will share more and consume less.

A grateful person enjoys differences in others and will respect others who are different.

A grateful person is happy with who they are and less likely to be violent and abusive to those around them.

A grateful person will be more joyful .

A grateful person will often be more aware of God and gifts of God.