Colossians 2:6-7, 3:15-17
Luke 12:22-34
“Grounded in Gratitude”
Preached Sunday, March 23, 2025 at Boardman United Methodist Church
Today we are celebrating Gratitude Sunday.
This is a part of our Today, Tomorrow, Together Capital Campaign as we express gratitude for the faith, church, and community we have received. AND, it is important to our faith to regularly talk about, express, and practice gratitude.
And so in order to talk about gratitude…I am first going to talk about worry and anxiety. You may have wondered at the Gospel lesson, talking about worry, on this day themed for gratitude. It is important that we talk about what keeps us from gratitude - for anxiety and worry are the antithesis of gratitude and thanksgiving. Anxiety is worrying over what could be; fearing what is not yet; fixating on what is not present, what is missing. Gratitude fosters a sense of appreciation of what is; cultivating thanksgiving for what’s here in the present; celebrating what is right in front of us.
(Disclaimer about sometimes anxiety is also in the chemical make-ups of our brain.)
When we’re worried about what the future holds or what today has in store for us, we are not grateful for what we currently have. When we’re worried that the future will not be like the past...we’re not giving gratitude to God for all that God has already done for us...and all that God can and will do for us. Worry and gratitude are opposites.
So now let’s look at some conflicting statistics.
In a 2015 PEW Research survey, it stated that 80 percent of Americans said they felt a deep sense of gratitude every day. A more recent study I found from 2023 conducted by OnePoll has a similar statistic: 83% of Americans experience gratitude daily.
Given this, our anxiety levels should be low. But that’s not the case.
“The 2024 results of the American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health poll show that U.S. adults are feeling increasingly anxious. In 2024, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. Adults are particularly anxious about current events (70%) — especially the economy (77%), the 2024 U.S. election (73%), and gun violence (69%).”
This morning’s scripture actually says that worrying cannot add a single hour to your life - and we know it’s actually bad for your health! The stress and strain that anxiety puts on our body and can actually shorten our lifespans.
Actually, let's pause here. As I wrote this sermon and I wrote that last line I noticed a tightness in my chest. My shoulders were scrunched up to my ears. My jaw was clenched. Perhaps sitting in the pews now, you are noticing a similar sensation.
Put your feet on the ground. Let your weight settle into your seat. Take a deep breath in, and out. Do three breaths. Shrug your shoulders, roll your neck, release your jaw. Think of one thing you are grateful for.
Okay. With hopefully more looseness in your body and soul, let’s turn our attention back to gratitude.
Some researchers and people with opinions online say that the percent of Americans experiencing gratitude is too high. After all, it’s self-reported. I am not going to make that claim but I will make this claim:
We may THINK we are grateful. But. We are very bad at expressing gratitude and without the expression of gratitude, we are not actually practicing the ethic of gratitude.
According to that OnePoll survey, only 40% write down what they are grateful for. And only 25% verbally express their gratitude.
Studies have been done, one by the National Library of Medicine, that show that some ways of expressing gratitude are more helpful than others. To sum up: being explicit in your gratitude, writing it out in letter or long form, and somehow expressing it versus just thinking it is more beneficial.
Christian author and theologian Diana Butler Bass wrote a whole book on the subversive power of gratitude, she says this: “Gratitude is, however, more than just an emotion. It is also a disposition that can be chosen and cultivated, an outlook toward life that manifests itself in actions—it is an ethic.”
Research backs up that gratitude is an ethic. That gratitude, when truly felt and put into practice, looks like actions and a way of life. Greater Good magazine says that “Grateful people have been shown to be more helpful, kind, supportive, and altruistic.” One study showed that those who kept gratitude journals were more likely to be empathic and offer more help than those who wrote about struggles or even neutral events. The Templeton Giving Survey found that people who say that they practice gratitude daily, donate more money and volunteer hours a year than those who don’t.
How are we practicing the ethic of gratitude? It starts with explicitly expressing gratitude about specific things.
Here are some examples to get the most out of our gratitude, to truly let gratitude change our hearts, minds, and souls. To let it be the antidote to worry. To let it be the seed to praising God and storing our treasure in heavenly things.
So here are those examples from my life.
It’s one thing to say, “I am grateful for my family.”
It’s another thing to say, “I am grateful for the way Winnie smiles at me in the morning. I am grateful for the way Agnes wants to cuddle with me. I am grateful for my husband who has chosen to make these girls his number one priority for this stage of our lives.”
It’s one thing to say, “I am grateful to live close to my parents.”
It’s another thing to say, “I am grateful that on a random Tuesday I can call up my dad and invite him to the playground and then watch my daughter and him play together.”
It’s one thing to say, “I am grateful for those who taught me the faith.”
It’s another thing to say, “I am grateful to my parents for bringing me to church. I am grateful to George and Bob and Don for showing me what being a faithful pastor looks like. I am grateful to Jen who showed me what it means for a women to be in the pulpit. I am grateful to her and Jeremiah who first told me, “I see gifts for ministry in you.” I am grateful to Bill for the countless camp sermons. I am grateful to Cherie for taking me under her wing and working with me through the growing pains of becoming a pastor. I am grateful….the list could continue.”
It’s one thing to say, “I am grateful for this church.”
It’s another thing to say, “I am grateful for the people, especially the women, who graciously and joyfully sit by my daughter for the beginning of worship. I am grateful for those individuals who delight in watching the wonder and excitement of children coming forward for Communion. I am grateful for those who stop by my office to wrestle with theological opinions. I am grateful for when I go to the nursing home or make a phone call to pray with someone, thinking I will be blessing them - and I leave that interaction feeling absolutely floored by the way they just blessed me, the way they shared with me, the way they prayed for ME. I am grateful for the countless volunteers who serve this church by giving of their prayers, presence, service, gifts, and witness. I am grateful…for you.”
You know, I’d get even more specific on that last one. I would say your names. I would give a reason for each and every one of you. I could give a reason for every week I’ve been here - a reason to be thankful. But we’d be here all day and I don’t want to put any of you on the spot.
What I do want to do is inspire you to really reflect on what you are grateful for. In your life and in the church. And then I want you to get really specific about that thing. And then I want you to express it - to write it, to say it out loud, to share it.
That’s the only way that gratitude moves from a brief, passing feeling, to something that actually changes us - and then, because we are changed, we live out the ethic in all we say and do.
Gratitude is the soil in which we grow as Christians, as disciples, as people of love, of enough, of generosity, of community. Butler-Bass says, “We are safer and happier when we care for each other in community, when we do things for each other.”
We are called to be completely grounded in gratitude so that the Spirit can bear fruit in this life.
By practicing gratitude we are saying that ALL that we have is a gift from God. Nothing is completely ours, nothing is earned.
By practicing gratitude we are saying that God is inherently good, as is this world and our lives, and we marvel at this and praise God for that.
By practicing gratitude we are saying that living out our faith means building a bigger table to invite more in, not a wall to keep others out.
By practicing gratitude we are saying that we are called to show our gratitude through generosity, in all the ways that we can, because through it we recognize that ALL people, everyone we share life with, is a beloved child of God, equally loved, equally worthy…
This morning, I would like to invite you to an opportunity to practice gratitude.
In your bulletins is an insert of colored cardstock. After the sermon, the ushers will pass out pens. Please write in pen. If you’ve gotten ahead of yourself and wrote on it with those little pew pencils, you’re encouraged to go over it in pen. During the special music, fill out the prompts on the card. The responses are anonymous. There is no need to write your name on it. After the service there will be a basket in the Narthex, please return your card and pen there. These will be displayed at least next Sunday through Easter if not a little more. We will encourage you every Sunday to take time to read other’s statements of gratitude and love for this church, our church.
If you are online and wish to participate, post your responses in the comments.
These are the two prompts:
I am grateful for…
What I love most about my church is…
You’ve heard examples of gratitude from our children during the children’s sermon and in this sermon. I would encourage you to be as specific and as precise as you want.
Hold tight to those instructions, let’s wrap up this sermon by hearing once again, the words of encouragement from Colossians today.
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving…And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Amen.
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