OCTOBER SERIES: THANKS-LIVING A FAITH-FILLED FOUNDATION
Throughout October, we are exploring Thanks-living — the practice of living gratefully each day. Together, we’ll reflect on gratitude as God’s provision, a source of strength in difficult times, an action we embody, a sacred trust we hold, and a pathway toward God’s Kin-dom of peace.
Interestingly, modern research across psychology, neuroscience, and health sciences is now confirming what people of faith have known for centuries — that a grateful heart transforms how we experience life. Each week this month, you’ll find a posting on a specific gratitude practice, along with some fascinating research insights that connect faith and science.
This week’s focus is on daily gratitude journaling. In one study, participants who kept a gratitude journal for just 14 days experienced measurable improvements in psychological well-being. Imagine what could happen if you incorporated this practice into your daily prayer time for two weeks! You might be surprised by the shift in perspective and joy it brings. You can read the study here: Positive Psychology and Gratitude Interventions: A Randomized Clinical Trial (PubMed).
This week, I wanted to focus on research highlighting how gratitude and thanksgiving can significantly improve mental health, reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other mood-related challenges. You can explore the broader review here: The Effects of Gratitude Interventions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PubMed)
May our Thanks-living help us remember that gratitude is not just a feeling—it’s a faithful way of seeing and being in the world.
(SERMON TEXT) “Thanks-living as Remembrance (1 of 5)”
One Sunday, a little girl was sitting in church when Communion was being served. She watched everyone take their tiny cup, sip the grape juice, and bow their heads solemnly. Finally, she leaned over to her mom and whispered loudly enough for half the church to hear: “Is this snack time…or are they just really, really bad at pouring juice?”
And, no, we aren’t really, really bad at pouring juice. We are really, really good at remembering. Today, Christians around the globe gather at the Lord’s Table on World Communion Sunday. From grand cathedrals to small house churches…we remember. From bustling cities to remote villages…we remember. Here, there, and everywhere, the bread is broken, and the cup is shared and…we remember. World Communion Sunday is that tacit reminder that we belong to a vast and diverse family knitted into the body of Christ. And…we remember.
And what word could possibly draw us together better in the consideration of thanksgiving? Not a word this is a shallow thanksgiving…one that quickly says “thank you” and moves on. But, rather, to live in remembrance. Scripture calls us to something deeper: Thankful living, or what some call: “Thanks-living.” Thanks-living is that life that remembers who God is, what God has done, and who we are because of God’s grace. The first mark of thanks-living is that of deep remembrance.
Moses paints one such picture of remembrance in the first passage: Israel is about to enter a land flowing with milk and honey. It will be blessed with water, grain, fruit and minerals. Prosperity awaits the pilgrims after their 40-year wilderness journey out of Egyptian slavery. But Moses issues a warning: “Do not forget the Lord your God.” Why? Because prosperity has a way of taking away our remembrance and making us forget. When the cupboards are full, we think we filled them. When the paycheck comes, we believe we earned it by our own strength. When things are good, we forget the One who provided for us through the wilderness.
Thanksgiving, in Deuteronomy’s sense, is not just a polite hurriedly offered prayer before meals. Thanks-living is an act of remembrance. It is choosing to remember that every blessing, every opportunity, every breath comes from the one source…and that one source is God. So, to “forget” God, biblically, is not just mental lapse. It is a spiritual danger that leads towards pride and idolatry. It leads us down the wrong path. Thanks-living as remembrance anchors us…it reminds us of who we are and whose we are. Do you remember? Do you strive to live a life of thanks-living? Do you remember God’s hand in it all? Yes we do!
Fast forward 1 1/2 millennia to the next text, we find Paul writing to the church in Corinth. Now this was not a perfect congregation. (spoiler alert…there are none) The Corinthians were divided, argumentative, and spiritually immature…(perhaps you have visited one such community yourself) And yet, Paul begins not with scolding, but with thanksgiving: “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.” Paul teaches us that thanksgiving is not dependent on perfection: ours or anyone else’s. Thanks-living is rooted in God’s grace and faithfulness. Even when the community falters and argues, as the Corinthians did! Even when individuals fall short, Paul first remembers God’s gifts at work among them: speech, knowledge, spiritual gifts, and the promise of Christ’s return. Thanks-living here is not about circumstances… being the perfect faith community. Thanks-living here is about God’s consistent character to lead us in that direction. We don’t wait until everything is perfect to give thanks. We give thanks because God is perfectly faithful and will show us the way.
Putting them together, the passages in Deuteronomy and Corinthians teach us to give thanks in times of abundance, lest we ever forget God. And Corinthians reminds us to give thanks even in imperfection, because God is faithful. This is the heart of Thanks-living: gratitude is not a moment but rather a lifestyle that is highlighted by remembrance. A way of remembering God in both prosperity and struggle; remembering in blessing and in brokenness. I am excited for us to focus the coming weeks through October on different aspects of ‘Thanks-living’. But, we begin here, at the core, to be people of remembrance. We are reminded to live in the posture of thanks-living for God is one who provides; one who is generous; one who offers a medley of blessings throughout this life….and so we remember.
And what better place to practice Thanks-living than to consider approaching the Communion Table? Every time we break the bread and lift the cup our actions are ones of remembrance…we remember. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” And we don’t just remember facts of history but we remember and provide a basis for our faith. For that remembrance further knits us back together into the Body of Christ. It knits us further back into relationship with God. It buoys our faith.
Today, that remembrance stretches across borders and languages, across denominations and traditions. Our remembrance knits us as part of a worldwide family sustained by one bread, one cup, and one Lord. Communion is itself an act of thanksgiving. In fact, another name for it will be familiar to those with Anglican and Catholic backgrounds. Eucharist—from the Greek eucharistia, meaning thanksgiving. And when we rise from the Table, we are sent to live lives shaped by gratitude: forgiving as we have been forgiven, serving as we have been served, giving as we have received. We leave the people as people of remembrance. We leave the table as people of Thanks-living.
Friends, on this World Communion Sunday, let us move from thanksgiving to Thanks-living. When life is abundant, we remember the Giver. When life is messy, we remember God’s grace. When we gather at the Table, we remember Christ, who holds us together in one body.
Thanks-living is remembrance that shapes the whole of life so that gratitude becomes not just something we say, but something we live. So come, people of God. Come to the Table of remembrance…and be people who remember. Come to the feast of thanksgiving...and be people of thanks-living. Come and be nourished by God’s provision, God’s grace, God’s never-ending care.
Amen.