Living a -ful Life

Deuteronomy 16:9-11 GNT

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 GNT

What if I could share with you a secret to living a full, blessed, satisfied life?  Would you be interested in hearing it?  Well, it just may be that such a secret is to be found in the scripture verses that served as today’s readings.

The book of 1 Thessalonians is the oldest book – the one biblical scholars believe was written earliest – that we have preserved in the New Testament.  The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Thessalonica, probably between 45 – 50 A.D.  I was reading 1 Thessalonians again a few weeks ago in the Good News Translation when the words that served as today’s second reading just sort of jumped out at me.  And I thought to myself, Those are perfect verses for a Thanksgiving sermon text.

In these three verses – again, some of the first words to have been written and preserved by the early Christian Church – the Apostle gives encouragement or advice on how to live a full life.  And isn’t that something that all of us are interested in – guidance for learning to live a full life?  And the instructions for living a full life that are at the same time simple and profound are these: be joyful always, prayerful at all times, and thankful in all circumstances. 

When we arise in the morning, how well if we can determine that this day – whatever the circumstances – we are going to be joyful, prayerful, and thankful.  Making every day a joyful, prayerful, thankful day is bound to lead to a fuller, more abundant, and more blessed life.

But what if I don’t feel like being joyful, prayerful, and thankful? we may be quick to say.  All of us, most likely, experience periods in our lives when it is difficult to be joyful and thankful; times when everything in life seems to be going the wrong way.  And we may find it hard to get ourselves into a prayerful frame of mind.

And reading the morning newspaper and watching the evening world news doesn’t help matters as we read about and hear about all the bad things going on in our nation and world that can depress us.  Such can sap a spirit of joy and thankfulness right out of us.

Allow me to share with you a true story about someone whose name you likely have never heard, but someone you know in one sense of the term.  His name was Martin Rinckart.  Rinckart was born in 1586 in Saxony, Germany.  He was the son of a poor coppersmith, but somehow through his own industry and musical talents was able to attend the university and become a German Lutheran clergyman.  At the age of thirty-one, Rinckart was offered the position of Archdeacon in the church of his native town Eilenburg.  He was serving the church when the Thirty Years’ War broke out and during the time of a severe plague in 1637.  Throughout his thirty-one years at the church, Rinckart took care of his flock, supporting them under every conceivable kind of distress.  He endured the invasion of soldiers who took up residence in his house, and frequent plundering of his meager stock of grain and household goods. 

When the plague of 1637 hit, Rinckart ministered faithfully at the bedsides of the sick and dying.  At one time he is said to have conducted 50 funerals a day, for a total of 4,000-5,000 funerals during his ministry.  That is incomprehensible.  The pestilence was followed by a severe famine so extreme that thirty or forty persons might be seen fighting in the streets for a dead cat or crow.  It is hard for us to even imagine life so difficult!

But clergyman Martin Rinckart is not remembered for his service as a minister and shepherd to his flock throughout all of those difficult years.  No, Rinckart is remembered for penning the words to a beloved hymn that often is sung at Thanksgiving:

Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things have done, in whom this world rejoices;

Who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

How could Rinckart write those words about giving thanks, life’s blessings, and gifts of love, we wonder, when life as he and all around him experienced it was so full of tragedy and trouble? 

Sometimes we find ourselves grumbling and complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves, do we not, when we are having what we deem to be a bad day?  But even in the midst of a “bad day,” might it be possible to find at least something to be joyful and thankful about?

Through the character Robinson Crusoe, in his classic work by the same name, Daniel Defoe observes that it is very rare that providence “casts us into any condition of life so low, or any misery so great, but we may see something or other to be thankful for; and may see others in worse circumstances than our own.”

I was reminded this past week of a poem by Walt Whitman, in Leaves of Grass, that speaks to many of us when he addresses giving thanks in old age (not that any of us are old, mind you).  In part Whitman says:

Thanks in old age – thanks ere I go.

For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air – for life, mere life,

For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother dear – you, father – you, brothers, sisters, friends,)

For all my days . . .

For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,

For shelter, wine and meat – for sweet appreciation,

…………………………………………

Thanks – joyful thanks!

  Perhaps we would do well print the following words on an index card and tape the card to the mirror that we gaze into as we start our day: “Today I am going to be joyful, prayerful, and thankful.”  And then see if adopting a joyful, prayerful, thankful attitude leads to a fuller life.  May it be so.  Amen.     

Work Referenced: Walt Whitman, “Thanks in Old Age.”