October 16, 2011
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
As a little boy walking in Boston’s Chinatown, hand in toll with my father, he would always tell me to say, “Thank You” when an acquaintance would give me a lisee. We were told that if we acknowledge someone, we are paying respect. It turns out that my father was right, but for more reasons than he knew.
A recently released 10-year study of 200,000 managers and employees revealed that saying “thank you” in the business world results in bigger profits. When people are thanked for what they do, they are more motivated and often, their productivity improves. This, of course, translates into more dollars. What’s more, those leaders who do the thanking often gain competitive advantage in the workplace because others like them and tend to support their projects.
Since thanking people is good business practice and boosts the company’s bottom line, there are resources out there that provide expressions of gratitude for those leaders who are “thanksgivingly challenged” to come up with their own—including such simple phrases as “I’m truly grateful,” “Your contribution is important” and “You make my job so much easier.” While we may think that these pat phrases are solely for strategic reasons, as long as they sound sincere, it’s effective.
We probably shouldn’t be too judgmental about that, for some of us just don’t naturally think to say thank you as often as we should (maybe your father didn’t twist your ear often enough!). So if a dutiful but somewhat mechanical practice can get us expressing thanks more often, that’s a good thing.
Apostle Paul
For a different view of this matter of giving thanks, we have this letter of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians as well as his other epistles in the New Testament. In the style of letter-writing of Paul’s days, it was common to include an expression of thanksgiving in the opening section of letters. Paul did this in all of his epistles to churches, with the exception of the one to the Galatians. In that single case, it’s likely that he was so distressed about problems in the Galatian church that he couldn’t think of any basis for thanksgiving. But that single exception also suggests that when Paul did include a thanksgiving in a letter, he didn’t do it as a matter of courtesy or routine, but only when he believed it was warranted.
Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is an example the other way. In this letter, he not only included a thanksgiving for the Thessalonian church members at the beginning (1:2-5), he also thanks God again for them halfway through the second chapter (2:13-16) and again in the third chapter (3:9-10), which is a lot, considering that there are only five chapters in the whole letter! Paul couldn’t give thanks enough! As some would say, Paul had an attitude of gratitude!
Paul had a founders’ interest in the church at Thessalonica, for he and Silas had planted it there on Paul’s second missionary journey. In fact, in the letter, Paul compared his feelings for the Thessalonians to the compassion parents have for their children (2:7-11). And Paul had reason to be proud of the Thessalonians. Paul and Silas had barely gotten the church started before they’d been run out of town by a jealous mob (Acts 17:5-9). Yet in those hostile surroundings, the church they’d launched continued and grew, and so Paul had much to thank God for on their behalf.
The growth in the Thessalonians amid that hostile environment may be what Paul had in mind when he wrote in his thanksgiving, “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example of all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia” (1:6-7).
Faith, Hope, and Charity
When we are thankful for each other, we are also thankful to God on each other’s behalf. Writing not only for himself, but also for Silas and Timothy, Paul says, “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:2-3). The Thessalonians would have heard that as a thank you to them as well as a thank you to God.
It’s like what I always say to you, “I thank God that I’m pastoring the First Chinese Baptist Church.” You know that when I say that that I am thanking you for calling me as your pastor as well as thanking God for leading me here.
For most of you, I have an opportunity to send you a birthday card and find this card-writing a chance to thank you for the many ways you serve the church, share your gifts and time to advance God’s kingdom, and to send you a blessing of peace and joy.
When I send my birthday cards to you, I’m not only saying to you that you are nice people. But like the Apostle Paul, I’m thanking God for your “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope.” We may not have been as familiar with this first chapter of 1 Thessalonians until now and more familiar with 1 Corinthians 13, but here we see Paul lifting up faith, hope, and love to be the highest of virtues, so we’re not surprise that he refers also to them here.
But notice that these virtues that Paul is thankful for in the Thessalonians are not just nice compliments or pat words of gratitude. Paul gets specific. He’s thankful for their work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope—in other words, Christianity in the living of their lives. Their faith is grounded in the salvation presented by Jesus, but it doesn’t stop there. It gets translated into what they do, how they act toward one another, the way in which they face the troubles of life, and their attitude about how things will come out in the end. Christianity is not a static belief for the Thessalonians, but a dynamic force that permeates all they say and do. They are to be thankful for the work that they do in faith. They are to be thankful for the labor that they do out of love. They are to be thankful for the steadfastness or endurance that they practice in their hope for a new day.
We are in the middle of the time when we are asking you to make a pledge/commitment to support the mission of this church in 2012. We are in the middle of the time when we are asking you to serve on boards, committees, and church offices for the next 2-3 years. Like the Apostle Paul, I am thankful for your generous pledges and commitments every year and how so many of you are thankfully willing and eager to serve this dynamic church because our love for Jesus Christ permeates all that we say and do.
Keep Doing What You’re Doing
As your pastor for the last 13 years, I have been thanking God for being your pastor and the trust and confidence that you have in me. But for the past 13 years I have also been thanking you for your work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness in hope because it encourages you to continue that way. Like the Apostle Paul, I want you to keep living your faith wholeheartedly. Keep doing what you are doing. I become a better servant when I recognize that I appreciate you for your support in me and I hope that when I share my gratitude for you that you become a more thankful and happier people as well.
Back in the 1930s, the Jewish philosopher/theologian, Martin Buber, wrote a book in which he explained that our human interactions are of two kinds. The first he called the “I-it” relationship. This is when we have no vital concern for other people; we are detached from them.
You stop at a restaurant for lunch and a server takes your order. You don’t know her name and have no real desire to. You don’t know about her broken marriage or her concerns about her children or her sore feet or whatever. She’s primarily a person who provides you a service. Your relationship to her is essentially the same as to a robot who could deliver food to your table. This is a subject-to-object, I-It relationship.
The other way in which to relate to others, says Buber, is the “I-Thou” relationship. This is when the other person ceases to be “something” to us and becomes a “someone.” I-Thou is where I view you not in terms of what you can do for me, but in terms of who you are as yourself.
When the Nominating Committee members are calling you to serve as an officer or serve on a board and committee, they are not just filling a vacant position with just a name but that we as a committee performing holy work have decided that in God’s eyes, you are that someone not something to fill this position. And when we invite you to make a pledge/commitment to the work of this church, we are purposely asking you to write down your name and contact information because we are not just interested in your money, we are really more interested in you as someone who is helping us to do God’s work.
And when we thank you for saying “Yes” to serving the church and when you send in your pledge card on October 30th, we see you and thank you as a person of “thou” and not just an “it!” And when you and I do this, we are changing to become a more faithful and transformed people.
Thank You Letters
Let me close with a story. In 2008, there is a man named, John Kralik who was living in a one-room apartment in LA, separated from his wife and watching his law practice sinking in hard times. But he started the year by taking a walk in the mountains, and on that walk, he became aware of an inner voice saying, “Until you learn to be grateful for the things you have, you will not receive the things you want.” So he decided to begin writing thank-you notes, and he started with his oldest son. At Christmas, the son, a grown man, had given him a one-cup-at-a-time coffee maker. But when Karlik sat down to write his son a thank-you note, he realized that he didn’t know the address.
In John Kralik’s book, 365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life, he said,
Realizing you do not have the address of someone really takes you out of yourself and helps you to focus on the other person. You begin asking questions such as, “Where are they living? How are they doing?” We get so wrapped up in the day-to-day that we lose touch. I decided to hand-write a note rather than send one that was machine created.”
Do you hear the “I-Thou” here?
In any case, when Kralik called his son to get the address, his son said he’d like to come by and take his dad out to lunch. And to his surprise while they were at lunch, his son repaid a $4,000 loan that Kralik had forgotten about. So afterward, Kralik wrote his son another note, thanking him for repaying the loan, and admitting that he really needed the money.
As the year progressed, Kralik made it a practice to hand-write someone a thank-you note every day. And that eventually included family members, clients and even the server at the shop where he got his morning coffee. And to his surprise, gratitude became his way back to success and harmony.
Kralik admits that he didn’t gain control of the universe, and he says that there continued to be some setbacks. But he says, “In the act of being thankful—which is after all good manners—my world began to thrive.” Indeed, Kralik is now a judge on the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Saying Thank You
Paul’s practice of thanking God for those among whom he worked was not just a habit, but a genuine expression of appreciation and praise. It encouraged the people in the churches and made Paul a better person.
I thank God every day and every time for being your pastor and for you who perform the work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ with the understanding that you are encouraged and I in fact has become a better person.
We can help our church and make it more vital by thanking God for the faith, hope and love of all of our fellow worshipers, members, and friends, and by thanking each other directly as well. We can help our family, friends and acquaintances by thanking them. And we can become better people—and better Christians—ourselves by taking time to express our gratitude and having that attitude of gratitude.
Would you thank your neighbor for being here and if you know how that person has served or contributed to the work of this church, would you thank that person for that? Would you look at that neighbor and see him or her as a “thou” and not an “it?” In doing this, you too are becoming a better person in Christ.
I thank you today.
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord God, we indeed have so much to be thankful for—the natural and beautiful world that we live, the opportunities for us to utilize our gifts and talents for the work of faith, labor of love and the steadfastness of hope. Lead us to be more thankful for your blessings and abundance and when we do practice an attitude of gratitude, we actually become better people in your kingdom work. In the name of Jesus Christ who gave us the best reason for us to be thankful, we pray. Amen.