Faith Works 11-20-21

Faith Works 11-20-21

Jeff Gill

Thankfulness is a choice we can make

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There's a new word that may or may not make it into future dictionaries, but it has plenty of usage right now.

The word is "Beforetime." As in, "the Beforetime, when we crowded into elevators without a second thought…"

Beforetime is a period of taking supply chains for granted, casual attitudes towards hand washing, and seeing crowds as cause for excitement. Beforetime is what some of us want to get back to, and a time which many of us are sure isn't coming around again. Or as Heraclitus said, "no one steps into the same Beforetime twice" (or Greek to that effect).

Ohio's own Warren Harding campaigned into the White House on the platform "a return to normalcy" which was a word we're still not sure is legit. But it's a word with new currency. We want something like normalcy, even if it isn't a 1920s version.

What our steadily easing circumstances can give us, though, is a very real sense of thankfulness for the things we now know we took for granted. Chocolate chip little bear cookies, the brand of toilet paper we knew fit onto our fixtures at home, going to concerts without a second thought: we can bemoan at length what we don't have back yet, entirely, or we can dig a bit deeper and be thankful for the fact we had those things, and have every expectation of getting back.

Or we can kvetch or mutter about how it is right now, and see if that makes us feel better. As Dr. Phil says: "How's that workin' for ya?"

Thankfulness. That's the theme of the season, the point of the holiday, where we want to be. To be thankful for as good as it is, not to focus on what it isn't now, isn't yet, isn't going to be soon. But we're working on our thankfulness for what we've had, and in a very practical sense, what we're entirely likely to get back again soon enough.

Right now, we don't have everything we'd like to have. That's a common sentiment at any given time. Even in the Beforetime, if we're honest. There's always something we'd like to have, to get, to hold onto, that's gone for now. COVID is making more immediate impacts on our lives, but this isn't all that unusual in the wider sense of how life goes. Read your Bible, read the histories, think about how it was for pioneers, settlers, our great-great-grandparents. This is a literal speed bump in the road by comparison.

So we have had, most of us, a long stretch of smooth driving at high speed, and now we have to slow down, and even brake our way over speed bumps. Okay. No crisis, right?

For the Christians out there, we have a narrative to consider about being a pilgrim people in the Old Testament wilderness, and of being missional apostles sent to to declare Good News, but occasionally having to shake the dust off our sandals and keep moving with the peace that is in us. Nothing new there, correct?

In Judaism, there's a running reminder of giving thanks for freedom from Egypt, of escaping the wilderness in the Exile, or for entering into the Land of Promise. Among Muslim believers, there's an awareness of the struggle for acceptance of who God is, how God is active in the midst of the world, and being thankful for that without asking for or expecting more. Many non-traditional faiths talk about a divine operation that is beyond our immediate understanding, who is not accountable to our everyday expectations.

For anyone trying to live by faith, the challenge is to accept life as it is, but to not settle for that as the only lasting reality. That's both a tension and a resolution at the same time. Or to put it another way, it's our common expectation that faith leads us towards new life, and that to life everlasting.

What's next? Paul says to the Corinthians that we see in a dim mirror but darkly…and later we will see face to face. Can we be thankful for a promise as yet unfulfilled? If we have enough reason to trust that promise; if our faith is secure in promises already fulfilled, pointing towards those prophecies resting in hope, I believe we can be thankful for what has not yet happened.

Which illuminates the thankfulness we have for what's already been done, in a brighter light "upon a distant shore."

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's thankful for quite a few things that haven't happened, too. Tell him what you're thankful for at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.