Pastor Hal Low
November 22, 2015

(A parable)

A thankful heart is like a fruit orchard. That someone goes to everyday and waters the trees, and prunes the branches, and gives attention to its needs. And as time goes by the trees in the orchard blossom, and the blooms develop into fruit, and the sunlight causes the fruit to ripen; the orchard is able to feed the people and the animals alike.

Thankfulness is an attitude.

An attitude is a disposition that is a characteristic of one’s inner self, a state of mind that expresses itself through the manner in which we relate to others and to ourselves and to God, and manifests in our actions in the world.

Thankfulness is an attitude, a disposition, which arises from our recognition of this fundamental fact – life is gift.

When a person we love dies it is common that we ask this question: why did they have to die? It’s natural to ask that question; it is an expression of our grief, our longing for them, and our love for them. But the real question we need to ask ourselves every day, but seldom do, is this: why do I or anyone have to live?

We are not alive because we choose to be alive. We did not create ourselves. We did nothing to merit this gift. That is why it is a gift – it is given to us for a time freely, not because of anything we did or because we are more special than anyone or anything else – simply because the God of life is LOVE, and out of that abundance of love, God chooses to create and to give life to you, to me…

When we are aware of it, and appreciate that fact, thankfulness arises.

Like the orchard, when we cultivate thankfulness – the attitude or disposition of being grateful for this awesome gift – it produces fruit that feeds others just as the fruit trees in the orchard.

What are the fruits of thankfulness?

Paul gives us the answer in our reading from Colossians. The first fruit is humility – the awareness that we are not God but are equal to all other people. Not better or worse than, but equal to.

Humility then gives rise to compassion because we are able to see ourselves in the other. We share in the joys and suffering that is part of our human experience.

And compassion gives rise to kindness, and kindness bears patience.

Patience, as Paul suggests, leads to our ability to “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”

Forgiveness is the recognition that we all have failed in some way and are in need of being forgiven as much as in need of forgiving. The person who thinks they have never failed is the saddest and most deluded of all souls.

All this together – humility, compassion, kindness, patience, forgiveness – prepares us to be able to “clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.” Calling us once again to “be thankful.”

It’s a circle, like the organic process of an orchard. The trees draw up nutrients from the soil, sprout leaves, which gather energy from the sun and produce fruit; the leaves and fruit fall to the earth and fertilize the soil, all part of a cycle of giving, rooted in an attitude of thankfulness.

The life we crave, the life of peace and love and harmony, all begins and ends with thankfulness.