“Joy Together: Thanksgiving” Col 3: 15-17

What comes to your mind when you think of discipline? For many of us, discipline is an unwelcome term that we carry over to what we think of spiritual disciplines -  that which we engage in to help us grow in our relationship with God. We don’t like discipline - so we think we don’t need spiritual discipline. Is it any wonder then, that we often end up in spiritual stagnation?

As I was working on this sermon, a dear friend who is also a pastor, and I were knee deep in a project that we volunteered to be a part of. We were tasked with creating a Rule of Life, which is just a really fancy way of saying that we were in conversation about what spiritual disciplines are important to us and how we want to accompany each other on the spiritual journey by holding each other accountable to those disciples. 

At first, you would think that task would be easy. We could simply list out things like prayer and scripture readings, talk about why it was important to each of us and devise a plan to check in on one another from time to time to make sure we were doing what we said was already important to us. But the more we talked about it, we began to realize a bunch of different things. First, we too, bulked at the word discipline, even as pastors. Even as individuals who are deeply passionate about spiritual disciplines. We realized that when people tell us that we have to do something, it can quickly diminish our desire to do it, that may have been present even a day before. 

So as we worked on and prayed about it, we realized we wanted a Rule, this collection of spiritual disciplines, to be more like a labyrinth. I don’t know if you have ever walked a labyrinth before, but its a large circle that has a winding path through it. The thing thats interesting about a labyrinth is as complicated as it looks, there is actually no way to get confused or lost it in. The boundaries of the path are so well defined that you weave your way through it as an act of prayer. So what does a labyrinth have to do with spiritual disciplines? Well first, walking one is a spiritual discipline for some people, but for us we were looking more for well defined guidelines or paths or boundaries that we could live into with one another without making it feel forced, but instead something we simply did along the path of life.

For the next several weeks, we too, are going to be talking about spiritual disciplines - but not just any spiritual disciplines, but disciplines like that which my friend and I were seeking - ones that we can do together in community. Engage in together as the body of Christ.

Often when we think of spiritual disciplines, the first things that come to our mind are things like devotions and prayer - things that we can do on our own. But we can also engage in those things as congregations - think about places like Bible Study and prayer meeting, where as we engage in those practices together, we grow as disciples. 

In a lot of ways, this is a perfect sermon series to follow up on the last month we had together to talk about visioning. For visioning is seeking God’s will and way for us as a church, and these are some practices that can help us ask God to make clear that vision for us together. 

The first cooperate spiritual discipline that I want to talk about, may not seem like a discipline at all - thanksgiving. Another way to frame it is to say this is a discipline of praising God and saying thank you for the abundant blessings in your lives.

I want you to stop and think about your time of prayer. How much of it would you say is intercession or asking God for things - usually on the behalf of yourself or other people? And how much of your time in prayer is spent telling God thank you?

Lynne Baab is an ordained minister and spiritual author. She wrote the book Joy Together that this sermon series is based on. Rev. Baab found that whenever she and her husband would pray together, they were often asking for the same thing over and over, and weren’t feeling as if they were growing closer to God through the process. So one day they decided to shake things up and start each of their prayer times together saying thank you for something. At first it was a little odd and a little hard. But soon they found that there was so much to thank God for that it was almost overwhelming. 

The Apostle Paul understood the power of thanksgiving. Paul went through a lot during his ministry - in the books of Acts we often found him being beaten or tossed out of town and always being insulted. In several of his letters to churches he speaks about being in prisoned and not knowing when he would get out. Yet, he kept pressing on. Why? Because he was so thankful and joyful for what God had done in his life. 

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul encourages them to be thankful people as well. To have gratitude in their hearts. Why? Because the heart is the wellspring for the rest of our body - what resides their will bubble out in both word and action. 

So what would it look like to live into Paul’s word to that particular church, here and now today? What would it look like for us to be a church of thanksgiving? First, we can lift up joys, starting our time of prayer with prayers of thanksgiving. In order to do that, we need to have the eyes of our hearts open during the rest of the week to have things to share. But once our hearts become attuned to praising God with thanksgiving, it becomes easy to spot God’s hand working amongst us. 

Why do we pray daily? Most of us pray when we wake up or before we go to bed and at meal times. Why? Because those moments throughout the day give us the opportunity to stop and focus on God and be reminded of God’s goodness. 

What if, as a congregation we reached out to one another during the week to praise God and remind each other of God’s goodness as well? 

Here’s the thing church, when we fail to notice what God is doing, we tend to quickly forget God’s goodness. And when we forget God’s goodness, it doesn’t take much for us to look to other places for life and fulfillment apart from God - quickly getting off track. 

Our default when we think about prayer - both as individuals and as the body of Christ is intercession. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with sharing our requests with one another. But we also need space in our lives to simply reflect on God’s goodness and to be reminded of all God has done. 

Because when we are reminded of God’s place in our lives, we have space for the realization that God is in control. Not us. God. Rev. Baab puts it this way: “Prayers of thankfulness enable us to see what God has been doing and where God has been working”. We need a space to be a thankful people. To let our hearts rest in God’s goodness and grace. Let that discipline start here and now today. Amen.