Thanksgiving

 

So far this week, we have sung the blues individually and collectively.  We have been honest about the hurt within us and around us.  We have confessed the ache and professed that God isn’t finished yet.  Now, we turn to psalms of thanksgiving!  These are psalms that often look back on a time of crisis and see how God moved in our midst. 

Wait…don’t rush past this.  You could look back over your life to when you were in the “valley of the shadow of death” or in the pit or when if it wasn’t for bad luck, you wouldn’t have had any luck at all and think, “Welp, that settles that.”  One of the stories we can tell ourselves is that all life is suffering.  Or that people are out to get us.  We can see only the brokenness of life.  

I love that psalms of thanksgiving don’t just try to put icing on the burnt cake of life.  Psalms of thanksgiving say, “I cried to God and God showed up in this way”.  We need to let these words inform and inspire the ways we view our life and how we offer our praise and prayers to God today.  In psalms of thanksgiving, the poet/hymn writer will talk about past distress, the cry for help, and how God showed up and awoke a new song.  That last movement is key.  Psalms of thanksgiving don’t praise God for returning to status quo, but a new way of being.  These words bear witness to the surprising gift of new life that was not expected.  As with lament, there are both individual psalms of thanksgiving and communal.  Individual thanksgivings can be found in Psalm 30, 34, 92, 116 and 138.  Communal thanksgiving psalms are found in 65-68, 75, 107, 115, 118, and 124.

I invite you to read one of each from the above list.  Then, write your own, using your words. When in your past has God shown up as God, individually and collectively.  Name this, pray this, and sing this out today.  May our praise fill our homes, neighborhoods, community, and the world with the truth of God’s presence with us and for us.  Amen.