make melody to our God on the lyre. Psalm 147:7
Here in Virginia, I and many others are thrilled that election day has come and gone. No more campaign commercials; no more political signs cluttering the roadside; no more annoying robo-calls. I don't think such feelings are more prevalent in one political party or the other. Regardless of political leanings, it's good that the election is over.
The ads in Virginia's gubernatorial race were particularly nasty. I greatly preferred one candidate over the other, but I found many of my own candidate's ads to be cringe-worthy. Indeed commentators of all stripes wondered if either candidate had anything positive to say.
Like clockwork, Americans complain about all the negative attack ads that fill the airwaves in election seasons. No one likes them, yet they won't go away. The reason is obvious. Such ads work, and they work because most people tend to be motivated by fear.
John Calvin wrote that the motivation for the Christian life is gratitude. An awareness of the incredibly extravagant way in which God comes to us, embraces us, cares for us, and longs for us, no matter what we do to drive God away, issues forth in a new quality of life that wants, most of all, to offer unending thanks to God.
Most of us have witnessed this sort of behavior, if only occasionally. People who have fallen in love will exhibit this toward their lover, becoming remarkably extravagant in trying to make happy and please that person. Sometimes a child will react to an unexpected gift with exuberant gratitude, bursting with joy and lavishing hugs and thanks over and over on the gift giver. But both these examples are more the exception than rule.
Our world is largely motivated by anxiety, by worries and fears that we don't have enough: enough money, things, experiences, faith, happiness, security etc. By and large the entire advertising industry exists to create and feed such anxieties. And when you don't think you have enough, it is difficult to be grateful.
Even worship is impacted by this. The common complaint about not being fed in worship presumes that one goes to worship in order to get something. It sees worship as one more place designed to feed my consumerist appetite, to give me some more of those things I don't yet have in adequate supply.
Worship certainly does uplift and feed. But according to Jesus, this happens primarily when we approach it - and indeed all of life - from a pose of letting go rather than grasping. When Jesus insists that his followers practice self-denial, he isn't calling us to some sort of hermit-like asceticism. Rather he is telling us one of the counter-intuitive secrets to full life. Striving for enough, for more and more, is deadly addiction and not a path to life.
The medieval theologian and mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote, "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was “thank you,” that would be sufficient." Imagine such a notion, that gratitude itself is enough. Then all our worship and singing would truly be "with thanksgiving."
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