Very few families are more thankful, or have more to be thankful for, than the Chandler family of Mississippi. The late Charles Kuralt profiled the family a few Thanksgivings ago, when they all gathered from the corners of the U.S. to celebrate their parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. Kuralt begins the story with the parents, Alex and Mary Chandler, an African-American couple, that raised their nine children in a one-room sharecropper's cabin in Mississippi. The family was poor, and faced many hardships and uncertain times that would have destroyed many families. And yet all nine children went on to earn advanced degrees in higher education. Among the careers they represent, there is a dietitian, two teachers, a Baptist minister, the chairman of the economics department at Howard University, a technical manager, and the Public Service Employment Manager of Kansas City. And now, all nine children returned to honor their parents who had made all their successes possible.
And as the family bowed their head to thank God for abundance of blessings in their lives, Charles Kuralt remarked, "Whenever I hear that the family is a dying institution, I'll think of them. Whenever I hear anything in America is impossible, I'll think of them." (1) You think you've got problems? Imagine yourself in a one-room sharecroppers cabin in Mississippi with nine children!
And you can't be thankful? Why? Our lesson from the Gospel contains Jesus' thoughts on the topic of worry found in the Sermon on the Mount: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"
True Thanksgiving and worry are incompatible mutually exclusive unable to occupy the same space. That is why this is the perfect text for this day. Some of you came into this room today with more anxiety than gratitude and you do not even see the contradiction. Rick Majerus, the much respected but somewhat portly basketball coach compares his worries to the economy: "Hey, my hairline is in recession, my waistline is in inflation, and altogether, I'm in depression." (2) Rick was just joking, but many of us are a bundle of anxieties. Why do we worry? Let me list some reasons.
FIRST OF ALL, WE FOCUS ON OUR WANTS AND NOT ON OUR ABUNDANCE.
In the book, Tracks in the Sand, by Dr. Vance L. Shepperson and Dr. Bethyl Joy Shepperson, there is a rather bizarre story about a son who lived in the castle of his father, the king. One day the young prince went to his father and asked to go traveling into the world to discover his fate. The father equipped him with a horse, a dog, weapons, and armor. The young man traveled deep into the forest for many days and nights. One day he came to a deep blue, perfectly round lake surrounded by a sandy beach. The prince tethered his horse, climbed a tree with his dog, and waited. After a while he grew thirsty. So he climbed back down the tree and scooped up a handful of water for himself and his dog, and went back up the tree to wait. Soon a huge, moaning giantess who was missing half her body, limped over a hill. She dragged herself to the water's edge and drank and drank the water until the lake was dry. Fish flopped in the empty basin. Then the half giantess began to wait. She beat the earth with her fists and thundered, "THERE IS NOT ENOUGH!! MY THIRST IS UNQUENCHED!!" The ground shook with her pounding and wailing. Finally, she exhausted herself and slept. When she awoke, she dragged herself back the way she had come.
The prince came down from the tree and followed her at a distance. She led him to her castle and the young man hid and spied on her. She lit a fire under an enormous cauldron in front of the drawbridge. The incomplete, but powerful giantess saw a herd of buffalo wander by the castle and she scooped up a dozen of them in her huge hands, tore them limb from limb, and threw them into her cauldron. A flock of geese flew overhead. The halfgiantess reached up and caught a dozen geese, tore them to shreds, and threw them into her cauldron. Then she added a hundred bags of flour, barley, peas, and oats. While the stew cooked, the giantess went in the castle to prepare herself for dinner.
Meanwhile, the son of the king was hidden in a tree near the cauldron. When the giantess left, he speared a piece of meat for himself and his dog, then hid himself again in the branches of the tree. When the half-giantess returned, she tipped the cauldron to her mouth and swallowed the entire stew. She looked at the bottom of the pot and began to scream, "THERE IS NOT ENOUGH!" She raged, breathed fire, and stomped the ground. After a time of ranting and raving, the half-giantess exhausted herself and, once again, she slept. As she slept, the prince made a stealthy, speedy retreat. He rode back over the many miles to his father's castle. He rode over the drawbridge, into the main hall, and right up to the king's throne. He dismounted his horse and removed his armor. The king, amazed at the changes in his son, rushed to embrace him. At his father's touch, the son said, "Father, I have seen life." (3)
What he had seen is the way many people live: THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH. If they accumulate a thousand dollars then they want a million. If they have one million, they want two. If they have a Toyota, they want a Lexus; if they have a Lexus, they want a Ferrari. Most of us are rich in comparison with half the people who live in this world, and yet for many of us, it is not enough. That is the first reason we worry. We focus on our wants rather than our abundance.
IN A SIMILAR FASHION, WE FOCUS ON OUR FEARS RATHER THAN ON OUR FAITH. Do you know why many people worry? Worry is a substitute for faith. Worry does for some people what faith does for others. Bear with me for a moment; this is important. Have you heard anybody say, "Don't tell me it doesn't help to worry. Most of the things I worry about never happen!" They really mean it. Some people are genuinely concerned that if they fail to worry, that which they fear will happen.
Thomas Borkovec, a professor of Psychology at Penn State University, is (like many of us) an expert in the field of worry. Borkovec points out that the worry habit is reinforcing in the same sense that superstitions are. Since people worry about many things that have a very low probability of actually occurring a loved one dying in a plane crash, going bankrupt, and the like there is, to the primitive limbic brain at least, something magical about it. Like an amulet that wards off some anticipated evil, the worry psychologically gets the credit for preventing the danger it obsesses about. (4)
So, some people worry because, in a primitive way, they believe it actually keeps danger away. In a sense they are substituting worry for God. They are at heart pagans. Focus on your faith in God rather than your fears, and worry has to dissipate. Believe that you can trust God to handle any situation that you may confront and then relax. God's resources are greater than your resources. Live your life in perpetual praise to God for God's goodness, and fear will melt away. George Mueller, the famed nineteenth century founder of orphanages that cared for thousands of children and handled millions of dollars donated on faith, put it this way: "The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith. The beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety." We worry because we focus on our wants rather than our abundance. We worry because we focus on our fear rather than our faith.
FINALLY, WE WORRY BECAUSE WE FOCUS ON THE IRRELEVANT AND IGNORE THE IMPORTANT.
One comedian calls himself a Jewish Juggler. "I can worry about six things at the same time," he says. I don't believe you have to be Jewish to accomplish that feat. Chuck Swindoll notes that the words, "Do not be anxious," are a translation of the word MERIMNAO, "do not be divided in your mind double-minded."
It reminds me of something I read about flies. Do you know the best way to swat a fly? According to the scientific journal NATURE the best way is to take a piece of tissue paper in each hand. Approach the fly from the left and right at the same time, keeping the hands equidistant from the fly and moving to and fro slightly. Then with both hands, simultaneously pounce. The advice is soundly grounded in "fly neuroscience." Dr. Edward Gray of England's University College, London, writes: "The fly cannot cope with this situation, since its central nervous system circuitry is geared to avoid approaching movement in only one part of its visual field at a time. Two simultaneously approaching threats render the fly immobile, for its central nervous system now cannot compute at which angle to take off." (5) Many of us are like that poor fly. We feel like we have a million things racing through our minds. We feel overwhelmed, crushed by the weight of our responsibilities. We feel like things are coming at us from every direction and thus, like the fly, we become immobilized, not knowing which way to move.
What we need to is to focus our attention on only a few things--things that are really important. Our families, for example. Many of us are more fortunate that we deserve with our families. We've got great kids who are healthy and bright, and though they may get on our nerves from time to time, they're good kids. Our basic physical needs are being met. We don't live in Trump Tower, but our house is warm on a cold night and we have plenty to eat. I don't know what you would put on your really important list, but most of us are blessed in a wondrous way. There are people on this planet who feel themselves blessed who do not have nearly as much as we do.
Joni Erickson Tada is one of these people. As most of you are aware, Joni is a quadriplegic left so by a tragic diving accident. Listen as she tells about Thanksgiving at her house. "I don't know how it is with your family, but with mine, especially on Thanksgiving when so many relatives are gathered, everybody is talking and laughing at the same time. Then after dinner, Dad speaks a word of thanks, and each one of us sometimes as many as 25 around the big oak dining table does, too.
"Thanksgiving 1967 came. I was in the hospital hooked up to intravenous tubes and to a catheter; I was strapped to a smelly canvas Stryker frame that was both confining and claustrophobic. The darkness in my heart was as dreary as the hospital walls that surrounded me. In my bitterness, in my anger and resentment in my suffering, I felt as if it were impossible to thank God. I thought I could never thank God again.
"Another year passed, and my heart had time to mellow. Thanksgiving, 1968, came. My spirit had begun to soften and my ears were open and once again I was thankful. No more fox hunts for me, but I was home from the hospital with my family. After dinner, in our usual tradition, Dad stood up, and through his tears he said that he was so thankful that I was home. When it was my turn, I looked down at my plate and then up at the faces of my family. I said, ˜I'm thankful that I'm sitting up in a wheelchair now. I'm thankful that I don't have any more bedsores and that I don't have to go through any more operations. I'm thankful that I'm home for good. I'm thankful that I found a corset that fits me right so I can sit up comfortably and breathe OK. I'm thankful for my family. Most of all, I'm thankful for God and all his blessings.' And you know what? On Thanksgiving, 1968, it didn't matter that I couldn't go on a fox hunt or that my fingers couldn't braid the mane and tail of my thoroughbred. It didn't matter that I had no strength to polish a saddle or drive my car out to the farm. It didn't matter that I couldn't help my family prepare dinner or set the table. What mattered was that I was alive and that I was beginning to smile and feel. Thanksgiving 1968 was far more wonderful and meaningful to me than any other Thanksgiving I had ever had before." (6)
And you're worried? Focus on your abundance and forget your wants. Focus on your faith and forget your exaggerated fears. Focus on the really important blessings in your life and put trivial concerns in their place. When you do, Thanksgiving 1997 can be your best Thanksgiving ever, too.
1. Charles Kuralt, ON THE ROAD WITH CHARLES KURALT (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 35053. Cited in Max Anders, THE GOOD LIFE (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1993), p. 206208.
2. Contributed by Ronald D. Malin, Oakland City, IN.
3. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1992), pp. 3637.
4. Daniel Goleman, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (New York: Bantam Books, 1995), p. 67.
5. Contributed. Source: THE BOSTON GLOBE. 6. Joni Erickson Tada, as told to Twila Knaack, "Thanksgiving Past and Present," THESE TIMES, November 1982.