A Thanksgiving Hack to Overcome Worry Philippians 4:4-7 William F. Schnell November 19, 2017 At tomorrow s Church Board meeting I will present a letter announcing my intention to retire from fulltime pastoral ministry on my 65 th birthday, which is in three months on February 13, 2018. Three months seems to be the recommended notice for longtenured pastors and backdating it from my birthday brings us to today the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I want this announcement, and the next three months really, to unfold within the context of thanksgiving for reasons that will become clear in this message from God s Holy Word. I know that this is an abrupt way to make this announcement, but I tend to be a pull-theband aide-off-quickly kind of guy, especially when some measure of pain is involved. Having done it, I already feel a little bit better. I am kind of a transparent fellow and living with this knowledge for the past several months without being able to share it has made me feel kind of dishonest. People have asked me to do things down the road when I know I won t be here to do them. What do you say under those circumstances? I have also had to forego long-term planning lest I leave projects half-finished for my successor to complete. The only exception has been our recent capital improvements project which was forecast to be completed safely before my departure. So it is kind of a relief getting it all out in the open at long last. But still, there remains a lot of uncertainty for both you and me. Among the many questions you may have and that I will seek to answer in upcoming newsletter articles, is What do you intend to do after you retire? The answer to that is I have no idea. I suppose for a while I will get up in the morning with absolutely nothing to do, and go to bed that same night having accomplished only half of it. And eventually I will get rested and then bored. And if the past is any guide, the Lord will open a new door of service and I will hope to have the good sense to walk through it. But right now I have no idea what that might be. I only know that, whatever it is, it will be at an age appropriate pace. Waning energy is my reason for departing this rather consuming work. Your Moderator and Chair of the Elders have done due diligence suggesting certain modifications in my work, among other creative suggestions, which might be a kind courtesy to me but certainly would not be in your best interest when thought through carefully. This church requires a certain level of energy and vitality in its Senior Pastor to prosper. If you do the math, I will be increasingly unable to provide it moving forward even with all due respect for working smarter rather than harder. By the way, at least the last two pastors
who retired from this pulpit both did so at the age of 65, so I am in good the good company of Brother Bill Van Auken and Brother JR Hutcherson in this respect. Which leaves us with the uncertainty you must face in the days ahead. Who will hold down the fort after February 13? Hopefully an interim pastor, but who and how do we find that person? And how do we go about finding a suitable Senior Pastor after that? What about our current programs and ministries? Will they suffer in the meantime? And is this really the reason Schnell is leaving, or is there something he isn t telling us? Is there something wrong with us? Any pastoral transition places the congregation in a world of uncertainty at the very least. The vacuum created makes us feel anxious and worried. The title of our message for today is A Thanksgiving Hack to Overcome Worry. The word hack originally meant to cut through something. In the modern age of cyber intrigues it took on the meaning of using a computer to gain unauthorized data from a system. Lately it has been used to describe any trick to make life easier. Just google life hacks and you will come up with all sorts of tricks to solve life s little conundrums, like holding a nail you are about to hammer with a clothes pin in place of your fingers. I am now expanding the term further into the spiritual realm with a Thanksgiving Hack to Overcome Worry. Hopefully both you and I will find thanksgiving a useful hack to overcome our anxious thoughts in the uncertain days ahead. As always, we look to the Bible for our inspiration. Our text for today finds Paul writing to the Philippians: Rejoice in the Lord always. And then, as if to emphasize his point, he repeats himself. I will say it again: Rejoice! (Verse 4). Why would Paul feel the need to repeat himself? Because he is not simply calling the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord, he is calling them to rejoice in the Lord always. Always. That is a little unrealistic isn t it? Rejoicing is what we do when things go our way. We get the job or the raise. We get married. But what about when we don t get our way or we get divorced or shown the way out the door? Rejoice then? Do you know where Paul is as he writes these words? Prison. Can you imagine rejoicing while incarcerated as a criminal? None of that seems to matter to Paul. He probably feels he deserves it in some way because he persecuted the church in a former life. But when he was about as low and lost as he could be, the love of God reached him through Jesus Christ. Though he was the worst of sinners in his estimation, God loved him and called him to his service. Paul was so grateful for a second chance that he could not stop saying thank you and praising the amazing grace of God and rejoicing in the redemption of his life. This irrepressible joy, even while incarcerated, was contagious. People were hungry for it, including those charged with guarding him. In this very same letter from which our text comes he writes to the Philippians: Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ (1:12-13). 2
Paul rejoices in otherwise dreary circumstances because they are serving to advance the gospel. Those charged with guarding him are inspired by his unconquerable spirit. They have issues of their own weighing them down and they want to know his secret, and he is happy to share it with them. In other words, when even persecution serves to advance your cause you tend to look at it differently. Instead of bringing you down, it lifts you up. Paul shares his experience with the Philippians because he knows that they have their own crosses to bear for Jesus. He writes: For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have (1:29-30). Paul wants the Philippians to see this struggle--this suffering differently. He wants them to see how it achieves something surpassing for them and the gospel. He wants to replace their anxious worries with joyful anticipation. In our text he writes: Do not be anxious about anything (Verse 6). Just Paul expects the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord always, he also expects them to not be anxious about anything. Anything! What about this terrible uncertainty? They live in a culture that is targeting them. They could lose their property, their livelihoods and, possibly, their lives. How could they not be anxious under such circumstances? How could they find any peace living under such a present threat? Paul tells them. To put it in modern parlance, he gives them A Thanksgiving Hack to Overcome Worry. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Verse 7). Pray about your trials. Petition God to deliver you or to help you bear up under them. And then add thanksgiving bringing to mind what God has already done. Nothing gives us more hope for an uncertain future than to acknowledge what God has certainly done in the past. Looking back I remember how God prompted our family s move from Milwaukee to here. God has a tendency to whisper in my ear, and I have a tendency to ignore him. Then he has to turn up the volume until I get the message. We were comfortable at our church in Milwaukee, but God had other plans. He created a holy discontent in my soul until I was ready to follow his lead. I thought he was leading us to a senior pastor position in New Jersey. I was the last candidate standing out of a field in excess of a hundred. Nancy was not at all sure, and I thought she was being negative. But before I signed my name on the dotted line, an open pulpit in our home state came to my attention a community church like the one where I was born and raised maybe a little grander actually. My mom and dad scouted out the Promised Land ahead of time and pronounced it a land flowing with milk and honey. 3
I tortured myself over the dilemma until, at last, I declined the position in New Jersey (much to Nancy s relief) so I could apply for The Church in Aurora pretty much in competition with the same hundred candidates for New Jersey. The Executive Director of the International Council of Community Churches was not so happy. His exact response: This doesn t happen twice. I stood to end up with nothing. But it sure felt like the spirit s leading, so we took the leap of faith. And guess what? It happened twice. We were ecstatic! There were some challenges in the beginning, to be sure, which created some continuing uncertainty, but the good Lord resolved those in his time and way. Life was good. But into every life a little rain must fall, and there were stormy seasons to come for the Schnell family. There were times when the church ministered to the minister and his family. I cannot say anything beyond that or I will be reduced to a puddle before your very eyes, and I have to complete this sermon. But when I think about what this congregation means to me and my family I am touched to such a depth with such a profound sense of your love for us and words fail me. The only words that come, and they are woefully inadequate, are thank you. Thank you God for bringing us here. Thank you for this wonderful church family. Thank you for making your love known to us through this congregation. Thanksgiving pours forth from us, not because God needs it but because we do as we face an uncertain future. Nancy has got to be facing the future with some question about what it is going to be like having me underfoot all the time. I am facing my own questions about where God might be leading us next. But when we think about how God has led us in the past and brought us to this day of blessing, we have every confidence that he will lead us in the days ahead upon paths that lead to the Promised Land. Thanksgiving enables us to rejoice even in the wilderness of uncertainty. Thanksgiving brings a peace even in the midst of a sea of change a peace that transcends understanding. We are at peace with this, and we want you to be at peace with it too. That is easy to say, but I think we can give more substance to it with a Thanksgiving Hack. I want you to think about what this family of faith has meant to you, not only in good times but perhaps even more so in your darker hours. Maybe you lost a loved one through death or divorce. Maybe you lost a livelihood unexpectedly and were thrust into a crisis of identity and financial uncertainty. Maybe your health was at grave risk or the advancing years were taking their toll. Maybe you just made some really big and costly mistakes. It might have been then that a pastor made a big difference or, more likely, a fellow church member or a tribe in the church. They reminded you that you were a precious child of God, loved with a perfect love and in the care of a powerful God who often expresses his love and power through his chosen instruments. With that support and encouragement your life was redeemed and you became an instrument of God s grace to others sometimes without even knowing it. 4
We belong to a remarkable congregation. Let us be grateful for that. And may our prayerful thanksgiving evoke rejoicing in all circumstances, banish anxious and faithless worry, and usher us into a peace that transcends all understanding. We are facing a pastoral transition. So what? God has great things in store for us. God has a history of proving that over and over again. Let us avail ourselves of a thanksgiving hack to overcome worry by counting our blessings. 5