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Gratitude - The Key to Spiritual Growth by The Rev. Joyce Stickney
In recent years I think clergy and vestries have been quite creative in the ways we speak about stewardship and crafts a stewardship campaign. For a time I was tired of hearing about stewardship and grew almost a dislike for the word. It seemed heavy handed and burdensome to me. I think I associated it with the world of obligation, intimidation, manipulation, and the art of inflicting guilt. I now feel very differently about stewardship - it is a privilege. It is not a season or a campaign or specifically related to church - it is the essence of life and shapes how I see myself and all of life. I look back to the beloved story of the Prodigal (or Lost) Son. Rembrandt, when he was close to death, painted the Return of the Prodigal Son (which resides at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg). The misfortunes in Rembrandt's life in the 1600s were overwhelming. He lost four of his five children and his cherished wife, Saskia, and then died a lonely and very poor man. The older son in his painting stands tall, to the side, his hands folded, looking at but almost past his father welcoming his brother home. He is very much in the scene yet seems distant. The gospel of Luke tells us that the lost son has returned and there is great celebration in the home. The older son returns from his work in the fields and refuses to go inside when he hears what the celebration is about and that the father has killed the fatted calf. He is resentful, disgusted, and angry as his father tells him, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." (Luke 15:31) The lost son has dramatically returned home, and now the elder son is refusing to come home and take part. He does not see that he is his father's partner and that what his father owns is his also. He probably cannot hear his father's words to him. He is stuck in resentment. Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift. Resentment tells me that I don't receive what I deserve. It always manifests itself in envy. Clearly the older son is feeling this way - he should be given more than the younger son because of his commitment shown to his father. Gratitude, however, goes beyond seeing things as "mine" and "yours" and rather sees all of life as pure gift. In the past I thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. Stewardship hinges for me on celebrating God's gifts with joy… and this is a discipline. It is a daily intention because everything else around me tells me to be anxious, fearful, possessive, and discontent. Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to be grateful even when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty (this is different from denial), even when my inner eye still looks for someone to blame or something to call ugly. I can choose to listen to the voices that forgive and to look at the faces that smile, even while I still hear words of revenge and see grimaces of hatred. There is always the choice between resentment and gratitude because God appears in our darkness, when we are lost, urging us to come home, and declaring in a voice filled with affection, "You are with me always, and all I have is yours." Indeed, I can choose to dwell in the darkness, standing outside and pointing to those who are seemingly better off than I, lament the many misfortunes that have plagued me in the past, and thereby wrap myself up in my resentment. Instead there is the option to look deeply into the eyes of God who seeks me, and see therein that all I am and all I have is pure gift calling for gratitude. The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort. But each time I make it, the next choice is a little easier. Every gift acknowledged reveals another and another until finally even the most normal, obvious, and seemingly mundane event or encounter proves to be filled with grace. There is an Estonian proverb that says, "Who does not thank for little will not thank for much." Acts of gratitude make one grateful because step by step, they reveal that all is grace. Gratitude and stewardship are not merely a perspective or attitude, they shape a lifestyle, acts, words, commitments, and pledges. Ultimately the discipline of gratitude reveals the God who searches for me, burning with desire to take away all my resentments and complaints and to let me sit at his side at the heavenly banquet. It is very possible the older son experienced a conversion as his father seeks to lead him back to the house of joy. He holds nothing back from his older son saying, "All I have is yours." There could be no clearer statement of the father's unlimited love for his older son. Through the father's love, the older son is able to let go of resentment and sibling rivalry and enter the home with gratitude. In many ways I am the older son, experiencing conversion, stepping into the home of celebration by faith… seeking to understand the words (reflective also of Jesus' relationship with the Father), "You are always with me, and all I have is yours." Embracing these words is a stewardship challenge and poses the question, "If the father shares all with the son, does not the son share all with the father?" They are not divided, but one. God has given to me and all I have and all my life are God's. As we offer our time, treasure, and talent to God we claim this truth and that all life is pure gift. Works Consulted: Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, Doubleday, 1992.
Copyright © 2003 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
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