Being Thankful Makes Us Better

Norman Vincent Peale saved me. He did-saved me. As a young pastor, I found his book, The Power of Positive Thinking. At first, I scoffed. Peale was a by-word in the hallowed halls of Princeton Seminary. Weak theology, magical thinking. With a spirit of "let's see just how bad this is" I read it.  There were clearly grounds for critique.  Actualizing a positive outcome by positive expectations.  A "name it, claim it" at work.  Then, suddenly, it hit me.  For all my life to this point, in very profound ways bolstered by significant academic pursuit, I'd been trained to think critically, negatively.  In essence I could tell you what was bad but reading Peale I realized I was woefully unprepared to tell you what was good. 

              Reading Peale reminded me of a dialogue I heard years before.  The musician Larry Norman did this exchange in concerts.  He took on the voice of a street preacher and then the responses of a man on the street. The street preacher started by saying to the stranger, "can I ask you some questions?"  The man agrees and the preacher starts, "have you been born again?" To this the man says, "well, not lately." The preacher continues, "have you been washed in the blood?"  "I hope not," was the response.  Here the preacher gets frustrated and says, "I am trying to tell you the good news."  The man says, "the good news, what is that?"  The preacher responds, "you’re going to hell."  Puzzled the man says, "what’s the bad news?" 

              If Norman Vincent Peale was asking questions on the street with strangers the dialogue would be different.  The good news for him was not damnation, but a simple belief about gladness, gratitude, joy: we must live these.  All of these are in our lives.  Hardship, tragedies, suffering, sadness.  Yes.  But there is so much good.  If we start with the good, we are most likely to end with the good.  I remember being dumbstruck when I realized how I equated faith with being serious, resolute, determined.  I had my head down; I was pressing on.  Reading Peale provided a bit of gentle self-mockery, “oh, you are so very serious.  What if you were so very joyful?  Wouldn’t that be better?”  This simple moment saved me.

              Not long after this, and most likely with some convert's zeal, I engaged in a debate with a local lawyer.  We were serving on the comprehensive planning committee for the town and at one point in an evening we got to talking and the talking became a debate.  His point was: positive thinking is a delusion, life lived with blinders on.  At out next meeting he brought a copy of an article, I can see it in my mind right now.  The bold letters of the title, “The Power of Negative Thinking.” 

              I took the article without derision.  I took it, read it.  The next month my lawyer friend asked me, “did you read it?”  “I did,” I said.  I went on to explain to him how I was highly trained in negative thinking.  Call it critical thinking.  I explained how many academic degrees I earned, how each one was a long course in critical thinking.  Argument, beliefs, plans, ideas, even poetry, I can criticize them with the best.  It was, in a way, the only real skill I possessed.

              When I explained to him once again my epiphany, how negative thinking came quite easily to me, but positive thinking was hard, requiring skills I needed to gain, when I said this, he scoffed.  In the end, and this is what I remember most, he dismissed me by saying, “aw man, you are just a Pollyanna.”

              I thought I understood what this meant.  I knew it was not intended to be a compliment.  Pollyanna seemed to me to be “rose colored glasses” or naivete.  Luckily, I knew I really didn’t know exactly what it meant to be a Pollyanna, so I did some research.

              I found a book and a movie.  The movie is a Disney classic with Hallie Mills.  Its sugary, sweet.  The plot of the movie is how kindness, generosity, compassion can win over the bitter and hard of heart.  This is good, nice, but I didn’t feel a sense of great connection with the character Pollyanna in the movie.  To leave no stone unturned, I read the book.  Let me just say, if have never read this, Pollyanna, read it.  It’s a novella.  But it is also a theological powerhouse.

              In the movie, the story picks up with Pollyanna’s arrival as an orphan brought to her aunt’s house.  In the book you start with Pollyanna in a remote western town where her parents were frontier missionaries.  The story begins with Pollyanna and her father grieving the loss of her mother.  As a way of coping, Pollyanna’s father taught her how to play the “glad game.” 

              The glad game is when you are faced with a hardship, with a disappointment, and you consider the challenge, don’t deny it, but you make a choice of gladness.  You acknowledge the hardship, but then you also find some sense of how life is good or could be worse.  The glad game begs a question: even in sorrow, where is your gladness?  Find it now for this is when you need it most.

              Where Peale’s work and positivity is a challenge to not assume the worst, to begin with affirmation, not fear or assumption of failure, Pollyanna was how you can be glad, be thankful, have gratitude amidst failure or hardship.  Both are good.  I came to see how Pollyanna possessed a faith I had yet to find, a devotion to joy far beyond mine.  I remember finishing the book and considering the insult, “you're just a Pollyanna,” I finished reading the book and I thought, “oh, I wish I was Pollyanna; I wish I had her faith.”

              Before we look to Luke and the Samaritan leper who turned back in gratitude, I want to acknowledge how scholars today have discovered Peale and Pollyanna are not magical or naïve, scholars today realize this is neuroscience, this is the production of neurotransmitters, chemicals in us making us better.  Havard Medical School's website has a fascinating review of current research into gratitude, how being thankful, being positive makes us better, restores us. We could say healing. Being thankful makes you better is not only theologically true, but also physiologically true.

              Every gospel has a set of themes, characteristics.  Matthew has religious leaders, structure of wisdom, fulfillment of scripture; Mark is immediate, secretive, and the apostles look ridiculous; John is about irony, time and signs.  Luke is women, walking, and Samaria.  Only Luke identifies with Samaria, has Jesus spend time in Samaria.  Matthew and Mark don’t even mention Samaria or Samaritans.  Luke describes Jesus walking through Samaria so much it is the largest part of his Gospel.  Our lesson today, 10 lepers, is one of those pieces forming Luke's theme. Focusing on Samaria makes Luke the gospel of the outcast and the stranger.

              Samaritans were untouchables in the time of Jesus.  A strange blend of ancient Israelite practice and local religion.  They were almost Jewish and for a religion based in purity, being almost means you are polluted, toxic, dangerous.  To be a Samaritan and a leper in the time of Jesus could have only been worse if the Samaritan leper was a woman.  In socioeconomics and religious practice, even just public health, the man who turned back was lowest of the low.  This doesn’t even take into consideration the years of suffering, the physical hardship caused by leprosy. 

              Our reading today is not only unique to Luke, but also unique in how it is considered a parable and not an account.  It is a parable written as an account.  Most scholars see our reading today as a story meant to challenge us.  Be it parable or account the point seems to be the same, the one least expected to act with grace and dignity offers the most.  You can hear it in the questions of Jesus, were there not 10? Is only this stranger capable of gratitude?

              We could take the challenge here as shame.  If we consider ourselves as likely to be in the 9, if we recognize how often we fail to have gratitude, to be thankful for our life, especially when there is a significant blessing, then the parable is meant to challenge our presumption: we may not be as gracious as we think we are. 

              Yet shame is not a good motivator, nor is it very profound.  We can all do better, be better, have more gratitude.  Of course. What is more likely though is the idea of finding hope in the places where we expect it the least.  There is nothing in Jesus’ day preparing his audience to admire or respect the Samaritan leper.  Everything about this man repulsed the people around Jesus.  Here we are close to a parabolic moment.  What if we are categorically wrong in how we define people; what if our assumptions about the “others” the “strangers”, what if we are the ones who are far from grace? 

              Who hasn’t been wrong about someone, about a group or people and realized, now that I know them, I can see how false my definitions were.

              This was the sensibility I found reading Peale and discovering who Pollyanna was.  I could see how false my definitions of faith were and how negative was my sense of certainty.  And then, what was once critical thinking, negative thinking changed; faith became a desire for deep and profound joy, happiness became my assumption.  Learning to trust this, believe this, was not easy.  The more I gained trust in hope, the more I realized how much I had trusted fear masquerading as seriousness.  I was ready to strive, fight, press on; I was unprepared to rejoice, be content, be at peace.  I was a stranger to happiness.

              I reached out to Sara Teti earlier in the week.  She was in Malawi.  I asked if she was happy.  I did because this is Sarah’s third visit to Malawi; this is usually the moment when you wrestle with the contradiction: immersed in extreme poverty, surrounded by people who possess little but have plenty of pain and hardship, being so immersed why do you find so much joy?  This is a hard contradiction: I am ever surprised by how happy I am in a village, without any convenience, sitting with people and laughing.  Finding happiness in the midst of hardship is so close to Pollyanna's glad game.

              Beginning today and for the coming months, we will hear about the campaign to renovate the sanctuary.  There will be plans of a new chancel, windows, new pew cushions, new paint, a new organ console.  This is good and exciting.  Every church I have pastored has done this during my time with them.  I love the imagining and the newness all made to look as if it was always that way. 

              Yet, what I love the most is the moment of decision.  In this moment of possibility will we be faithful or fearful? 

              The temptation of fear will come, how can this be, this is impossible, this is too much, and so on and so on.  Seen it every time.  No matter how many times this has worked out, came to be, no matter what was overcome in the past, this moment begs the assumption of failure.

              And then, every time, there comes a moment or courage, hope, a willingness to believe the good will come.  Such moments can happen anywhere in our lives.  Somehow finding courage together is a moment of great delight.  I love these moments because we are abiding in a place of great gladness where the future of the church is seen and handed over to the next generation. This is a moment where gladness makes us better.  Amen.