“Thanking God the Way God Wants to be Thanked” - written by Toby Jones, 11/22/15

How many of you have ever heard of or read “The 5 Love Languages” by marriage guru Gary Chapman? I have several times, and I highly recommend it. Basically, Chapman’s argument is that all of us have our own love language – that is the way we like to receive love and be loved AND the way that we’re most comfortable giving or expressing love to another. Chapman argues that there are five basic categories or “languages” into which our various expressions of love fall. Some of us feel the most loved when we receive gifts and presents; others feel most loved when we receive words of affirmation and love from our partner. Some feel love when the other is being physically affectionate toward them, while still others would rather share quality time together.

            Now the challenge with all this, when it comes to marriage, is that you and your partner might not speak the same love language. Your husband might like to receive physical affection, while you might be more comfortable with gifts and presents. As you might imagine, Chapman maintains – accurately, I think – that the key to a lasting marriage is for both partners to learn the way the other likes to receive love and is then be sure to deliver love in that particular way – in that love language with which the the other is most comfortable.

            At this point, some of you may be wondering, “What is Toby doing? I thought I was coming to a worship service about Thanksgiving, and here he is launching into a “Save your Marriage” seminar! Bear with me, and, for the record, I can pretty much guarantee that the one thing I’ll never be qualified to do is give you or anybody else marital advice.

            I opened with Chapman’s love language typology, because I think when we’re trying to please God, we need to be sure that we’re using God’s preferred love language. Yes, God has a preferred love language too! And thankfully, God has been incredibly clear with us about what his love language is. He tells us explicitly, especially in the gospels, how he wants us to show gratitude and love to Him. It was in both the passages we heard from Matthew. Did you catch it…?

            God’s love language is not words, though I’m sure God appreciates us saying “thank you” in our prayers. God’s preferred love language is not our rituals, our sacrifices, or our worship services, though I’m sure God appreciates gatherings like this one. God’s love language is the way we treat other people – the way we treat his children. We love God by serving others. We thank God by taking care of His children – especially the most vulnerable of them. The letters of John, toward the back of the New Testament, reinforce this: “Whoever does not love others does not know God, because God IS LOVE!” John writes. (I John 4:8) The prophet Micah in the Hebrew Scriptures put it this way: “God has shown you, O people, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you…? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

            Any of us who are parents know and understand God’s love language, right? If someone says or believes that she loves me, but then mistreats Eloise, that person does NOT love me in any way that matters. If I say I love you but then am mean, disrespectful, or uncaring toward your child, I clearly don’t love you. If I really love you, it is going to show in the way I treat your children, because they’re the most precious things to you, Amen?

            Every single person in this world – EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THIS WORLD – is a beloved child of God. We cannot genuinely love God if we are mistreating or failing to meet the needs of ANY of His precious children.

            This, by the way, is how we know that the people who unleashed all that terror in Paris just over a week ago are NOT Muslims in any sense of the word. Muslims are peace loving, God-loving people. To treat ANY of God’s children EVER with that kind of terror and horror and disregard is the opposite of loving God. As I’ve said before, the kind of terrorists who murder God’s innocent children are no more Muslims than Hitler was a Christian, which, by the way, Hitler did claim to be.

            So this Thanksgiving, if we truly want to give thanks to God – and to do so in a way that honors God’s preferred love language – we should reach out in love and kindness to some of God’s children, particularly those who are in desperate need.

            If we want to thank God in God’s preferred love language this Thanksgiving, then we should try doing what an anonymous Canadian man did on a city bus last week. A homeless, white man sat alone on the bus with two plastic hairnets covering his feet, because he had no shoes. Another passenger, a real Muslim, upon noticing the white man’s “footwear,” promptly took off his shoes and socks and gave them to the stranger, saying, "I don't need them and I live nearby." He then hopped off the bus barefoot, before the man could even say thanks, according to the bus driver and The Toronto Sun. “It made my heart melt,” that veteran bus driver explained. When reached by phone, the kind-hearted man asked that the media not identify him, because his Muslim faith teaches that charitable acts should be anonymous. Make no mistake, folks; that Muslim on the bus who gave up his shoes – he spoke God’s love language. He was fluent in it! (Nov 17 issue of the Huffington Post)

            Do you want to say thank you to God this Thanksgiving in God’s preferred love language? Try doing exactly as Jesus instructed in Matthew 25 in his parable of the sheep and the goats. If you see or hear about someone who is without food, feed him. If you come across someone who is thirsty, give her a drink. If you know of someone without shelter, take him to The Refuge or simply volunteer to work there. I’ll be working there tonight, by the way, and do you know why? Because I know for a fact that no matter how good this sermon might be, my sermons are not in God’s love language. So if it’s God that I want to thank, my words are not nearly as valuable to Him as my loving actions toward His most vulnerable children are.

            That passage that Sal read earlier from Matthew 18, the one known as the parable of the unforgiving servant, is an absolutely haunting story. But I wanted us to read it because it clarifies what God’s preferred love language is. It doesn’t take a seminary degree to understand it, right? It couldn’t be any clearer. A king calls in one of his debtors and demands that he pay off his rather large debt. The indebted servant begs and pleads for more time, and the merciful king grants him more than more time; he cancels the debt, and strikes it from the record. On his way home, on his way home from that incredible and unexpected moment of mercy, that forgiven servant encounters one of his debtors, a man who owes him a paltry sum. The recently forgiven man demands that his debtor pay up. He won’t even hear his request for more time, and instead has his debtor thrown in prison. Well, as it always does, word of this trickled back to the king, the forgiving, merciful king, and he was not happy. He throws that unforgiving forgiven servant in jail until he can pay off the debt.

            Now there’s not a person sitting here who doesn’t share that king’s anger at that man who had been forgiven so much. It’s still inexplicable, even to us sitting here 2000 years later! We can’t even imagine how someone who had been forgiven such a huge debt, could turn around and be so unforgiving to one who owed him so relatively little….Or can we…?

            Close your eyes for a few moments. I want you to picture a person in your life whom you are still struggling to forgive. Everyone of us has somebody in our life we still haven’t forgiven, don’t we. Keep your eyes closed. Look at him or her – look really closely. Isn’t it time to let that anger and bitterness go? Isn’t it time to cancel that debt? Here’s what I want you to do. Open your eyes, grab a piece of paper and a pencil. Write that person’s name on the paper. Don’t worry; you don’t have to show it to anybody else. Put that piece of paper in your pocket or your purse and promise yourself that sometime between today and Thursday – Thanksgiving Day – that you are going to reach out to that person – maybe by phone, by email, or even face to face. All you have to say or write is this: “I’ve held on to my bitterness and anger toward you long enough. I want you to know that today, I’m letting it go. I forgive you.”

            Our forgiveness of others – that’s another way to thank God in God’s preferred love language. We can’t claim to love God or to thank God if we’re still clinging to the bitterness toward somebody who did us wrong. This Thanksgiving, if you really want to make God happy, if you really want to say Thank You in a way that God will appreciate and remember, go to that person you still feel bitter toward, and tell him or her that all is forgiven.

            We’re entering the holiday season, folks. And the way I understand it, these holidays are not about making ourselves or even our loved ones happy; they’re about making God happy. God is the object of both of these holidays. On Thanksgiving, we’re supposed to bring our thanks to God. And on Christmas, we’re supposed to honor and celebrate the birth of Jesus. So shouldn’t we celebrate both of these amazing holy-days in a language that God understands? God has a preferred love language. God prefers that we thank Him by taking care of his children – starting with the least of his children – and by forgiving those who have hurt us and let us down. Jesus showed us how to do both of these things. Jesus taught us to speak God’s language of love. The rest is up to us. So let’s celebrate Thanksgiving this year in the language God prefers. Amen.