I suppose that as I have got older, I have come to appreciate more the simple, ordinary, everyday, things of life – the sunrise, the dew on the grass, the spring flowers, the laughter of children and so on. It is not hard to make supplications to God when things are not going well and we feel that we need divine intervention, but it’s much easier to forget to give thanks to God for all the simple gifts that God gives us and without which we would not be able to survive.

A few years ago when I was travelling back from Edinburgh, our train was delayed just before Perth, to allow the train from Glasgow to go on ahead of us. Now those of you that travel this route will perhaps have guessed that we were supposed to join that train from Glasgow, for the journey from Perth to Inverness, but we arrived in Perth just as it pulled out. By this point the next train to Inverness had been cancelled on account of the weather. Some of our group got a little bit upset, but as a lovely lady said very movingly, after you have had a phone call from the back of an ambulance to tell you that your only daughter is being rushed to hospital in a critical condition having been seriously injured in a road accident, little inconveniences like missed connections never seem quite so important again.

This week I listened to a number of people grumbling about ruined holidays because of high temperatures and wild fires on the news and moaning that the authorities or airlines of tour operators had not done enough to help them, in contrast to those who expressed their gratitude for what had been done for them and that they, their fellow holiday-makers and their hosts had all escaped uninjured and alive.  Of course I have sympathy for people who suffer the disappointment of disrupted holidays, postponed operations and all the other things that don’t go according to plan, but it just goes to show that we can never be in complete control of our lives and have to rely on the grace of a God who “moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform”.

The ancient Eucharistic liturgies began their Eucharistic prayer with thanksgiving for creation and only afterwards for redemption through Christ. One of the earliest, “The Liturgy of St James” used in the Church of Jerusalem, which was used as a basis for the 1764 Scottish Communion Office by Thomas Rattray, Bishop of Dunkeld. 

In the Preface at the start of the eucharistic prayer we find the words:

“It is very meet, right and our bounden duty to praise Thee, to bless Thee, to worship Thee, to glorify Thee, to give thanks unto thee, the maker of all creatures visible and invisible, the treasure of all good things; the fountain of life and immortality; the God and Governor of the universe: to whom the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens sing praise, with all their hosts: the Sun and Moon, and the wholes choir of Stars: the Earth and Sea and all things that are in them”

Liturgy of St James

Later on in the Eucharistic Prayer we find:

“Remember, O Lord, to grant us temperate weather, moderate showers, pleasant dews, and plenty of the fruits of the earth, and to bless the whole circle of the year with thy goodness. For the eyes of all hope in Thee, and thou givest them food in due season; thou opened thy hand and fillest every living creature with thy gracious bounty.”

Liturgy of St James

I wonder whether we should not return to such wide-ranging and expressive offerings of thanksgiving, as I feel that our current Eucharist is focussed too narrowly on thanksgiving for bread and wine and the sacrifice of Christ, when we have all so much more to be thankful to God for.

Perhaps a greater appreciation of all that we take for granted might make us more sensitive to what our over-consumption is doing to “the Earth and Sea and all things that are in them” … and that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Blessings
James