Gratitude, Gratitude, Gratitude
The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia, Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, August 10th, 2026
It is wonderful to be together this morning during this season of summer vacations. Many of us are getting back from trips to be with family and friends. Some of us are thankful to have times of quiet solitude. But whether we are alone or with those we love, vacations allow us to get into a different rhythm, and hopefully a slower one, if only for a few days or weeks.
Times of relaxation can be opportunities to get in touch with gratitude. When we slow down, we see things that we don’t normally see when we are rushing around and distracted. When I am working with a couple prior to marriage, we talk about the importance of gratitude as the foundation for a healthy, lasting relationship. All of us would probably agree that gratitude is an important concept in life, but putting that concept into everyday practice can be another matter all together. What couples promise to do when getting married at Saint George’s is to set aside time every day to check-in with each other, to turn off cell phones, televisions, children, and work concerns, and to be present to one another. Lighting a candle makes this time holy. And each partner tells the other one or two things that they are genuinely thankful for about the other. They do this so that they will hopefully establish a pattern of expressing gratitude for the rest of their lives.
I really appreciate you taking out the trash after dinner.
The way you read that story to the kids tonight really made me smile.
Thank-you for calling me today to tell me how great I am right before that gnarly meeting you knew I was dreading. Your love really got me through.
Sometimes we think the ones we love know how much we appreciate them, but we have to express it in order for it to truly be experienced. It affirms the other person and also reinforces it for ourselves and solidifies the relationship. Whether that relationship is with a partner, a spouse, another family member, or a dear friend. It is so easy to fall into patterns of not expressing appreciation, and slowly but surely things start disintegrating. It is subtle at first, but the rif grows and grows until it becomes a giant chasm. We have to put time and energy into our closest relationships in order for them to flourish. And all of those expressions of gratitude over the years really help us to work through difficult patches. Taking each other for granted isn’t an option.
It is the same way in our spiritual lives. Christians are called first and foremost to be “gratitude practitioners”. If we tend by nature to look at things negatively, we need practices that will help us get in touch with joy. If we tend by nature to be joyful, we need practices that help us stay in touch with joy. In our service of Compline in the Book of Common Prayer, we have a prayer asking God to “shield the joyous.” Joy needs to be protected and nourished. It is a precious thing. It can also be a fragile thing.
Being grateful for our blessings is really good for our overall health and well-being, especially during times of high stress, and we are certainly in such a time right now. In an article published in the Harvard Mental Health Letter (November 2011), the authors talked about research done by two psychologists, Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California, and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami. They had one group of people write about things that they were grateful for during the week and they asked another group to write about daily irritations or things that displeased them. After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives than those who were focused on sources of aggravation. They also had fewer visits to doctors. Another researcher, Dr. Martin Seligman, of the University of Pennsylvania, did a gratitude study focused on early memories. When participants wrote and personally delivered a letter to someone in the past whom they had never properly thanked for their kindness, everyone’s happiness scores dramatically increased, both the giver’s and the recipient’s. This practice had far greater effect than any other psychological interventions, with benefits lasting a month.
Expressing thankfulness is really good for us and good for the people around us. It is little wonder that expressing gratitude is so important in developing our faith. It heals us, and restores us to ourselves and to God. Every Sunday we come together to “lift our hearts” to God and express thanks in the Great Thanksgiving of the Eucharist.
I love singing these words with you every Sunday! It is totally the highlight of my week. We sing them with the whole company of heaven. People have been praying these or similar words for thousands and thousands of years, first our Jewish forebearers, then the early Christians, and now us. That’s a long history of gratitude. And not just gratitude in general, but expressing gratitude to God, the Source of all that is right and good about life in this world and the life of the world to come.
When we say these words, we are reminded that the Source of joy is outside of ourselves, and yet we can experience that joy deeply and truly within ourselves. Does this mean that we are pretending that everything is wonderful, that everything is perfect? Are we deluding ourselves about the cold, hard facts of life? No, we are praising God and in that very act of thanksgiving, God is sanctifying all that is, and helping us to deal with hardship. We can’t always change whatever is happening in our lives, but we can change our relationship to it. We can operate out of a grateful center, grounded in God, as we respond to whatever challenge we are facing.
We are a community of gratitude practitioners at Saint George’s. We are called to do everything with a profound thanksgiving for all that God has done for us since the beginning of creation and all that God will do in the future. We come together every Sunday, whether we feel like getting out of bed or not, to say thanks for the gift of life, and to do that as a community of faith. We feed the hungry and work for justice because we want to share our blessings. We do everything because we are grateful and want to express our thanks. It is good for our mental health, it is good for our souls, and it is good for the world. Whatever is happening, there is always something to be grateful for. Gratitude gives us joy, it grounds us and centers us in all that is good and true and blessed. And being in a community of gratitude practitioners helps us to know that we are not alone. We give thanks to God for our own life and for the life of the world, as we lift our hearts to the Lord. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.
