Today, I want to begin a sermon series on gratitude.  This may seem like an odd choice at a time when so many people are disoriented and saddened and anxious about the state of our nation. It feels to some of us like we’re in exile. Here’s the thing, though:  anyone can be grateful when everything is going your way. What if it is possible to be a grateful person, whatever comes our way?

I am going to be honest with you this morning:  I am so sick of

American politics.  Understand, I love the ideal that is America:  a nation where there is liberty and justice for all; a land that welcomes the “tired and poor and huddled masses,” a land in which the constitution is upheld, the rule of law is maintained, and the will of the people is honored.  This is the land where no one is above the law, where justice is blind, and where everyone has the opportunity to pursue happiness.  In practice, America has always fallen short of that ideal but has had moments of brilliance in which we have come close, or at least caught a glimpse of, what it would mean to actually be that nation.  From the start, we came together to form a more perfect union.  This remains our struggle 225 years later.

John McCain had a pretty undistinguished early life.  He was the    son and the grandson of Admirals in the United States Navy so he did what everyone expected him to do:  he went to the United States Naval Academy.  While there, he absolutely failed to distinguish himself.  He graduated near the very bottom of his class.  The word was that he could not have cared any less about academics and military discipline, which, if you think about it, is pretty much the heart of the United States Naval Academy.

So, who’s the first generous person you remember in your life?  The first generous person when it came to cash for me was a man named Joe Schmidt.  I was getting ready to go to college.  I had some scholarship help that already made my out of state private school less expensive than my in state private university (which, of course, generous donors to the college made this possible.) Mr. Schmidt called me on the phone, asked me to come over, met me at the door and ushered me into his office, which was fancier than any office that I had ever seen.  He sat me down and asked about my college plans.  Then, he puled out what I thought was his calendar but was in fact his check register.  He wrote out a check, put it in an envelope and handed it to me.  He told me to study hard.  I opened the envelope when I got home and saw that the check was for a thousand dollars, more money than I could really imagine.  At the time, I was working three jobs, the highest paying of which paid $3.75 per hour.