Luke 2:8-20
After reading today’s passage some of you may be wondering if I have lost it completely. Just last week I was lamenting the fact that in our culture the “Christmas” Season has already started. At the thanksgiving service at Immaculate Conception Church I was the idea that Thanksgiving is an oasis of thankfulness in the dessert of Consumerist desire and satisfaction. I know I have mentioned that I don’t like the fact that our culture celebrates Christmas earlier and earlier each year, and here I am reading, the quintessential Christmas eve passage, and its only the last weekend of November. Since Halloween, I have walked around the stores and have asked, “What happened to thanksgiving.” Today, many of you may be asking, “What happened to advent?” Have I somehow skipped the time of expectant waiting and moved right into jubilant song and celebration? I hope that by the end of our time here together you will have an answer to that question.
The season of Advent was originally intended to be somewhat like the season of Lent, which is observed during the seven weeks prior to Easter. Both advent and lent are seasons of penance and reflection. We enter a time of spiritual preparation for the big event that is Christmas. Usually the chosen texts for the first Sunday of advent focuses on the second coming of Christ and preparing for it as a means to prepare for Christmas. In our present context, though, Advent, and the weeks preceding it, has been co-opted. Advent has become in the culture of Western capitalism a time for conspicuous consumption. Perhaps, since this is the case, perhaps it is better to remind ourselves the meaning of Christmas and relearn what it means to prepare ourselves for Christ’s first coming before we can fully understand the meaning and significance of Christ’s second coming.
For this task, I have chosen for us the Advent conspiracy Bible Study. Beginning today and then, over the next several weeks we will try to recapture the meaning of advent and Christmas that first Christmas from a culture that tries to hide it. Today we will begin by discussing what it means to worship fully. To turn back to the heart of worship and worship the one true God made flesh in Jesus Christ. I believe that if we get this right, and prepare ourselves through prayer and reflection then how we enter the Christmas story will be changed for the better forever.
For those of you reading the book, the chapter for this weeks study begins with an intriguing statement. It says, “Our hearts are formed by what we worship.” The things we get excited over, the things that motivate us, the things we turn to for comfort, and the things that we place our hope, are for all intents and purposes the things that we worship because that is where our hearts are focused. If those things are something other than God, it is idolatry. The bible is full of stories where people began to place their trust in something other than God, people began to find security and hope in something other than the God of all creation. From the time when Moses went up the mountain to receive the ten commandments and the people in frustration and fear built an idol in his absence to the warnings of Jesus that we cannot serve two masters, we are reminded how easily we fall prey to idolatry. Our hearts will change and our actions will change with them. If we find comfort, security, and hope in things like money, wealth, or any other substance then our actions will be motivated to participate in those things. Worship shapes our hearts, our hearts shape our actions.
So what is it then that we worship in our culture all year but especially at this time of year? Well, what do our actions say? Think about this: Over the next five weeks how many trips will you make to stores, malls or shopping centers? How many trips will you make to worship in that same time? Over the next five weeks how much time will you spend on online shopping as opposed to time spent in prayer or reading scripture? How much money will you give to retailers as opposed to charities that serve people who genuinely need the basic necessities of life? These are difficult questions, because we, including myself, don’t like the answers we come up with. But the statistics answer truthfully when we are hesitant to do so.
It is estimated that Americans spend about 450 billion (with a B) dollars each year at Christmas. Our culture is set up to ensure that this happens, because nearly everyone makes money on a Christmas that is shaped by consumerism. Retailers sell goods to consumers usually on credit so they make money, the average Christmas debt is paid off in May, and so credit card companies make a lot of money between Christmas and May. The state has a 6% sales tax; the state makes a lot of money on its portion of the 450 billion dollar spending. Factories and businesses around he globe focus on how well sales are going and news outlets will continuously release sales information because we define our national health and well being by our ability to spend money. We have turned into a culture that acts on its desires for more, we place our hope in that new car, and we think we are secure when we have a house full of stuff. There is a war on Christmas, but it is not waged by atheists who do not want a nativity on a public space or by Jews who want their menorah in the airport with all the other Christmas decoration, it is waged by our culture on the true meaning of Christmas. It is the store that puts their nativity in the store window surrounded by sale items and glittery decorations. Which perverts and destroys Christmas more, a statement asking you to celebrate Christmas in your home and church instead of on government land or a statement that says Christmas is about buying gifts and that Christ’s birth means its time for a sale so you can prove your love even more.
So what is the solution? I could stand up here and tell you that you need to act differently. You need to go to the store less, buy fewer things, spend time with your loved ones, but I don’t think what we have is a problem of action. Remember, our hearts are shaped by our worship, and our hearts shapes our actions. What we have is a heart problem, and ultimately that points to a worship problem. How did I define idolatry earlier? An idol is something we get excited over, like new gifts, new toys, or new gadgets. An idol is something that motivates us, We want a new car, a bigger home, newer stuff, a “nice Christmas” so people work 2-3 jobs to get it sacrificing family and friends to do so. An idol is something we turn to for comfort; yesterday I watched a comedy called “Confessions of a shopaholic” where the main character found comfort and acceptance when she bought things. I think it hits home closer than what we care to admit. Finally, an idol is something that we place our hope in. Advertising is good at playing on or weakness against idolatry. It gets us thinking that if we bought this we would be better parents, or if we had this new car we would be more successful. Our entire economic system is oriented toward creating idols out of stuff and our actions, especially this time of year, show that for the most part we have fallen for it. Our worship has turned from God to things and our hearts and actions follow. When given the choice between God and Money, we, as a Society, have clearly chosen money. So our problem isn’t that we are acting wrongly, but that our entire being is direct toward the wrong thing in worship.
Reorienting ourselves toward the right object is an impossible task. We just don’t have the power within ourselves to turn away from the idols towards God. But God gives us the strength each day to do just that. However, it is up to us to exercise that strength. We can be mindful of when we are being pulled into idolatrous worship and fight against it when it starts to happen. To do so, I think it is helpful to look for a pattern of worship. For that we turn to today’s passage. Our story begins with the shepherds in the field watching over their flock, when out of nowhere an angel appears to them and says, “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” At this announcement the heavens rolled back and the shepherds saw a multitude of angels singing “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace among those whom he favors.” At the word of God the angels joined in worship, and at the word of God the shepherds dropped what they were doing and went to see Mary and Joseph and the newborn King. You see, worship begins with the hearing of God’s word. Perhaps this is why our worship has gone awry. Perhaps it is too difficult, if not impossible, to hear that still small voice of God within our spirits when our spirits are bombarded with the noise of advertisements on TV or the messages that our culture has. In the noise that is consumerist driven holidays, we have lost that sweet and quiet song of the newborn King.
The smallness of God’s voice is not difficult to understand, I think we have all experienced it. And in 1 Kings 9:11-12, Elijah does as well. In that passage Elijah is told to stand on the mountain before God and when he did a great wind began to blow and it was breaking the mountain in pieces, but God was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there as a fire, but God was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a still silence, and when Elijah heard it he got up.
If we any hope that we will once again be able to experience Christmas as the world changing event that it is, we must find a way to sit in silence. We must find a way to distinguish between the voices of the world that say worship me, and remain quiet until we hear the voice of God in the silence. Our culture, especially during this time of year tries very hard to drown out the voice of God. It tries to have you constantly on the move, there is great excitement and promises of safety and these things are easy to mistake for God’s voice and are easy to chase after. The response is to take time to be silent, and reflect on what is going on around you, and to listen for the voice of God that happens in that silence.
The voice of God will speak to us and share that good news of great joy and it will enlivens our hearts, it will move our feet, and it will bow our heads to this newborn King. If we do not remain still enough to listen to this voice, and if we do not begin to recognize what is God and what isn’t will be pulled in every direction and be left exhausted at the end, kind of like how I feel every January 3rd or 4th, once the Christmas season has ended. So during this time of preparation that is Advent, take time to slow down and listen for God’s voice and respond in worship. If we fail to do that, I fear that there is little hope for us to begin to worship the one who deserves it.
We can also turn to Mary’s example when we prepare ourselves to worship fully. In verse 19, Upon hearing what the shepherds said, everyone who heard it were amazed by what they had said, but Mary, “treasured all these words, and pondered them in her heart.” Mary heard these amazing visions that the shepherds described and the songs of the angels about her son and she did not keep her focus on the shepherds as others had done. She did not linger on the fantastical nature of their stories, but instead she treasured them, she pondered them, and she let them into her heart. Can you imagine the excitement that these few men had when they came to the manger and saw that what the angels said was true? I would imagine that this excitement was infectious and all those who were there were getting caught up in it. I don’t know if this is terribly different than how we celebrate Christmas in this country. The excitement gets us, the excitement captures our attention and imagination, the excitement is infectious, and the excitement makes us forget. I think that the shepherds, once they relayed their story caught the attention of those surrounding Mary and Jesus. Their focus left Jesus and this new miracle and turned toward the shepherds and their story.
I think the same thing happens now and the thing that has us excited has less to do with the multitude of angels and more to do with the desires of this world. We get caught up in what we are told we are supposed to do and think during this time of year and we lose sight of the presence of Christ. We get so caught up in the celebration of Christmas that we forget we are in the very presence of God. Instead of recognizing that presence and reveling in it, we revel in the messenger of a different message one of excitement and wonder.
I think Mary had the right idea. She heard what the shepherds had to say, but instead of getting caught up in their excitement, she treasured what she had heard and pondered it in her heart. She let it enter into her and change her heart. She was excited I am sure, but she did not let the excitement move her attention away from her the presence of God in her midst. She did not get excited over a multitude of angels while God himself was with her. She also did not ignore the message. If we were more like Mary in this single moment, our experience of Christmas and the Christ event would permeate all our worship. If we not only took time to be still and silent to hear the word of God, and then we treasured the words and pondered them in our heart, the culture of consumerism would be hard pressed to get us to worship its idols. When we remain silent and listen for God’s words and when we treasure and ponder what we hear, we are preparing ourselves to worship God. This advent, as we work through the advent conspiracy series and as we prepare for Christ’s coming, remember this first Holy Night in which we learn to wait silently for that small voice of God and remember to not get caught up in the excitement of the messengers of our culture but instead get excited over and worship the message. Fight the temptation to be drawn into worshiping the idols of our culture, but instead remember that Jesus Christ, God himself, became flesh for all of humanity. Christ is the one we worship this day, this season, and for all of our lives. The angels brought the god news of great joy to the shepherds and to us, and it is good news indeed.
Amen
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Living a Life of Thanksgiving
On Thanksgiving Eve I had an opportunity to preach at an ecumenical worship service held at the local catholic church. I wanted to share that sermon with you all.
The First Thanksgiving: A metaphor for God's grace
Psalm 103
Rev. Kevin Rutledge
Let us pray, Gracious God, you have loved your people and brought us to this place together to worship you. We offer up to you this day all that we can, we offer our humble praises of thanksgiving for all that you have done for us. Bless us as we listen for your word, bless us with a heart of praise and thanksgiving so that we may see you in all things and be thankful. Amen.
If you are like most Americans, when you think of thanksgiving, you think of the pilgrims who held a fall festival to celebrate a successful harvest. But what you may not think of is the conditions that lead up to this feast and how it, at least for me, provides an example of God’s unmerited grace towards us and our proper response toward that grace. For that we will revisit the year leading up to the first thanksgiving.
You see, following their first landing at Plymouth, these pilgrims had a difficult time surviving. They began their voyage in early September and there were 120 passengers and about 30 crewmembers. They reached their final destination at Plymouth on December 11, 1620, journals and diaries from the time described a land that was already covered in snow. That winter they remained on ship so they would be protected from the elements. It may have helped, but it did not go well by anyone’s standards. Their numbers dwindled from 150 to about 80. Nearly half of the passengers and half of the crew died from contagious diseases. The fact that any of them were alive at this point was a blessing, but they did not make it on their own. Instead they received help from the local native population. The natives shared their food stores through the winter and in the spring began to teach the pilgrims how to survive in this new land. Squanto a native American who was enslaved and taken to England and had returned to North American taught the pilgrims how to fish for herring, and to use it as a fertilizer when planting corn, pumpkins and beans. A Native American tribe name Wampanoag provided help. They gave seeds because the ones they brought from England did not do well in the new soil. A member named Squanto showed them how to find clams and eels in the rivers and how to hunt for deer, bears and turkeys on land. Even the children were taught how to find nuts and berries. The pilgrims at Plymouth did not have much to offer and there is little doubt that the Native American would have survived without helping the pilgrims, but the pilgrims would have surely died without the help of the regional tribe.
The pilgrims were plagued by disease and hunger, they were on the brink of death, and there was nothing they could do to save themselves. They would not have made it on their own. The native Americans, some of whom had been enslaved, spurned, hated, and killed by others, took from their own food stores and gave to those would have died. This native tribe near Plymouth looked kindly upon the pilgrims, and offered them this gift of life and survival even though experience told them it would eventually backfire. And yet they gave anyway. This mercy is not unlike God’s mercy towards us.
But, what does God’s mercy look like? What are the gifts of God that have been offered to us and for which we should offer our praise? I turn now to Psalm 103, which I read earlier. Starting in verse 2, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—Who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” When we think of the magnitude of one of these things it can instill a desire to offer thanksgiving, let alone all of them together.
Last year, I experienced this desire to offer thanks first hand. Last year I served as a part time hospital chaplain in Nashville. There was a patient who came in very ill and no one could figure out what was wrong with him. Over a few weeks I had spent a good deal of time with his family, especially his eldest daughter. She just didn’t know what she would do if she lost her dad. His health was deteriorating and I watched him as he was moved from the cardiac floor to the special care floor, and finally to the intensive care unit. Then, one day after I had not been to the hospital in about a week, I went to see this patient and he had been moved back to the normal care area of the hospital. He was off the ventilators, and he was joking and eating again. I asked his daughter what had happened and she told me of this new doctor to the team who thought of something that might be going on. “He ran some tests and they were able to treat it.” The patient’s daughter could not contain her gratitude. She wanted to send the doctor flowers or a gift card; she wanted to find a way to express the gratitude that she felt for saving her dad’s life. Every once in a while, this desire to express gratitude to another person grips us, but how much more is God deserving of our gratitude for all the things that God has done for us.
For we who are Christians, we believe that God’s mercy was proven no grater than through Christ’s actions on the cross. And this is where our connection to the first thanksgiving comes to full light. If you are a Christian, then at some point the Holy Spirit grabbed hold of you and showed you that you were like the pilgrims when they first arrived at Plymouth. Not because you were seeking freedom from persecution but because we were close to the point of death and in need of help that only God can provide. Thankfully, at some point God took hold of you and said, you are on a path to destruction and I am here to help. For as the psalmist wrote, our God, Forgives all our sins, redeems us from death, crowns us with love and mercies and fills our lives with good things.” If you are not at that point yet, my prayer is that God will continue to grasp you to make you His.
In addition to being close to death like the first pilgrims, we also don’t deserve to receive mercy like them. And yet, like the Native Americans who helped the pilgrims in spite of the damages done to them in the past, God offers his gifts of mercy and grace in spite of the ways that we spurn those gifts or harm God’s people. The Apostle Paul wondered at this same fact in the epistle to the Romans Chapter 5 Verses 6 through 8, he wrote, (and here I read from the new living translation) “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation.” In spite of our weakness god still offers the gift of His son and with it the possibility to love God and be with God. For that I can think of no higher form of worship than to praise God with our whole heart at all times. And yet we often fail to do so. This is where Thanksgiving Day can help us.
In remembering that first thanksgiving, we find an allegory of God’s mercy in the actions of the Native Americans. But the feast in 1621 teaches us how our thankfulness should look. In response to gift offered by the Wampanoag, the 50 pilgrims that remained and the 90 Native Americans gathered for a three-day feast to celebrate the successful harvest. There was enough food to feed 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans. They ate fish, shellfish, wild birds, venison, berries, fruits and vegetables, harvest grains, and beans squash and corn. It was a magnificent feast by any standard. The pilgrims took what they learned from the Native Americans and used it they planted and harvested, the fished the waters and hunted the lands, and they were blessed with a great bounty. They were saved from the brink of death by no merit of their own and they began to prosper. When they saw their bounty they decided to have a feast. They gathered with their newfound friends and they feasted for three days. Can you imagine the joy they experienced on those days, especially when the remember how bad things were? Can you imagine the thankfulness that they had toward their new friends and saviors as they feasted on the plentiful harvest they had? I offer up to you today this example of a thankful and worshipful attitude that we can learn from this first thanksgiving. Their response to the aid they received can teach us how to respond to God’s overwhelming mercy. It reminds us that our thanksgiving and praise should be abundant and extravagant.
Just as the pilgrim’s thanked their friends who saved them from the brink of death by feasting with them, we offer our thanks and praise to God through worship. We worship God, not because it is our duty to do so, but because we recognize everything that God has done for us and our only response to abundance of God’s gifts is to raise our voice in praise and bow at Christ’s feet. Through our worship we give honor and praise to God. We remember what God has done for us and we praise God for it. In Psalm 100, the psalmist entreats us to an extravagant praise for what God has done. We are to enter His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and bless His name.” Gratitude and praise is the only response that we can offer God for all of God’s blessings. This gratitude is not expressed only on one day or even once a week. It is a constant expression of our live toward God for what God has done. What if this caused us to look at Thanksgiving Day differently?
What if in addition to being a special time to offer thanks to God, what if we looked at thanksgiving as a time of preparation. It is a time preparation, where we turn ourselves around in order to live a thankful life every day. Each year as the Christmas season advances further and further into the calendar and thanksgiving is lost in the shuffle. Lets face it, the world has already moved into Christmas mode, radio stations are playing nonstop Christmas music and Christmas lists are going out. Soon we will be in the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, trying to figure out what to buy other people, trying to manage all of the Christmas parties we need to go to, and trying to manage all the family gatherings that will happen over a relatively short amount of time. Now that thanksgiving no longer serves as the beginning of the Christmas season in our culture like it has in the past, perhaps thanksgiving is that one oasis in the midst of the Christmas season. Where we remind ourselves that our life is to be a life of gratitude for all that God as done for us, our families, and our nation. Because thanksgiving no longer marks the beginning of Christmas for our culture, it is instead a time in the midst of all this Christmas preparation to slow down turn to our families, neighbors, and God, and thank them for all that we are and all that we will be.
The other day I read a short story, and I would like to share it with you today in order to leave you with a sense of the importance of this thankful attitude.
Once upon a time, there was a far-away land that was ruled by a vicious king. His iron hand reached into every corner of his subjects' lives; every corner that is except one. Try as he might, he couldn't destroy their belief in God. In his frustration, he finally summoned his advisors and asked them: "Where can I hide God so the people will end up forgetting about him?" One suggested hiding God on the dark side of the moon. This idea was debated, but was voted down because the advisors feared that their scientists would one day discover a way to travel into space travel and God would be discovered again. Another suggested burying God in the deepest part of the ocean. But there was the same problem with this idea, so it was voted down. One idea after another was suggested and debated and rejected. Finally the oldest and wisest advisor had a flash of insight. "I know," he said, "why don't we hide God where no one will ever even think to look?" And he explained, "If we hide God in the ordinary events of people's everyday lives, they'll never find him!" And so it was done. And they say people in that land are still looking for God - even today.
Thanksgiving Day is a time to remember where God is in the day-to-day blessings that we receive, whether it is the freedom from sin, healing of an illness, the love of a spouse or child, or the fellowship of a neighbor. I challenge you this day to take time tomorrow and look for God in all things and give God extravagant praise for all that God is doing, and I challenge you to think of thanksgiving as a time to prepare yourself to live a life of eternal praise and thanksgiving.
Amen.
The First Thanksgiving: A metaphor for God's grace
Psalm 103
Rev. Kevin Rutledge
Let us pray, Gracious God, you have loved your people and brought us to this place together to worship you. We offer up to you this day all that we can, we offer our humble praises of thanksgiving for all that you have done for us. Bless us as we listen for your word, bless us with a heart of praise and thanksgiving so that we may see you in all things and be thankful. Amen.
If you are like most Americans, when you think of thanksgiving, you think of the pilgrims who held a fall festival to celebrate a successful harvest. But what you may not think of is the conditions that lead up to this feast and how it, at least for me, provides an example of God’s unmerited grace towards us and our proper response toward that grace. For that we will revisit the year leading up to the first thanksgiving.
You see, following their first landing at Plymouth, these pilgrims had a difficult time surviving. They began their voyage in early September and there were 120 passengers and about 30 crewmembers. They reached their final destination at Plymouth on December 11, 1620, journals and diaries from the time described a land that was already covered in snow. That winter they remained on ship so they would be protected from the elements. It may have helped, but it did not go well by anyone’s standards. Their numbers dwindled from 150 to about 80. Nearly half of the passengers and half of the crew died from contagious diseases. The fact that any of them were alive at this point was a blessing, but they did not make it on their own. Instead they received help from the local native population. The natives shared their food stores through the winter and in the spring began to teach the pilgrims how to survive in this new land. Squanto a native American who was enslaved and taken to England and had returned to North American taught the pilgrims how to fish for herring, and to use it as a fertilizer when planting corn, pumpkins and beans. A Native American tribe name Wampanoag provided help. They gave seeds because the ones they brought from England did not do well in the new soil. A member named Squanto showed them how to find clams and eels in the rivers and how to hunt for deer, bears and turkeys on land. Even the children were taught how to find nuts and berries. The pilgrims at Plymouth did not have much to offer and there is little doubt that the Native American would have survived without helping the pilgrims, but the pilgrims would have surely died without the help of the regional tribe.
The pilgrims were plagued by disease and hunger, they were on the brink of death, and there was nothing they could do to save themselves. They would not have made it on their own. The native Americans, some of whom had been enslaved, spurned, hated, and killed by others, took from their own food stores and gave to those would have died. This native tribe near Plymouth looked kindly upon the pilgrims, and offered them this gift of life and survival even though experience told them it would eventually backfire. And yet they gave anyway. This mercy is not unlike God’s mercy towards us.
But, what does God’s mercy look like? What are the gifts of God that have been offered to us and for which we should offer our praise? I turn now to Psalm 103, which I read earlier. Starting in verse 2, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—Who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” When we think of the magnitude of one of these things it can instill a desire to offer thanksgiving, let alone all of them together.
Last year, I experienced this desire to offer thanks first hand. Last year I served as a part time hospital chaplain in Nashville. There was a patient who came in very ill and no one could figure out what was wrong with him. Over a few weeks I had spent a good deal of time with his family, especially his eldest daughter. She just didn’t know what she would do if she lost her dad. His health was deteriorating and I watched him as he was moved from the cardiac floor to the special care floor, and finally to the intensive care unit. Then, one day after I had not been to the hospital in about a week, I went to see this patient and he had been moved back to the normal care area of the hospital. He was off the ventilators, and he was joking and eating again. I asked his daughter what had happened and she told me of this new doctor to the team who thought of something that might be going on. “He ran some tests and they were able to treat it.” The patient’s daughter could not contain her gratitude. She wanted to send the doctor flowers or a gift card; she wanted to find a way to express the gratitude that she felt for saving her dad’s life. Every once in a while, this desire to express gratitude to another person grips us, but how much more is God deserving of our gratitude for all the things that God has done for us.
For we who are Christians, we believe that God’s mercy was proven no grater than through Christ’s actions on the cross. And this is where our connection to the first thanksgiving comes to full light. If you are a Christian, then at some point the Holy Spirit grabbed hold of you and showed you that you were like the pilgrims when they first arrived at Plymouth. Not because you were seeking freedom from persecution but because we were close to the point of death and in need of help that only God can provide. Thankfully, at some point God took hold of you and said, you are on a path to destruction and I am here to help. For as the psalmist wrote, our God, Forgives all our sins, redeems us from death, crowns us with love and mercies and fills our lives with good things.” If you are not at that point yet, my prayer is that God will continue to grasp you to make you His.
In addition to being close to death like the first pilgrims, we also don’t deserve to receive mercy like them. And yet, like the Native Americans who helped the pilgrims in spite of the damages done to them in the past, God offers his gifts of mercy and grace in spite of the ways that we spurn those gifts or harm God’s people. The Apostle Paul wondered at this same fact in the epistle to the Romans Chapter 5 Verses 6 through 8, he wrote, (and here I read from the new living translation) “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation.” In spite of our weakness god still offers the gift of His son and with it the possibility to love God and be with God. For that I can think of no higher form of worship than to praise God with our whole heart at all times. And yet we often fail to do so. This is where Thanksgiving Day can help us.
In remembering that first thanksgiving, we find an allegory of God’s mercy in the actions of the Native Americans. But the feast in 1621 teaches us how our thankfulness should look. In response to gift offered by the Wampanoag, the 50 pilgrims that remained and the 90 Native Americans gathered for a three-day feast to celebrate the successful harvest. There was enough food to feed 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans. They ate fish, shellfish, wild birds, venison, berries, fruits and vegetables, harvest grains, and beans squash and corn. It was a magnificent feast by any standard. The pilgrims took what they learned from the Native Americans and used it they planted and harvested, the fished the waters and hunted the lands, and they were blessed with a great bounty. They were saved from the brink of death by no merit of their own and they began to prosper. When they saw their bounty they decided to have a feast. They gathered with their newfound friends and they feasted for three days. Can you imagine the joy they experienced on those days, especially when the remember how bad things were? Can you imagine the thankfulness that they had toward their new friends and saviors as they feasted on the plentiful harvest they had? I offer up to you today this example of a thankful and worshipful attitude that we can learn from this first thanksgiving. Their response to the aid they received can teach us how to respond to God’s overwhelming mercy. It reminds us that our thanksgiving and praise should be abundant and extravagant.
Just as the pilgrim’s thanked their friends who saved them from the brink of death by feasting with them, we offer our thanks and praise to God through worship. We worship God, not because it is our duty to do so, but because we recognize everything that God has done for us and our only response to abundance of God’s gifts is to raise our voice in praise and bow at Christ’s feet. Through our worship we give honor and praise to God. We remember what God has done for us and we praise God for it. In Psalm 100, the psalmist entreats us to an extravagant praise for what God has done. We are to enter His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and bless His name.” Gratitude and praise is the only response that we can offer God for all of God’s blessings. This gratitude is not expressed only on one day or even once a week. It is a constant expression of our live toward God for what God has done. What if this caused us to look at Thanksgiving Day differently?
What if in addition to being a special time to offer thanks to God, what if we looked at thanksgiving as a time of preparation. It is a time preparation, where we turn ourselves around in order to live a thankful life every day. Each year as the Christmas season advances further and further into the calendar and thanksgiving is lost in the shuffle. Lets face it, the world has already moved into Christmas mode, radio stations are playing nonstop Christmas music and Christmas lists are going out. Soon we will be in the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, trying to figure out what to buy other people, trying to manage all of the Christmas parties we need to go to, and trying to manage all the family gatherings that will happen over a relatively short amount of time. Now that thanksgiving no longer serves as the beginning of the Christmas season in our culture like it has in the past, perhaps thanksgiving is that one oasis in the midst of the Christmas season. Where we remind ourselves that our life is to be a life of gratitude for all that God as done for us, our families, and our nation. Because thanksgiving no longer marks the beginning of Christmas for our culture, it is instead a time in the midst of all this Christmas preparation to slow down turn to our families, neighbors, and God, and thank them for all that we are and all that we will be.
The other day I read a short story, and I would like to share it with you today in order to leave you with a sense of the importance of this thankful attitude.
Once upon a time, there was a far-away land that was ruled by a vicious king. His iron hand reached into every corner of his subjects' lives; every corner that is except one. Try as he might, he couldn't destroy their belief in God. In his frustration, he finally summoned his advisors and asked them: "Where can I hide God so the people will end up forgetting about him?" One suggested hiding God on the dark side of the moon. This idea was debated, but was voted down because the advisors feared that their scientists would one day discover a way to travel into space travel and God would be discovered again. Another suggested burying God in the deepest part of the ocean. But there was the same problem with this idea, so it was voted down. One idea after another was suggested and debated and rejected. Finally the oldest and wisest advisor had a flash of insight. "I know," he said, "why don't we hide God where no one will ever even think to look?" And he explained, "If we hide God in the ordinary events of people's everyday lives, they'll never find him!" And so it was done. And they say people in that land are still looking for God - even today.
Thanksgiving Day is a time to remember where God is in the day-to-day blessings that we receive, whether it is the freedom from sin, healing of an illness, the love of a spouse or child, or the fellowship of a neighbor. I challenge you this day to take time tomorrow and look for God in all things and give God extravagant praise for all that God is doing, and I challenge you to think of thanksgiving as a time to prepare yourself to live a life of eternal praise and thanksgiving.
Amen.
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