Thanks be to God

The Thanksgiving holiday is one celebrated at home. And that is good. It is also very good that you are here. I am glad that church is a part of your Thanksgiving holiday. But for most of us our impressions and feelings about this holiday are placed at home, shaped by memories and experiences that are set at home. Home is the context. And in that context of home most of us do a pretty good job of giving thanks, of cherishing those good things for which we are grateful.

Oddly enough, it is actually within the context of church that I find myself a bit wary about the Thanksgiving holiday. It is always good to gather in worship and give thanks to God. But we must be careful. Because… when we bring God into it… which is always a good thing to do… when we bring God into the Thanksgiving holiday as we know it… it is very easy… with the best of intentions… as we thank God for the gift of our particular blessings and abundance… it is very easy… with the best of intentions… to implicitly or explicitly blame God for the scarcity others know. Or to blame them for their shortcomings in faith or some other failure in earning or deserving God’s gifts. It is very easy to slip into the Pharisee’s proclamation: Thank God I am not like other people. Thank God for giving me abundance.

And the Thanksgiving Scripture readings don’t help. They seem, in many ways, to lead us down that road. From Matthew: Do not worry about what you will eat or what you will wear. God will provide. That’s easy for us to say… we who are clothed and well fed as winter approaches. And from Deuteronomy: One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Hard to preach that to someone who does not have bread.

But I have found something I can preach this year to those of us who do have bread. Fresh homemade bread baking in the oven. First of all: enjoy it. Thank God for the richness and fertility of the earth that produces grain. Pray God’s blessing upon the bread, that it may be a blessing in your life. And thank God for the gift of joy, for the gift of hearts that can experience love and joy. Those are all good prayers.

But second, let us take seriously Deuteronomy’s words: One cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Bread is essential to human living. But so is the Word of the Lord. Those of us who have known mostly abundance need to stop and remember how impoverished our lives would be without the Bible. How starved we would be without the gift of God’s Word. Let us lift up in our awareness how importance the sustenance is that we receive from the Word of the Lord. We could all do with raising the priority of the Bible in our lives. Let us give thanks, abundant thanks for the blessing, the gift of God’s Word. Can you really imagine a life without the stories, the teaching, the words, of the Bible? Try to imagine if this Book had never been. These words are not the only source of revelation about God, about God’s presence in the world, about God’s nature. But what a rich, rich gift we have the Words of the Lord. One for which we should be very, very thankful.

Just a few reminders of what is in the Word of the Lord.

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, "Let us make human kind in our image; according to our likeness… So God created human kind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he crated them. God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply…"

From the Word of the Lord we learn that creation is good. Good. Filled with the very goodness, the blessedness of God. And we learn that we are made in God’s own image. Created by God; touched with the likeness of God; blessed by the hand of God. And we are good, with a place in the goodness of creation.

Amos 5:21-24: The prophet writes, speaking God’s Word to the people:

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

Our God is a God who seeks justice, who values justice and who demands of us justice and righteousness. It is the Word of the Lord that reveals God’s nature and God’s desire to us.

And the Psalter. How impoverished our lives would be without the words of the psalms, especially their words of tenderness and comfort. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." Can you imagine a life without those words and without the tender care they convey? Or Psalm 139.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from far away…
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

The Psalter speaks of the profound depth and intimacy of God’s knowledge and love for us, the closeness and connection that God desires.

What is your favorite Bible story? What does it tell you about God, your God? What gift of understanding does it offer? I think of just a few of my favorites: Jacob wrestling with the angel in the dark, coming away limping but jubilant, assured of God’s promise. Or Jesus with the little children. To such as these belongs the Kingdom of Heaven. These speak to me of my God.

Last Sunday we had the "Scripture collect" known to any long-time Episcopalian. "Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and every hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ."

The blessed hope of everlasting life. The gift of hope. The knitting together of our lives with Christ’s, so that we may come to share in his glorious and eternal life. That is the gift we are given in the words of the New Testament. Let us never take the gift of God’s word for granted, but give thanks for the Word that sustains us, teaches us, gives us hope, connects us to Christ.

From our patron, St. John the Evangelist. John 15:4-5a, 8-9:

Jesus said, Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.

What a rich gift we are given in the Word of the Lord. Finally, from Romans. Romans 8:35-39.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Word of the Lord.