Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11
This coming week, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving …
I like Thanksgiving … it’s all about food …
No last-minute gift shopping, no hurried wrapping of packages, and where’s that scotch tape, and those ribbons we been saving and repurposing for years?
I like Thanksgiving … it’s all about a Table …
We gather together, in times and places, diverse and sometimes troubled … with abundance, and sometimes not … with joy, and sometimes with tears …
Some are missing from the Table … loved ones and friends, whom the winds of time have swept away from our embrace, our love, our delight, our joy.
Yet, the winds of time blow us kisses and bring us favor and faith … new members of the family, new chapters of life, unexpected pleasures … goodness is just around the corner.
I like Thanksgiving … it’s all about the kitchen … potatoes peeled, carrots boiled, brown butter sauce made with care … oh yeah, and the turkey … we used to stuff ‘em, but health rules dictate stuffing to be baked separately, and that’s ok with me - one way or the other, I really don’t care, but I’ll take some oysters in mine, if you please … but however it’s done, a scoop of stuffing, and some gravy, and we’ve got some serious eating to do.
Therefore:
I like Thanksgiving … it’s the heart and soul of a human being … thanks - giving … as far as I can tell, great people are those who give thanks … who understand life to be a matter of grace … life given … from the hand of a generous and kindly God … at work in all things for good.
Thanksgiving humanizes us … keeps us in touch with the deep mysteries of life, the needs of others … there are always those in need …
Mostly through no fault of their own … life takes a lot of hard turns …
war … disease … drought … famine …
markets driven by greed and corruption …
changing times … a speeding car …
people left behind … jobs lost, hope destroyed.
Therefore,
I grow tired of those who complain about freeloaders and the undeserving poor …
I grow tired of those who send their thoughts and prayers rather than a check.
I grow tired of those who speak of Jesus, and then spew out their hatred.
I grow tired of those who want to hang the Ten Commandments on class room walls, but can’t give a hungry kid a free lunch.
I grow tired of those who say “thanks” … without the giving …
Therefore:
I like Thanksgiving … a reminder of things wonderful and deep, glorious and sweet …
Maybe farm families a hundred years ago had a better chance of understanding something of the wonder of it all … their carrots came from the ground, and not in a shiny plastic bag … their butter came from Bessey the Cow and not in neat little sticks … their turkey was raised on the farm with care, the ham came from a pig with a name … the potatoes were dug, the corn was harvested, the dough was kneaded and baked to hot crusty perfection … the pumpkins in the backyard were turned into pies supreme and dolloped with hand-whipped cream.
Paul the Apostle gives thanks … all the time, everywhere … not because life is easy for Paul - it isn’t … but at the center of life, in the midst of the pain and distress that comes to us all, there stands Christ … Christ the cornerstone of all faith, hope, and love.
Christ who continues to transform us …
Therefore:
be who you are, children of the day,
children of light …
children of the great covenant of God!
I recently read a fine biography by Ronald C. White, my neighbor and friend at the Grove.
Ron’s book, On Great Fields, centers on General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the Civil War hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, and other major battles …
Chamberlain was wounded several times, and even once, on the Petersburg battlefield, he was not expected to live, but he did … with pain and discomfort, recurring infections and the need for multiple surgeries, for the remaining 50 years of his life …
before and after the war, a professor,
a college president, a writer,
public speaker, governor of Maine,
a husband, a father, and always the visionary.
Things were not easy for him … there were plenty of disappointments, setbacks, losses, and frustrations …
He had to haul himself back to Christ many a time.
Jog his memory: who am I, what am I? What’s important?
The important things: what he learned as a child, from his mother and father, and good preachers who proclaimed the gospel with intelligence and passion … teachers and professors and good friends who embodied the best of human virtues and a godly sense.
I don’t do very well with difficult times … how about you?
I’m vulnerable, for lots of reasons … I can dive into dark places, and lay awake at night, tossing and turning, my stomach churning, as horrible thoughts race through my mind, much of it focused on imagined futures, and the present distress of our times.
Things were not easy for Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain … but his life is a lesson in learning.
He was a student of the classics … ancient Greece, the Roman Empire … he studied the Bible with care and discipline … he read widely and learned much …
When the Civil War broke out, he watched his students volunteer, and finally, he could no longer stay in the safety of the college, he volunteered for duty …
He was commissioned to lead the Maine 20th, a thousand-man regiment, but he declined to lead it, and asked rather for another man more ably trained in military matters … Chamberlain said, I have always been interested in military matters, but of those things I do not know, I know how to learn.
The Apostle Paul was a man who knew how to learn …
I’m looking right now at people who know how to learn … Westminster is in a learning curve, and that’s a powerful good thing … I see people learning of Christ, learning the faith, learning how to love … learning after covid and all the changes that have come our way.
We know how to learn …
Therefore, says Paul, encourage one another and build up each other.
We do it every Sunday … we make our trek to church … like ancient pilgrims on the road … travelers from afar … we gather together.
We worship God: we turn ourselves inside out … for a few profound moments, we’re focused on something other than ourselves: hymns and readings, prayers and sermons, smiles and hugs … we’ve done it before … we’ll do it again; yet every Sunday is new.
Just like Thanksgiving … turkey and mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing … we’ve had them before … we’ll have them again, but every time we sit at the Table, it’s new …
Therefore, says T.S. Eliot:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
On this week of Thanksgiving, we’ll love one another, miss those who have gone, rejoice for the newly arrived … we will count our blessings, we will face the day, we will pray and pass the potatoes … we’ve done it before, we’ll do it again, and know it all, for the first time.
Therefore … Happy Thanksgiving.
Hallelujah and Amen!
1 comment:
"I grow tired of those who want to hang the Ten Commandments on class room walls, but can’t give a hungry kid a free lunch."
How about limiting the free lunches to those whose parents can't afford it? It's really easy to be "virtuous" with other peoples' money.
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