Thanksgiving, 2013

Why Give Thanks?

Lessons:

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Psalm 100

Philippians 4:4-9

John 6: 25-35

“If the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, it will be enough.”

13^th century mystic Meister Eckhart is the source of that quotation.   Is his sentiment really true?  Why should we give thanks above all else?

Today’s lessons, the ones selected for Thanksgiving Day, certainly point in that direction. In Deuteronomy, offering a sacrifice of Thanksgiving to God is the thing the people are told to do first.  Deuteronomy was a book collecting the words of Moses to the people, with his explanations of the laws handed down by God and his own words of instruction. If Moses says give thanks, then maybe we ought to listen.

As the psalm says, we give thanks because “The Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting and his faithfulness endures from age to age.”  I’m pretty sure most of us can offer plenty of evidence of God’s faithfulness in our lives: of all the ways we have been blessed by God. But how often do we count our blessings?

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul offers clues about the importance of Thanksgiving when he writes, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything [in every situation] by prayer and supplication WITH THANKSGIVING let your requests be made known to God.” 

I’m pretty sure most of the prayers I make are prayers of supplication—when I make requests of God. I’m also sure that I don’t give equal time to saying thanks.

In the words from the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us directly why we should thank God:  “The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

The basic fact that we are alive and breathing, that we have the most essential necessities of life—food and water, shelter, someone who loves us—all are gifts from God. Many of the things we ask for in our prayers are not things we need, but things we want.  We know by the evidence of our own lives and the words of the Lord that God grants us everything we need before we ever even think to ask.

It stands to reason, then, that prayers of Thanksgiving are not just what we ought to say, but that words of thanks should simply rise to our lips spontaneously at any moment. When we thank the Lord for his provision of all we need, we acknowledge that we have received our blessings with a full awareness of their source.  We simply remind ourselves how very blessed we are when we give thanks to that Source of all we are and all we possess.  We very much need such a reminder when we get caught up in worries about our problems.

Right now I’m thankful that the epistle lesson appointed for this day is Philippians 4:4-9.  These most beautiful words are some of my very favorite ones in all the bible, and they always remind me of my sweet mother and her siblings, of how blessed I was to be born into their family. In these words, Paul lists some of the intangible blessings that we too often take for granted:  “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Something about the way giving thanks can bring us to an internal state of balance, “set us to rights,” so to speak, must have been what President Lincoln had in mind when he began the annual tradition of this holiday by proclaiming a national day of “Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens” to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26^th, 1863—right at the height of the Civil War.  Lincoln, whom many consider to be our greatest and wisest President, understood well the healing nature of giving thanks.

I am thankful for you, for this lovely old chapel, for all of our many blessings, and for the holiday we are about to celebrate.  May the Lord continue to bless us and keep us in his care.   AMEN.

Homily for Sunday, October 27, 2013

                                               Humility or Righteousness? 

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“If you want peace, work for justice.”

Those words appear on a bumper sticker, and the words are fundamentally true.  Most disputes between nations, most wars, have as their root cause some unjust act (or perceived injustice) on the part of another nation. Sometimes, as in Syria today, the injustice happens within a country, between opposing factions. The Hague and Geneva conventions have been in place for well over 100 years and have evolved into the bases for the prosecution of war criminals and the settlement of reparations where injustice has occurred.  Justice has to happen before there can be true peace.

            Jesus’s words  in today’s parable about two very different men praying in the temple speak to a very personal kind of peace—the peace we have within ourselves which usually translates into peace with our neighbors.  Jesus shows us very clearly that the peace he wills for us is the peace that comes from humility.

This parable also illustrates something pretty surprising—righteousness is less important in Christ’s eyes than humility.  The Pharisee in the story obeys every rule of the law; he knows he is both right and righteous and his words reflect the arrogance his righteousness produces. The arrogance that results from that self-righteousness of the Pharisee is clearly a grave sin in Christ’s eyes.  The Pharisee “exalts” himself, and by exalting himself, he sees the tax collector as contemptible. No love can be found in self-righteousness that puffs itself up at the expense of others.

Jesus’s exact words are, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”  What does it mean to be “exalted”?  The dictionary says that to exalt is to acclaim, to venerate, to elevate, to worship. If we think of Jesus and his life as the true model for our own lives, we will clearly see that Jesus never exalted himself.  In the poverty of his life and his debasing, horrific death, Jesus was an exemplar of true humility. Yet we know him as the Lord of all, God incarnate, and the author of mercy, love, and justice.  Jesus was the humble one who has been and continues to be exalted.  But we are none of us like Jesus Christ, who was perfectly humble and perfectly righteous. Like the tax collector and indeed like the Pharisee, all of us are sinners in one way or another.

So how do we live the kind of humility Jesus asks of us? And how will we be exalted by that humility?  The traditional interpretation of this parable is that the tax collector’s humility will exalt him into heaven. He prays what has come to be known as the Jesus prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He won’t even raise his eyes to heaven because he knows he is unworthy of the mercy he seeks. God, who is always more loving and forgiving of us than we are of ourselves, hears that prayer and forgives.

            I think that when Jesus says “the humble will be exalted” he means more than just the reward that awaits us when we die. I think Jesus is saying that our humility will exalt our spirits, lift us here and now into a state of grace, and give us inner peace. Accepting that we are sinners and far from righteous will lead us, as it does the tax collector, to seek God’s mercy. Focused on our own inadequacies, we will not succumb to self-righteous contempt for anyone else. Knowing ourselves to be loved by God in spite of our shortcomings and accepting that we are no better (or worse) than our neighbors draw us closer to both. We experience God’s love more fully, and we learn to love our neighbors and live with them in true peace and harmony.

            Yes, if we want peace, we should work for justice. But if we want the kind of peace that allows us to feel at one with God and with our neighbors, then we need to work on humility. It’s more important than being right!