Thanksgiving

Homily for Thanksgiving/Harvest Celebration with Piedmont Church

Sunday, November 22, 2015

The Graves Chapel Council members and I are glad to have this special opportunity to extend our deep gratitude to Piedmont Episcopal Church for all you have done for the chapel over the years.  Without your dedicated help and financial support of the chapel, our doors likely would have closed forever after the great flood of 1995.  We thank you.  We are very grateful that we continue to be a sister parish of Piedmont Church, and we hope to welcome you to our services and events in the future.

At this time, I would like to have members of the Chapel Council who are present today to stand. I am grateful to all of you for your wisdom and hard work as we endeavor to make Graves Chapel a vibrant center of community life in Graves Mill. Although the chapel is a mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, and I am licensed as an Episcopal lay preacher by the bishop, our council and those who worship here come from a variety of Christian denominations.  We are an ecumenical community. At the first meeting of the council, we agreed that our motto would be borrowed from these words in Isaiah 56:

“All who keep the sabbath and hold fast my covenant, these will I bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people."  

We sincerely hope to make everyone feel welcome here.  

            In this place, in tranquil and lovely Madison County, and here in Graves Mill, where the landscape is beautiful during every season of the year, even as winter approaches, we acknowledge on this day that we have much to be grateful for. In the past year, though we have endured illness or hardship, grief or stress of one kind or another, we understand that such things are simply in the nature of human existence. Tough times are unavoidable. Today, and on Thursday, when Thanksgiving is officially celebrated, we are reminded that, in spite of the difficulties we inevitably face, God is good and we are blessed in many more ways than we are challenged.  So, we give thanks today for life itself, for the beauty of the earth, for fresh air to breathe, for clean water and wholesome food, for the love of family and friends, for safe shelter. We also give thanks for this great country of ours and for the freedoms we enjoy. We give thanks for the men and women of our military who protect us and keep our country strong. We give thanks for all who work to maintain peace and order. 

            Did you know that the observance of Thanksgiving as a national holiday occurring on the last Thursday of November began in 1863, when our nation was embroiled in Civil War? When he made the proclamation establishing the holiday, President Abraham Lincoln said these words: “I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for our deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”

            

           As much as we see war and violence throughout the world, and we often become fearful and worried about attacks that might arise in our own country, can we ponder for a few moments these words that established a day of national Thanksgiving? At a time in our history when brother took up arms against brother and battles raged across farm fields right here in Madison County, the President and the people were able to acknowledge God’s loving presence in their lives. It was in the hope of peace and the healing of all wounds that Thanksgiving was established.  In the very act of turning our hearts in prayer to God and giving thanks for our blessings, however meager they may seem to us at the time, we open the door to peace and brotherhood.  Gratitude itself is a peacemaker and a healer.

We pray that it may always be so!   AMEN.

Man's Judgment; God's Mercy

 Homily for Sunday, October 25th     Graves Chapel

The Old Testament story of Job reads like a play, but may also be seen as a parable.  The wisdom it reveals is both difficult and profound as it asks the question, “How can we understand why people suffer in the many ways they do?”

Today’s lesson from the Book of Job comes from the very last chapter in Job’s story—Chapter 42.  In Chapter 1, we learn that Job is a faithful and righteous man, a man beloved and mightily blessed by God.  In fact, Job becomes a topic of conversation between God and Satan.  Satan makes a wager with God concerning Job, and the essence of what Satan says is this:  What does it take for a faithful man to lose his faith?  Yes, Job is a righteous and faithful man—and that’s easy for him since he is blessed with great wealth, a loving family, and good health. But if you take away all of his blessings and reduce him to a state of extreme poverty and ill-health, would Job continue to be faithful to you, God?  God has so much confidence in Job’s faith that he agrees to have him tested in this way.

In a matter of moments, it seems, all is taken away from Job: All of his possessions; even all of his children.  Finally, deprived of everything that had made his life worth living and covered with painful boils, Job sits on an ash-heap, moaning in pain. Three of his old, righteous friends come to visit Job. They question him, attempting to help him understand why these awful things have happened to him. In other words, they ask him to search his conscience and determine what he had done, what sin he had committed to deserve such punishment. But Job is stubborn. He knows in his heart that he did NOT sin, nor did he deserve to be punished. In fact, in Chapters 26 to 31, Job proclaims to his old friends all of the ways he was blessed and the reasons why he deserved to be blessed. Job asserts his righteousness.

Blind Bartimaeus, the beggar we meet briefly in today’s gospel lesson from Mark, provides an interesting contrast to Job. We don’t know anything about Bartimaeus except that he calls out to Jesus as he passes by—and he cries out persistently until Jesus hears and responds. We are told, “Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’”  Without hesitation, Bartimaeus answers Jesus, “My teacher, let me see again.”  And the answer Jesus gives him is a familiar one: “Go; your faith has made you well.”  Since Bartimaeus is willing to believe that the rabbi Jesus can heal him, he is healed. Bartimaeus does not waste time asking Jesus WHY he is blind.

As Job contends with his so-called friends, he struggles to understand—to see—why the God he has served and worshiped faithfully has seemingly turned his back on him.  Has Job truly found himself in a position opposite that of Bartimaeus?  Or is there something the formerly wealthy Job could learn from the blind beggar?  Instead of trying to figure out why his life has been turned upside down and defending his record as a good man, what if Job simply asked what Bartimaeus asked of Jesus?  “Teacher, let me see again.”

 After his three old friends argue with Job, a young man named Elihu speaks up. Elihu has listened to the three older men chastising Job, saying only egregious sins could have earned him such harsh punishment. He has heard Job defend himself, justifying his own righteousness and saying he did NOT deserve to be punished. Although Elihu is a young man, and he showed respect for his elders by waiting for them to finish speaking, what he has to say demonstrates his wisdom. First, he politely rebukes the main thesis of the elder friends of Job. Their basic argument was that Job must have sinned because they believed that God punishes only sinners. Elihu points out that ALL people suffer from time to time, the good as well as the bad. His assertion is that God does not cause bad things to happen to good people; rather, in Elihu’s words, “God delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear by adversity.” 

Isn’t there great truth in those words?  When our lives are moving along swimmingly and all seems well, how often do we take the time to think of God, to express gratitude for our many blessings?  Isn’t it more likely, as Elihu suggests, that we turn our attention to God and pray most fervently when we find ourselves in pain—either physical or emotional? God doesn’t cause the pain—pain happens to everyone sooner or later. But God uses the pain to draw our attention in God’s direction, where help and comfort can be found.

When Job spoke to the three older friends, asserting his righteousness and his lack of sin, he has fallen into a very common  human trap. It reminds me of my favorite line from a T-Bone Burnette song: “As soon as you say you’re being humble, you are no longer humble.” Elihu points out the conceit Job expresses when he argues, at length, “I have NO sin.”

Would Job measure the worth of someone like Bartimaeus, for example, by his outward appearance as a blind beggar, and find Bartimaeus less worthy than he? By expressing his righteousness as a reason why he does not deserve to suffer, Job shows disdain—a lack of empathy—for others like Bartimaeus who suffer. For this, Elihu takes Job to task, saying, “But you are obsessed with the case of the wicked; judgment and justice seize you. Beware that wrath does not entice you into scoffing.”  In other words, Elihu suggests to Job, who are you to imply that other sufferers deserve their suffering any more than you do? Do the poor deserve to be poor? Who are you to judge or to scoff? Do you really believe you understand the judgment and the ways of God?

Elihu concludes by saying, “God thunders wondrously with his voice. He does great things that we cannot comprehend.”  In the face of such greatness, the best thing we humans can do is surrender our own willfulness and worship God—because, as Elihu continues, “ God does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit.”

What happens next in this dramatic story? God answers Job “out of the whirlwind.” Some of the most spectacular passages about God’s creation follow, in Chapters 38 to 41. God asks Job (and all of us), “Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth?... Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth?...Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?...Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?...Declare if you know all this.”  

Finally, Job begins to comprehend and he speaks the words of today’s lesson: “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted… Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me that I did not know…I had heard you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”

With only “the hearing of the ear,” we humans fail to see God at work in our lives. We like to use reason as we argue and discuss and figure things out (as Job and his friends had attempted to do). Our God is a God who uses even our suffering to bless us in unexpected and seemingly unreasonable ways. I know that sounds a little crazy, but I will share with you my personal example. If I had not gotten married at a very young age to a man who turned out to be an alcoholic, I would never have found or followed my current spiritual path.  I would simply not be the person I am today. As difficult as my life seemed during those years, I can honestly say I’m very grateful for all of it. 

As with Job, it may take us some time to comprehend God’s ways!  Should we, like Bartimaeus, simply ask the Lord, “Teacher, let me see again”?

Amen.