What the Lord Asks of Us

Thanksgiving Homily
November 22, 2009

Welcome to our Harvest feast. As we celebrate Thanksgiving, it is good to remember those who founded this church so many years ago. Even though we don't know everything about them, we know they cared enough about the Lord and about each other to plant a church here and join in Christian fellowship. What they planted has lasted. We are called, as the current stewards of this church community, to do all we can to make it last another 100 years.

About a month ago, I was participating in a vestry retreat at my church, Buck Mountain Church in Earlysville, when Chuck Mullally, rector of Emmanuel Greenwood, led the vestry and committee chairs in a discussion about our goals for the church. He prefaced his remarks to us in a very memorable way. He simply quoted the words of Jesus, from John 15:16: "You did not choose me, but I chose you." Never having thought about my church membership in quite that way, I was a bit stunned. It really did make me think about how and why I first began to attend church there. That led me to think back to my childhood years of attending services right here in Graves Chapel. In that context, it is easy for me to see how my family members and all of the Graves Mill residents who came here in those days were chosen and called to be here by God. Something about this lovely old church and its sweet simplicity is still very appealing to people, isn't it? I urge you to consider how the Lord has called you to be part of your church community. It may give you goose bumps--it did me!

Just as those 19th Century founders of Graves Chapel were called to communion with one another, we are called with all the saints to an ongoing communion with God. As we avow in the Apostle's Creed: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints..." Catholic is written with a lower case C, meaning the church universal. The word saints also begins with a lower case S, because we everyday saints are innumerable. We experience the work of the Holy Spirit entering our hearts and binding us together, so we say we believe in the church. As priest and theologian Henri Nouwen wrote, "The Apostle's Creed does not say that the Church is an organization that helps us to believe in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No, we are called to believe in the church with the same faith we believe in God."

Like we everyday saints who make up the Church, the Church is not perfect. So why does Father Nouwen remind us that we are asked to put our faith in the Church? He says it is because "God has given us the Church as the place where God becomes God-with-us." Think about it. We have all been chosen by God to be in this place at this time. We have been called into community here at Graves Chapel, and God, who gave us this church and brought us to it, is in the midst of us. As it says in the Book of Revelations, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes." We can look for God in each other's faces as we share our dinner today. After all, we are saints.

In his book The Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser says, "To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less." Shouldn't there be a lot of saints in the world if the basic fuel of sainthood is gratitude? Doesn't everyone have some reason to be grateful? Maybe being told we should be grateful and having gratitude are very different things. Gratitude simply rises up in our hearts whenever we think of our blessings. There is no should involved in the spontaneous joy that comes from gratitude, and I would never dare to stand here and say you should be grateful to God for your many blessings, especially since I am in as much need of reminding as anyone else. What we decide to give in gratitude to God is deeper than a should. We choose to give back to God a portion of what God has already given us in thanksgiving for the merciful abundance of our blessings. This free-will sacrifice is not intended to make us suffer; in fact, if it is truly an expression of gratitude, we will feel joy in the giving. As Psalm 50 says, "Offer to God a sacrifice of Thanksgiving...Those who bring Thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me." In calling us to community in this church, God asks us to demonstrate our gratitude for our many blessings in some tangible ways. In Holy Longing, Rolheiser goes on to say this gratitude for our blessings will give us a "mellowness of heart and spirit" that is one of the essential ingredients of Christian discipleship.

Actually, Rolheiser cites four "non-negotiable essentials of Christian spirituality," very clearly based on the words and teachings of Jesus Christ. It might be useful to look at all four of them now. The first is "private prayer and private morality." Just as we are called to community in church, we are also called to develop a personal relationship with God through time spent alone in prayer. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6, "Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." In that way, we are guided to an experience of God within our own hearts that allows us to see God in others.

The part about "private morality" is more difficult. Jesus knows how much we want to impose our own morals on others. That's why he said things like "Judge not less you be judged" and "Why do you see the speck in the eye of your brother or sister but do not see the log in your own eye?" Clearly he wants us to examine our own faults and work on self-improvement instead of judging and blaming others. Why is that so essential? We are called to community in Christ's love, and it's hard to be in community with someone of whom we disapprove. In fact, if you've ever been on the receiving end of such disapproval, you know how hard that can be. What others do may not be what we would do, we may not even like it, but we must leave it up to God to judge. Our task is to "live in love, as Christ loved us."

The second "non-negotiable essential of Christian spirituality" is social justice. In his words recorded in Matthew 25, Jesus makes it very plain that we are to concern ourselves with the needs of others as he speaks of the King separating the sheep from the goats: "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' " Our very gathering here today, the proceeds of which will be given to MESA, is a demonstration of our concern for social justice issues. We understand, as Henri Nouwen put it, that "the poor are given to the Church so that the Church as the body of Christ can be and remain a place of mutual concern, love, and peace."

Along with private prayer, social justice, and mellowness of heart and spirit, Rolheiser's fourth non-negotiable essential of Christian discipleship is "concrete involvement within a historical worshiping community." Now, when Rolheiser uses the word historical, he means something like lasting or traditional , but in terms of historical worshiping communities, there aren't many older and more prayer-soaked than this one. In saying that a worship community is one of the essentials of Christian spirituality, Rolheiser is saying something the founders of Graves Chapel well understood. We can't do this by ourselves. We need each other as much as we need private prayer. The experience of "God with us" can be as powerful as the experience of "God with me." Christ tells us to love our neighbor, suggesting the need for a neighbor to love. We experience that Christian love for neighbor firsthand in our church home, and then we reach out in love to neighbors in the community at large. Without each other, there is no church.

We depend on and need each other in our endeavor to be true disciples of Christ, and the formula is not too difficult. Private prayer and personal morality. Social justice. Mellowness of heart and spirit. Worship in a Christian community. As Christ told us, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Old testament prophet Micah summed up our task as well when he said, "And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your Lord."

Today I am grateful for this gathering of friends and neighbors. I am grateful to be in this chapel, a place near to my heart all my life. I am grateful for this abundant feast we will soon enjoy, and grateful for your generosity in sharing it. I am grateful we live in a country where such blessings are possible even in hard economic times. I am grateful for the Lord's goodness made manifest in all of you.

Thanks be to God!