“THANKSGIVING”
|
A
sermon preached at the Readings: Micah
4:1-5, John 15:9-17 |
Our Gospel reading is taken from
the American version of the Revised Common Lectionary –
which offers alternate readings
for the Sunday before the 4th Thursday of November –
readings for Thanksgiving Day.
We Brits may eat our turkey at Christmas
and our Pumpkins at Hallowe’en and celebrate Harvest
Home in September.
But nonetheless we could perhaps this year identify with our American cousins
as this week they think about Thanksgiving.
Not least because it was on exactly this day in 1620
(21st November according to the Gregorian calendar)
the Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower and destined for the New World
dropped anchor off Cape Cod.
The
following autumn they celebrated their first year in their new home
and their first American harvest with a Thanksgiving Feast.
Over a period of time, that feast became an annual event
celebrated throughout North America.
It is worth reflecting on that first year in the New
World –
half those who landed had died within the first 12 months –
and yet still they chose to give thanks.
American history has of course continued to have its ups and downs,
but still thanksgiving has always been celebrated.
It is said that in 1929, a group
of American clergy in Boston
gathered to discuss how they should conduct
their Thanksgiving Sunday services that year.
The Great depression was at its height,
and things were about as bad as they could get,
with no sign of relief.
The bread lines were getting ever longer,
the stock market had plummeted,
and the term Great Depression was at its deepest.
The ministers thought they should only lightly touch
upon the subject of Thanksgiving
in deference to the human misery all about them.
After all, there was so little to be thankful for.
But one pastor rallied the group.
This was not the time, he suggested,
to give mere passing mention to Thanksgiving, just the
opposite.
This was the time for the nation to get matters in perspective
and give special thanks to God for blessings always present.
Now this is difficult territory for us all –
How easy for most of us,
with our shopping trolleys easily and casually filled at Tescos,
to speak glibly of how we should give thanks even in hard times.
Job and the Psalmist and the Prophets
sometimes fell into anger and despair at their lot,
and we should beware lest we too easily criticise those
who are at least honest enough with God to admit their despair.
But there is a path of saintly virtue which – if we can
reach it –
does allows us to give thanks even in the darkest of days.
I think of the occasion when the
17th Scholar Matthew Henry was mugged.
He wrote in his diary,
"Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before;
second, although they took my purse, they did not take my life;
third, because although they took my all, it was not much;
and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed."
Or again in the words of the 18th Century hymn writer William Cowper,
Though vine nor fig-tree neither
Their wonted fruit should bear,
Though all the field should
wither,
Nor flocks nor herds be there,
Yet, God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice;
For, while in him confiding,
I cannot but rejoice.
Or again in the words of the Cowper’s contemporary William Law,
“If
anyone would tell you the shortest,
surest way to happiness and all perfection,
he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself
to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you.
For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you,
if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.”
In every generation it is the major disaster which
distinguishes
the casual optimist from the believer with real hope in their heart.
Casual optimism assumes that all will be well –
there will always be roses in the garden.
Real Hope knows that, however badly things go,
even when every rose withers and dies,
God is still there in the hurt and the heartache,
and that ultimately all will be well –
because God is in the sorrow.
And if God is always there, then there
is always cause for thanks
-
And if God is in a situation,
it can always be offered to God and he can always use it -
"All
things work together for good for those who love God --
those who are called according to his purpose." (Rom
8.28).
So, wherever, whatever our situation,
let us offer what we have to God and he will bless it.
And – Most important –offering things
to God
implies a willingness to share what we offer with all his family.
The first Pilgrim Fathers had a torrid time of it in
their new settlement,
but still they offered thanks, set up a feast,
and invited the American Indians to join them.
The
Band Aid song “Don’t they know it Christmas”
has been rerecorded.
The
words speak powerfully of those who suffer –
“At Christmastime it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging
chimes of doom…”
And
then there is that famous and deeply disturbing line,
sung again in the new version by Bono
“…Well
tonight thank God it's them instead of you”
There is the challenge –
Do we give thanks for what we enjoy what we have
and lock out the needy and give thanks we don’t have their problems…
Or do we get alongside the needy
and share our joys and sorrows in God’s presence?
Sadly on both sides of the Atlantic we have too
often been selfish and grasping –
we have been more concerned with our early Kingdoms and Republics
than with the Kingdom of Heaven.
So now let us now each one review our earthly
pilgrimage,
Let us offer God our joys and our harvest to be
shared with all his children.
Let us offer to God our sorrows that in his presence
even they may become blessings
Then, whether our earthly
granaries be full or bare,
shall we taste the bread of heaven,
and know ourselves blessed indeed.