Thanksgiving

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Thanksgiving
PROPER: A,B,C
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: November 28, 2002


TEXT: Matthew 6:25-33 – What will we eat?
What will we drink? What will we wear?
Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear . . . . But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

See also: Deut. 8:1-3, 6-10, 17-20. “Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth. . .

James 1:17-18,21-27 – Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

ISSUE: We live in a very anxious and worrisome world. We feel pressure to accomplish and gain wealth and prestige. We like being thought of as a self-made man or woman. Yet, scriptures from long ago share a more basic truth. It is first that God gives all we have, and for that gift from God we are grateful.
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The appointed scripture readings for this Thanksgiving Day are always rather startling. We can give thanks as Americans for so many “things.” Yet often in the back of our minds most of us were taught, or at least got the message that we have to be self-made men and women. We were taught that we had to make something of ourselves. Idleness, the devil’s workshop was frowned upon. Another big emphasis in our culture has been that of getting an education. Getting an education is certainly important, but what lay behind the emphasis on education was that with an education you can get a job, and make a lot of money so you can make it in the world, and be seen as successful. It’s a do it yourself world. It’s interesting to me how these cultural attitudes often play out in the life of the church. Often the heads of committees or leadership figures end up saying, “I’ll just do whatever the task is by myself.” And then comes the accolades from others for the accomplishments of the person in point. It becomes something of the need for reward from our peers. Being successful in the our work, marriages, raising our children often creates for us enormous worries and anxieties. Can I? Will I make it in the world? Do I measure up to the world’s expectations?
What is startling about the Scriptures today is that they address the world with and from a very different point of view. They dare to say, “Simply keep the words and Word of God, and all the rest of the stuff that we so worry about will come.” Keep the commandments and all that your physical need will come. It is a genuine call to faithfulness and trust in God.
Often we Christians are likely to say the Hebrew law is not very important in the light of God’s free gift of grace. But a Jewish person loves the law of God and cherishes the opportunity to keep the law. It reveals a covenant relationship with God. God is first and foremost, which in fact is what the first four commandments are about. The final six laws of the commandments are a person’s relationship with others, with the community. And Jesus himself summarized it by saying Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, and mind. Just like it is the command to love your neighbors, you community, as yourself. It seems that out of this relationship with God and fellow human beings flows a bounty for all. The bounty comes from God. Everything begins and ends with God, not in what we do.
The James Epistle makes it very clear that everything is from God, every good and perfect gift is from above. Don’t be just hearers of the word of God, but embrace it and put it into action in terms of sharing. The word of God is about the law of loving God, and loving one another, seeking liberty and justice for all in world order that sometimes deprives people of all that God has to offer. Love God, and stay concerned about the needs of others. This teaching was for James an essential part of true religion. True religion is not escaping from the world but sharing the bounty of God with the world.
This concept was difficult in our Lord’s time just as it is today. We worry about what we’ll eat, drink, or wear, that is the material concerns. Again Jesus offers another approach: Don’t worry about all that. Step into the Kingdom of God, which is not anxiety driven. The birds of the air neither plant or sow, or build barns, yet they have enough. The lilies of the field neither work not spin wool, and yet they are an expression of God’s beauty. First we seek the Kingdom of God, a place of love and peace. “All the rest will come, says Jesus, trust me.”
The world clamors with noise, explosions of hatred, injustice, and with greed. Jesus is telling his followers to knock-it-off. First claim the Kingdom of God where the values are very different. He offers sacrificial love, forgiveness, peace, healing, hopefulness for the future, and a bounty of spiritual food for the crowds. What have we to be truly grateful for? Being over weight as a nation. The accumulation of so much junk we hardly know what to do with it all? But what of a basic spirituality, which comes from God, that is love? We are given knowledge of what is good, just, beautiful, and caring through the life and the teaching and the healing miracles of our Lord. All the rest, St. Paul, would say is refuse. God love us, and we in turn do what we can to love one another as doers of the word, and not just hearers.
It was hard for the peasants of Jesus’ time not to worry. They often did not know where the next meal was going to come from. But they also had to be aware that with working for justice their anxiety would never go away. Jesus challenges: Seek first the Kingdom of God. It’s hard for us too not to be anxious; there is such pressure upon us to be successful as the world demands, and pay the bills. Yet what freedom and joy it is, what perfect liberty to be liberated from that kind of pressure, anxiety, torture even, and look to a God of love and bounty who gives himself to us, and charges us with the commission to be the channels of that love for the world for others. To change our focus between what the world expects and demands, and what God would have us be and do is certainly liberating. And, it is a passage and way certainly based upon the re-ordering of our lives.