Thanksgiving Day

An Attitude of Dependence

Thanksgiving is a feel-good holiday. For most people, at least, it is about good times, family, and good food.

A clergy mentor of mine once told me that on holidays like this the only roll of the homily is to evoke that good mood. To evoke feelings of warmth, gratitude and the aroma of roasting turkey. Actually, at the time he was mostly talking about Christmas and Easter. And I generally agree with him. However tempting or important it may seem to a preacher, Christmas and Easter are not the times to rage against secular culture or to launch into a complex theological treatise on the nature of the incarnation or the resurrection.

But I just can’t do it on Thanksgiving. I just can’t preach a sermon that is evocative of a warm feast and nothing more. Any of you who come regularly to these services know that I really struggle with preaching Thanksgiving. The traditions of Thanksgiving are wonderful, but when we try to bring the holiday into the church, it gets very complicated. Fraught with all sorts of theological pitfalls.

One is a sort of spiritual smugness. A well-intentioned effort to be grateful that ends up focusing on the special gifts that have been given just to us. Spiritual smugness. Please be careful. It is one thing not to take for granted the gifts we have been given, however they have come to us. It is a good thing not to take for granted the special gifts we have been given. It is a very different thing to thank God for privilege and plenty that other people have been denied. Please think twice about thanking God for privilege and plenty that other people have been denied.

As I was stewing over this yet again this year, I remembered one of my favorite prayers in the Prayer Book. It wasn’t in the 1928 book; it’s one of the great additions to the current book. In seminary we called it the Charlie Price General Thanksgiving. Charlie Price had input in quite a bit of the current book. He wrote this prayer; it’s in the back with the extra thanksgivings. He was on the faculty at Virginia Seminary when I was there. (I’m thankful for having known and learned from Charlie).

The thanksgiving includes this line: "We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence upon you alone."

Every part of that sentence is important. We thank you. We give thanks. Not just for stuff we have, but for disappointments and failures. We give thanks for disappointments and failures. But not just because they are good for us. And not for all disappointments and failures. We give thanks for those particular disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge, to recognize, what is already true. That we are dependent upon God. God alone.

Disappointment and failure are not the only way to come to an acknowledgment of our dependence on God, but they do seem to be particularly effective.

So for Thanksgiving this year, to modify a popular cliché, I’m trying to cultivate, not an attitude of gratitude, but an attitude of dependence. An attitude of dependence upon God. To be mindful, aware of my dependence upon God for all that really matters.

And it’s a wonderful place to be. To be aware of dependence on God is a wonderful place to be. Not because it’s “character building” to be put in my place. Not because it’s some sort of spiritual “consolation prize” in times of personal failure. To rest and trust in God to provide what I truly need, maybe not everything I want, but to depend upon God to provide what I truly need is a wonderful attitude to live with.

I am reminded, too, of a line from one of my favorite hymns: “I came to Jesus as I was, so weary worn and sad; I found in him a resting place and he has made me glad.” He has made me glad. Even if you’re not weary worn and sad, resting in Jesus is a place of comfort, of gladness.

Dependence upon God means acknowledging that my happiness or success or fulfillment is not dependent upon the things or even the people of this world, but upon the love and presence of God with me. It is to find a place of surpassing comfort, peace and gladness. To acknowledge dependence on God alone eliminates the fear of loss. It eliminates anxiety about failure in the endeavors of the world. It is a place to rest in joy and hope.

This Thanksgiving, join with me in trying to cultivate an attitude of dependence. Dependence upon God alone.

The Last Sunday after Pentecost - November 23

The End of the Story
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46

For the last couple of days St. John’s delegates, alternates and I have been at Diocesan Convention. We were there Friday afternoon and most of yesterday. For this annual gathering of the Diocese, this year the theme was “stories.” More specifically, the importance and power of telling stories. So in the keynote address, in the Bishop’s sermon, we heard a lot about stories.

Stories.

Now we as a parish are gathered here for worship on the Last Sunday after Pentecost. This day is also known informally as Christ the King Sunday. It is the end of the church year. Stories and the end of the year. Stories and a day that challenges us to think about the end.

This got me thinking about how stories end. There are different ends we could talk about. It is the end of the church year. There is the end of time to consider… But I want to talk about our end. How will your story end? How will the story of my life end? How will the stories of our individual lives end?

There is a theological distinction between the end we face at death and the end we may face at the end of time, but I don’t think most people worry much about that distinction, and today I’m not going to either. Whenever, however, each of us encounters the end just beyond the time of our knowing in this life, how will that end be written?

Sara Miles was the keynote speaker at Convention. She is an adult convert to Christianity and a writer. One of the things I heard her say is that we like stories that end neatly. We prefer stories that end neatly. The underdog wins. Children find happiness. Bad guys are defeated. People fall in love with someone who returns their love…

But she also pointed out that most of our life stories really aren’t that neat. The stories of our lives are complicated and messy. Victories are fleeting. Bad guys are not completely bad, and good guys are not completely good. Human love is never pure.

But God is in those messy stories. God is part of the messy, complicated stories of our lives.

How would you write the story of God’s presence in your life? Not your life story. Not the story of your accomplishments, but the story of God’s presence in your life. (For me, that’s a more important question than how each of our stories ends… if today didn’t really push us to ponder the end.)

One image came to mind for me. An image, or a metaphor, that might illustrate how we would describe God’s presence in our lives. It’s a parent on the sidelines or in the stands at a child’s athletic event. (Or it could be a recital or play or whatever.) Not one of those obnoxious parents, that you sometimes find at Little League games, but a loving, supportive parent. In this image, God is the parent, of course, and we are the child. The parent cheers, offers encouragement… is waiting with a band aid if we get a scrape, but basically on the sidelines. Wanting the best for us, but mostly an observer. On call, if we encounter some trial or trauma in the midst of whatever the activity may be, but generally on the sidelines.

I have certainly seen God that way at times in my life and I wonder if many of us don’t have something like that as the primary image of God in the story of our lives. Cheering. Wishing us the best. But not directly involved.

Then when the game is over, the parent is waiting to give us a hug, maybe tousle our hair, praise us for more or less doing our best. Put an arm around our shoulder. When the end comes.

Christ the King Sunday challenges us to think about the God who will face us at the end of our story, not as a parent with a cheerful hug, but as a king with unimaginable power. Or as Ephesians says, power of immeasurable greatness. And this king is not on the sidelines, but is in our face. A king of unimaginable, immeasurable power.

I don’t know for sure how God will use that power at the end of my story.

Jesus himself talks about judgment, the power to judge. In today’s Gospel and in the parables of the last few weeks, Jesus has talked about judgment. In today’s Gospel, the King judges between those people who will gain eternal blessing versus those who face eternal condemnation. Depending upon whether or not they offered a sip of water to someone in need. The power of judgment.

But mercy and judgment are inseparable. The power to judge come with the power to offer mercy. They are the same power. Two sides of the same coin. The power of judgment always implies the power of mercy. And the power of mercy is of the same unimaginable, immeasurable greatness. God, the King, has the power to offer mercy and reconciliation that overcome sin and evil of such magnitude where we might see absolutely no possibility of hope. God has that power, too.

I don’t know for sure how God will use God’s power at the end of my story. And you don’t know for sure either. But I do think all of us should take God’s power more seriously. God’s power of immeasurable greatness.

And not just when we are pondering the end.

God is present in all of the complicated and messy stories of our lives. The stories of our lives as we are living them before the end. And God is not on the sidelines, but is actively involved. With unimaginable power. Power that can restore and transform the stories of our lives in unimaginable ways. Those are the stories we should be looking for in the world around us. Those are the stories we should be living. And the stories we should be telling. The end.

All Saints Sunday - November 2

God Trusts Us

We are celebrating All Saints Day today. All Saints Day is one of the seven principal feast days of the church… the most important celebrations we share in our worship life together. As many of you know, it actually fell on the calendar yesterday, November 1. All Saints Day is the only one of the seven principal feasts that we are allowed to transfer from its actual day to a Sunday so that we can celebrate our day, All Saints Day, together as the saints of the church.

All Saints is also one of the days on which we focus on baptism. For reasons that I hope are obvious, it’s a great day to be baptized, to be brought into the communion of saints. And today we will baptize Sarah and welcome her into the Body of Christ, the household of God, the communion of saints.

When we talk about baptism, we often talk about covenant—the baptismal covenant. We will all review and renew our baptismal covenant within the context of the baptism service. Covenant is one of those words we really only use in the church. Basically, it just means contract. A contract between two parties. In this case the two parties are God and each of us. The baptismal covenant is a contract between anyone who is baptized and God.

I was at a service yesterday at the local synagogue and one of the rabbis who spoke sort of indirectly helped illuminate for me one aspect of covenant. And that is trust. Our baptismal covenant with God is sealed and bound by trust. It is not enforced by the threat of penalties as most civil contracts are. Trust—only and profoundly—trust seals and sustains our covenant with God.

We are often called upon to put our trust in God. And in the baptismal covenant we do. We place our trust in God’s abiding love and care for us, as expressed by Jesus at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. “I will be with you always to the end of the ages.” We express our trust that God will keep God’s promise to us, the promise of eternal life with God. We trust God’s will for us, as best we are able to discern that will. Our trust in God binds us to God in covenant.

But have you ever thought about the other side of it? How wondrous and momentous it is that God trusts us?!

Our baptismal covenant is also sustained and sealed by God’s trust of us.

God trusts us. And God trusts us with a lot.

God trusts us to be faithful. God trusts that we will be faithful.

And, especially within the context of the baptismal covenant, being faithful means living as the Body of Christ. God trusts us to be the Body of Christ. How to do that is described in the words of the baptismal covenant. We are to gather together, as a body, for prayer, study and fellowship. We are to be the voice of the Body of Christ, proclaiming the Good News of God in Christ to the world. We are to be the hands and feet of the Body of Christ, working for justice and peace for all human beings. God trusts us with the work of the Body of Christ. God trusts us to be the Body of Christ.

Our covenant with God is bound and sustained, not only by our trust in God, but by God’s trust in us.

God trusts us to be saints!