Psalm 126; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Matthew 6:25-34
Pledge Sunday: November 22, 2009
I kept a journal of my time in Vietnam when I went to pick up Lydia. Toward the end of our stay I was wondering whether we would be home in time for Thanksgiving. As I was writing about that, I engaged in what I thought was humor. Mostly I was trying to amuse myself, but I thought others who knew me and were reading the blog would chuckle a little. I was, by the way, pretty much wrong about that.
“Who knows,” I wrote, “we may be spending Thanksgiving in Vietnam. A bummer to be sure, but we will find some tofurkey somewhere. Even if we’re not home we’ll tell Kim all about this wonderful American celebration …when we gather as family and friends and remember all we are grateful for, celebrating a historic event wrapped in a pall of conquest and slaughter that we rarely mention in the midst of "pass the gravy".”
Now because it apparently was not obvious, here’s what I thought was funny – besides the notion of talking to a 3 ½ month old about conquest and slaughter. I found some dark humor in the irony of it all. The irony is that what I say is of course true, and some day Lydia will have to deal with such complex truths about her adoptive country. Yet even as I wrote, looking at her I gave thanks for the most amazing gift I have ever received. There was no way for me not to be only thankful and unaware at that moment of all that was wrong in the world. I was completely wrapped up in a time of pure thanksgiving. It all struck me as funny – that I could be both purely thankful and still write about Lydia having to deal with the complexities of her first American holiday. Okay, I admit I have a very strange – or maybe just bad – sense of humor.
We’re all too aware of the complexities of how this holiday was born, or more accurately what the larger context was of that famous meal recounted in thousands of children’s plays each year. The pilgrims were sitting around the table with their new found friends who had arrived in this new world long ago – all the while storms were brewing and erupting with violence between these two peoples that would claim a staggering number of lives on both sides, and set a course for the forced displacement of the indigenous people, the effects of which we still see today. This was violence instigated by the very thing the people were grateful for – their having come to this new place. I don’t think we can escape the fact that that makes celebrating thanksgiving complicated.
And it doesn’t stop there. It has always made me uneasy to say a prayer praising God for the goodness we are about to receive right before our family thanksgiving meal, something I have in recent years declined to do. We will have way more than we can possibly eat and we will eat way more than we should. All the while, so many tables around the world and right here in Grinnell are empty. In such prayer, exactly what are we saying we’re thankful for? Are we thanking God that we’re lucky enough to have been born into a family and country of abundance, and for not making us like those who are living hungry?
And the complexities just keep on coming when we turn to our texts. They seem to be about giving thanks in exactly the way most of us do on this holiday – celebrating God’s abundance which provides practical things – like food and clothing as we see in Matthew, and the big gift of Jesus Christ as we see in Timothy.
But when we stop and think about these passages a bit more critically, we are faced with even more problems with what it means for us to be thankful. In Matthew Jesus tells the people not to worry or ask about what they eat and what they will drink. We read this and it’s pretty easy to not worry about such things, because we don’t really have to worry about them ever. But consider those to whom these passages were originally addressed. They were basically poor people – being sucked dry by the king, who, by the way, is exactly the person they should be giving thanks to God for – according to the author of Timothy.
These texts must have sounded so different to those living under persecution and oppression at that time than to us living in a free country about to have our Harvest Dinner. We may not always agree with our elected officials, but we can give thanks for them and for the fact that they are accountable to the people and for the freedom to vote and affect our own government. That was so not the case for the people living when these passages were written. And how can we happily read this text from Matthew knowing it must have been a difficult thing for that early audience to hear and believe given their circumstances. Shouldn’t we feel a little bit guilty about celebrating Thanksgiving with abandon? And if so, doesn’t that ruin Thanksgiving completely?
Most of us have an instinct to ignore these complexities on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, we argue, is a time to focus on – well – giving thanks. And spiritually speaking, the argument continues, it is essential that we set aside time to think about all that we are grateful for and to raise our hands toward the heavens and praise God, the source of it all. If we always made sure we included time to talk about and think about all of these complexities – for which we are absolutely not grateful – not only would it affect our enjoyment of the day, it would affect our spirits as well. And though I have resisted it in the past, after our readings today, I think this is a good instinct. I think it is biblical. It’s an idea right out of the Psalms.
If we didn’t know better, we would think this collection of hymns and poems was put together by a schizophrenic people; one minute they’re yelling at God for abandoning them, in the next they’re asking God to smite their enemies, and then they sing praises to God more eloquent and more extravagant than any we can imagine in a church today.
“Our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy!” our Psalmist recounts. Presumably something good had happened to the nation of Israel and they were giving thanks to God- the one who made it happen. Compare that to the Psalm right before ours: “Those who turn aside to their own crooked ways the Lord will lead away with evildoers.” Not exactly something to praise God for. In yet another Psalm we get, “O God of vengeance…how long shall the wicked exult?” And still another; “O God, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me.” God is absent and the Psalmist makes no attempt to resolve that. Yet the very next Psalm beings, “I will sing of your steadfast love, O Yahweh, forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.”
These divergent psalms, when read together, are almost painful. It mirrors for me the painful tension I feel on thanksgiving. How is this possible? How can both be honest? “How long must I wait, how long must I suffer?” “My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” “O God, why do you cast us off forever?” “Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth. Say “how awesome are your deeds!” I truly could go on and on.
Let’s be honest: There’s no such thing as “pure” thanksgiving. It’s always a mixed bag. But what we see in the Psalms is there are times to give God our pure thanks for all God has done in creation. Just as there are times to give God our pure laments for all that has gone awry and in our moments of greatest doubts about God’s presence. If we trust the Psalms we see that one does not diminish the other. And both are necessary for our spiritual lives – for our relationship with God.
Our lives should not be a muddled mess of half laments that never move us to action and halfhearted thanksgivings that never truly connect us to all that God makes possible in creation. There is much to truly lament, and when we do we weep with God…we are connected to God who yearns for suffering to end, and so then do we. But there is so much to truly give thanks for, and when we do – fully, loudly, with songs and dance and beauty and celebration – well we know how good God is, how amazing creation is and we feel the power of that – the hope in that, which compels us to make those blessings real for all people for all time.
We act out of our pain when we have compassion for the suffering around us, but just as often act out of joy and thanksgiving. We know this. Think about what we will do later when we dedicate the pledges. We give to the church because were immensely grateful to God for all we have. And we’re grateful that we can share what we have with others, which becomes a witness to the fact that God does indeed provide for all when all are generous with what they have been given. This is a joyful time – we are giving out of our joy and thanksgiving.
Just like the Psalmists, Matthew insists on fully experiencing the joys of life and the suffering of others. In this passage, Jesus paints this beautiful picture of the lilies and the birds and all that God has given…maybe for a moment the people who legitimately worried every day about food and water were able to bask in that picture. Maybe they had a moment of pure thanksgiving – believing that God will provide when things are set right in the world. The birds and lilies are a sign of what is possible – possible only because God makes it so.
But this does not minimize the reality of suffering all around Jesus. Think about the whole gospel. This passage is not all Jesus had to say to people. He also insists on pure lament at times – “the poor will always be with you,” he says with deep sorrow. “God you have forsaken me,” he yells. “We have traded God’s house for a den of thieves,” he says in anger. But in this passage, in this moment he celebrates the goodness and abundance of God without qualification or equivocation. Don’t worry about tomorrow, he says, because tomorrow will bring back to us all that we do worry about. But today – this day – right now, consider the lilies of the fields and the birds of the air and how much God cares for you…how much God loves you. Rejoice in that!
This year, I’m doing thanksgiving…really doing it. No reminding my family of why it’s too hard for me to pray before the meal of extravagance. No thinking about the complexities that dampen my joy. Instead I will spend a day lavishing in the things I am most grateful for – my friends and family and the fact that we can and do gather in one place. Those are incredible gifts from God. Just as those first moments with my new daughter were filled with untempered joy, so can these moments with the people I hold most dear.
Today we will bring forward our pledges and boldly proclaim our abundance. We know that the reality is far more complicated, but for now let’s celebrate God who gives us all enough – all of humanity – if we joyfully share what we have. In this moment, with everything we have, we can look around and say “Wow! Look at all we are blessed with”. And then we can raise our voices “Praise GOD from whom ALL blessings flow”. Tomorrow will bring enough worries – even appropriate ones. Tomorrow or next week or whenever, we will lift our cries of lament. But not today. Today is our Psalm of thanksgiving!!! Pure thanksgiving!!! Amen.
