A November Full of Thanksgiving
Most capable preachers know the text from the Gospel of Matthew exceptionally well. Because these texts from Matthew are not only familiar and compelling, but many resources are easy to come by; I have chosen instead to focus on the Psalter for the first four of November’s five Sundays in 2008. I am not suggesting that the lessons from Matthew are not without their challenges — as anyone with an ounce of preaching sense knows — but rather I choose to focus on the Christian trait of gratitude and thanksgiving this November.
I suggest the theme of gratitude and thanksgiving for two primary and pragmatic reasons. First, at Thanksgiving our culture converges on a four-day holiday (holy-day). We celebrate the American disposition of eating, visiting, and watching football for all the “trivial pursuit” that may entail. Thus, many focus on Thanksgiving as a break from life’s routines.
Second of all, there is another area of pragmatism that centers on the concept of gratitude and thanksgiving. This field of exploration involves praise and appreciation of God, which in theory was Thanksgiving’s original intent (probably first celebrated in Virginia about 1619). Scripture has plentiful references to gratitude, thanksgiving, and being grateful. Consequently the religious reasons offer an appropriate — and pragmatic — reason to preach the subject of gratitude and thanksgiving. And, I might ask, where is the praise and gratitude of God more abundant than in our Psalter? Thus, I suggest that we turn to the Psalms for the first four Sundays of November 2008 and title such a series of sermons something like: “A November Full of Thanksgiving.” We will not do a systematic exegesis on the Psalms (and Mark 13) as preachers may better find this material in commentaries. However, we offer a few points of entry into the text in order to spark the creative juices that preachers have. Perhaps an idea or two here will become a catalyst for the preacher’s imagination concerning ways to offer Christian thanksgiving as a way of life and grateful being.
I am firmly convinced, and I hope that many believers hold this conviction as well, that we can never truly repay our debts of gratitude; we can only pass them along. How do we preach and how do we communicate the Gospel to a new generation and do so in a way that will elicit thanksgiving and praise? This is our task. And all the while, we return to Scripture to find deep-rooted, deep-seated truths to enunciate in new ways.
November 2, 2008
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
Given the fact that many modern people seem to think that they do not want to “know about God,” but rather want “to know God,” then this is a Psalm to gratify such desires. What is interesting about Psalm 34:1-10, 22 is that it sounds eerily like asking someone to test drive a car. The Psalmist seems to suggest, especially in verse 8, that if a person were to give God a spin around the block — to connect with God — then happiness (or blessedness) may soon follow. The Psalm puts it this way: “O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.” This idea of tasting and seeing is one that may well appeal to a younger generation Euro-American believers that like diving into experience headfirst. The happy or blessed are those who take refuge in God.
A tie-in for preaching to both younger and older congregations, and even a mixture of the two, might be to look carefully at Bob Dylan’s lyrics from the song Shelter from the Storm. This song declares the deliverance of a place of refuge. Dylan’s chorus simply states: “I’ll give you shelter from the storm.” It might be worth exploring about how these Dylan lyrics and the Psalm share a common experience of need for safe haven. A preacher might even explore whether it is possible that the inspiration for Dylan’s lyrics could have come from Psalm 34.
The bottom line in preaching this Psalm — especially the pericope before us — is that we praise God’s name because God answers us out of our despair and cries. God hears and then heeds the voice of his people (see: Ex 2:23). Our God, the God whom the Psalmist invites us to see and taste, delivers those who call upon the Lord. And best of all, they “lack no good thing.” We thank God for God’s providence — most especially in this November which is full of thanksgiving.
November 9, 2008
Psalm 78:1-7
This lesson is about one tenth of the entirety of Psalm 72. It is thus a piece of a very long psalm that has as its overall theme “God’s direction in the face of the people’s waywardness.” Verses 1-7 are most basically a call for the congregation to hear and therefore heed the voice of God — especially as the heeding regards the passing along of Israel’s faith tradition to succeeding generations. In a sense, this lesson concerns God’s commands to the ancestors. The seven verses thereby remind the faithful “to teach to their children; that the next generation might know them, children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children” (vv. 5-6). This part of the psalm’s instruction brings to mind what philosopher George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” As an aside, a version of this quotation was one of Harry Truman’s favorite maxims.
“Teach your children . . .” continues to be a parent’s greatest responsibility along with providing security and sustenance to a child. Teaching gratitude is part of this duty. Yet, however grateful children are to parents for their love and nurture, a parent’s responsibility is to nurture, regardless of the child’s gratitude. In a like manner, God does not thank people of faith for their faithfulness. Luke even records Jesus asking such a rhetorical question: “Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?” (Lk 17:9) Rather, faithfulness to God is the fruit of faith and benefits those who exercise this fidelity. When we forget the line of demarcation between people and God, then there is trouble in paradise. The man and the woman in the Garden painfully learned this lesson. (Gen 2-3)
In our society, most of what passes for gratitude is nothing more than social convention. How often do people really pay attention to the things that are going on around them? I have a retired preacher friend who told me that one day he went into a drug store as he suffered from a number of various maladies. He brought these items to the counter: Extra Strength Tylenol, some Dristan, an elastic knee support, a vaporizer, some Preparation-H, and some medicine for cold sores.
As he left the counter, the salesperson said, “Have a nice day.”
How often do we go through the motions of life and miss something of great significance. We tell a wait-person “thank you” when they bring our food and we say thank you when someone opens a door for us. However, if you are like me, most of us say plenty of “thank yous” and still find ourselves at a loss for words when we sense profound gratitude for extraordinary kindnesses shown to us. This is what I meant in the introductory paragraphs when I wrote: “we can never truly repay our debts of gratitude; we can only pass them along.” Thus, when Jesus asks the question, “Do you thank the slave?” the answer to his rhetorical question is an obvious one. “NO!” Thus when Psalm 78 suggests, “we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done,” we are simply reminding ourselves that faithful people praise God’s name.
To remember gratitude is to remember to “Do this in remembrance.” For Christians the idea of remembrance and of passing the tradition is so vital that we do something like this each time we celebrate the Eucharist — which means giving thanks. Thus in communion liturgies we thank God and we remember. This is a good way to celebrate a November full of thanksgiving.
November 16, 2008
Psalm 123
The “songs of ascent” structure the clearest collection of psalms in our Psalter. Of course there are other collections of songs, but none are in the kind of block in which the songs of ascent are. Some of the songs of ascent (Psalms 120-134) are jubilant; while others, like Psalm 123 are more contemplative and subdued. These psalms of ascent some scholars identify with the fifteen steps of the Temple, while other scholars see these psalms as part of the singing on pilgrimage to Jerusalem — indeed ending at the Temple. In any interpretation, however the psalms of ascent form an import liturgy that involves worship of God and praise either in the Temple or on the way to the Temple.
Specifically Psalm 123 is a request for divine clemency in response to the contempt and disdain heaped on an innocent and faithful prayer by an anonymous or arrogant assailant. This psalm may be considered within the realm of thanksgiving inasmuch as the innocent person who offers such a prayer has the faith that he or she can appeal to God Almighty as a last resort. It takes great confidence in a time of anguish and misery to be able to pray, “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!” This Lord God is the one to whom the prayer can assert with great trust and confidence that “. . . our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.”
Most people feel the need for vindication against their enemies. This is true when we can, in fact, name our enemies, such as a harassing boss “Joe Smith” or public enemy “Bin Laden.” Sometimes, however, we need vindication from a more anonymous enemy like the inflation or financial crisis that eats away my confidence in my retirement “nest egg.” We might want to explore Jesus’ parable about the women and the unjust judge (Lk 18:2-8) in a homily that addresses the issue of asking God for justice. The women never gave up hope that if she continued to assail the judge’s bench, that eventually she would get her vindication. Clearly, Jesus’ parable pertained more to the need to pray always and without losing heart than it pertained to justice from some judge — although the parable does address justice, too. The point of thanksgiving comes, in this “November full of thanksgiving” when we recognize as believers that the court of last appeal is the always just God of the universe.
November 23, 2008
Psalm 100
This particular Sabbath is one that we celebrate as Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the church year and is, therefore, an important day from which to look not only backwards toward the immediate past, but also forward as we launch ourselves and ministry toward our future as the people of God. We call this Christ the King (or in some churches “Reign of Christ”) Sunday, perhaps because it stands at the intersection of the old Christian year and the new Christian year. It is also a good day to celebrate our loyalty to our God who sent God’s Messiah to be our Sovereign. The concepts of Christ the King, Reign of Christ, and our loyalty all converge on this Sunday.
To acknowledge this day of worship I suggest that we remember that this Sunday is merely four day before the secular holiday (at least in the United States) of Thanksgiving. Thus this is a perfect day of worship to celebrate the theme of thanksgiving and gratitude as a people of God. Indeed there are some hymns on the theme of thanksgiving that we tend to sing only at this time of year that I think we need to sing much more often…for God does indeed shower God’s blessings on us all the days of our lives.
We must also remember that few churches actually worship on Thanksgiving Day. If we did, then I would get a “double portion” of the hymns I love, including: We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing, Now Thank We All Our God, and What Gift Can We Bring? Clearly there are other thanksgiving-type hymns, but if we sang these three hymns more than once a year, we might help engender the attitude of thanksgiving in our congregations to a much greater extent.
If there is one characteristic we Christian believers need help in expressing more thoroughly and more earnestly, then it is the attitude of thanksgiving. It seems that God has blessed us to such a great extent and for so long, that we seem to accept God’s blessing not as acts of divine grace, but rather as some sort of human entitlement. My father used to say that there was nothing worse than an “ingrate.” Have we become a society of ingrates?
Psalm 100 is a perfect psalm to help us articulate the feelings and perspective of genuine gratitude to God for God’s divine grace-filled gifts to God’s people. It is not an accident that this psalm’s title is “A Psalm of Thanksgiving.” Psalm 100 enjoins us to “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.” This Psalm is an invitation to worship God and as such is an invitation to the joyful life God offers God’s creatures.
Indeed the psalm also is a call to knowledge and recognition: the Lord is God, God created us, we are God’s people, and using a pastoral metaphor, we are like God’s sheep. Psalm 100 also beseeches that as God’s people and the sheep of God’s pasture, and then we should approach God’s courts with thanksgiving and praise. The final verse summarized nicely what God means to God’s people: “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”
Psalm 100 is a wonderful simple way to remind worshippers about the reverence due and God and the reason for such reverence. The hymn version of this moving psalm is forever linked in our worship to the beloved tune written for it — the Old 100th. The words of the hymn are attributed to William Kethe in 1561 and based on this Psalm. As Kethe writes about people dwelling on earth and urges them to sing with cheerful voices, he completes the thought this way: “Him [God] serve with mirth; his praise forth tell.” Is this not what we do when we worship God? Perhaps there are better ways to praise God in gratitude than to celebrate a November full of thanksgiving using the Psalter as our book of worship. If there are better ways, then I do not know of them!
November 30, 2008
Mark 13:24-37
With all due respect to the other seasons of the Christian year, I would suggest that the most ignored season is Advent, while admitting that perhaps Epiphany runs a close second. Most non-church folks hardly know of Advent and certainly not that it is the beginning of a new church year — whatever that is. Somehow, even if they knew of Advent, and I am not holding out much hope here, our culture would simply see Advent as something of a warm-up for Christmas, much like spring training simply whets baseball fan’s appetite for the baseball season. Not only this, but in many respects, from the church’s perspective, Advent is more important than Christmas — although these kinds of value judgments are tenuous at best.
Advent, as the first season of a new church year, sets the agenda for the rest of Year B’s gospel message. If this is true, then Advent helps us answer the question that seems rather commonplace in daily life. Yet in theology and in celestial terms it is THE question: What time is it? Do you have a watch? ¿Qué hora es? I don’t know much Spanish, but I do know enough to ask someone, “What time is it?”
Today we begin a four week period of waiting and expecting the advent of Christ. Advent simply means “the coming, arrival, appearance, approach, or drawing nigh of Jesus Christ as the Messiah of God.” “What time is it?” is an Advent question.
It all started, I suppose, innocently enough. Speaking about the temple, “Jesus asked, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’ ” Then Mark tells us that, “Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will this be?’ ” (13:3-4) In other words, they ask Jesus the time question. Jesus’ answer is most surprising: “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” No one knows except God. Jesus as much as admits that he does not know when these things will take place.
The older I get, the more comfortable I become in using that once dreaded phrase, “I don’t know.” When I was in school, to say that you did not know something when asked a direct question from a teacher was bad for your school business. Parents do not like to say, “I don’t know” to children. Children, as a general rule, do not like saying, “I don’t know” to their parents. Politicians never like to say, “I don’t know.” We simply do not anticipate Jesus to say, “I don’t know.” But clearly Jesus used this phrase when answering the disciples.
I, like you, have stood in the presence of people who said, “I don’t know.” I have stood with some of my good church people over the years and the doctor looked at the floor and said, “We have done all we could. It is out of our hands.” The family sometimes asks the doctor “Why?” Good doctors say, “I don’t know,” while the shrewd doctors say, “You might ask your pastor that.” Usually, the family reserves this question and others like it for us. I guess that is why, when I read in Mark that Jesus says, “I don’t know,” I feel somehow better.
Interestingly, however, Jesus did answer some of the most difficult questions that people could ask. There are plenty of examples from Mark’s Gospel (see Mk 3:4; 10:2: 12:14). When asked these tough questions, Jesus did not miss a beat. But when the disciples asked him “when will the time be” or “what time is it,” he told them “No one knows.” I find this most interesting.
What would we do if we did know the day and the hour? Advent does not tell when the time for God’s coming is exactly — but God does tell us to watch and “keep awake. For you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn. He may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.” All God asks of us is that we pay attention to the signs that are all around us. God will come. This is God’s promise in Christ.
God’s coming always surprises us. All Jesus says is “be alert and watch.” Abraham, Mary, Moses, Hannah, David, Jael, Prisca, Aquila, and Isaiah — none of these knew when God was coming, but each was alert enough to respond to God’s call. Even if we do not know the day or the hour, we can still watch and wait. God’s arrival may not be obvious. Sometimes the appearance of God is subtle and mysterious. But nonetheless, God charges us to watch. Every room, every relationship, every moment of our lives might reveal God’s glory. This glory is both the warning and blessing of Advent. God comes to us — of all things — as a baby. Will we be ready?
Mark’s Jesus tells us that no one knows what day the Lord will come. But we do know that he will come. We may not know when it will happen. But we can trust God’s promises. This Advent please remember what Jesus told those whom he loves: “And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”
