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Sunday November 23, 2008 "Thanks and Praise" 2 Chronicles 20:14-21 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 11/24/2008 2:31 PM | Thanksgiving is about remembering.
It’s about remembering where we came from.
When Thanksgiving rolls around every year, I can’t help but think of the Thanksgivings past that I spent with my family. Growing up, my family lived basically in two places: the rural area of Michigan known as “The Thumb”, and the biggest city in the state, Detroit.
My father grew up in the Thumb, in a place called Sandusky and my mother had lots of aunts, uncles and cousins in the next town over, Marlette. In fact, my mother, who was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Detroit, actually lived on her grandparents farm for one year in Marlette, when she was 5 years old. That’s where she met my father, at the Flynn Township Red Star School…a one room school house that my father attended until he went to high school.
When I was a small child, we would go up to the Thumb and have Thanksgiving with my grandparents, or my great Uncle Jim and Aunt Verna. If we stayed overnight at either of those places, we would get up early to “help” with the chores. Well, helping is bit of an overstatement. My father helped. My brother and sister and I mostly watched, or tried to stay out of the way of the cows as they were being herded into the milking parlor.
At my grandparents, my granddad and my dad and my uncles would start telling stories as they did the chores. Stories about when my dad and his brothers were kids. Stories so far removed from my experience as to have me mesmerized. My uncles and my dad would accuse each other of trying to get out of work, of finding ways to be somewhere else when the chores needed to be done, and my granddad Miller would just keep on working, a smile always on his face, clearly proud of what hi three boys had become.
After dinner, we would hear more stories of Thanksgivings past. It was sitting around that table and the table at Uncle Herb and Aunt Verna’s that I heard of my family history, on both sides. I heard about my Potter relatives and their life in Saskatchewan – living in a tent! - before they came to Michigan. I heard about the Bells and the Wylies and the Millers and their homes in Ontario and London. I heard about the depths of the depression and the hardships that separated the families physically, but never emotionally or spiritually. I heard about joyous holiday celebrations in the midst of the most dire poverty imaginable. I heard of the most amazing kind of hope in the midst of seeming hopelessness.
What I was overhearing was their remembering.
Through it all, I heard loud and clear: their thanks for all the experiences of their lives that had led to that remembering, and praise for the God that had brought them through the worst of times, and would again.
Thanksgiving is about remembering.
It’s about remembering that we are not alone.
Oh, I’ve had those thanksgivings where I thought I was alone. Those thanksgivings where I was new in town and was sure that the day would be spent with a TV tray in front of my 12 inch black and white TV watching the Detroit Lions find another creative way to lose a football game. Those thanksgivings where I heard of other peoples plans to travel and celebrate with family, and couldn’t help but feel a little down because I was not.
I remember a Thanksgiving in Boston in 1985. I had only been in the city for about 3 months and didn’t really know anyone except the people I worked with at Northeastern University. But they were all going home to Cleveland or Baltimore or Providence or New York for Thanksgiving. I had begun to attend a church near my house, but didn’t really know anyone there, either.
The night before Thanksgiving, the church, the Harvard Epworth Church had a thanksgiving service and I decided to go. It was a cold night and I walked into that sanctuary and saw just a handful of folks. Some folks who looked like they came in to just get out of the cold. Some older folks in the neighborhood whom I recognized. Folks that just felt the need to be with someone on that cold night. And one person who I could not believe was there: an old family friend, Scotty Kresge. Scotty was the youngest son of a family that I grew up with. His sister Sue and I were in the same grade and had been quite close. When I said hello, his face brightened at the recognition that he knew someone in the room. It seems he had just started working in Cambridge a few weeks before and was just getting settled in. I asked him if he had plans for thanksgiving. No, he said, he had to work, and then first thing Friday morning he was on his way to Washington on business. Soon, though, we’d get together.
The service was not a memorable one, but it was good to see Scotty. We had never been close since he was several years behind me in school, but it was nice to see a familiar face. I hoped that something good had happened for the others there that night.
When I got home, the phone rang and it was a colleague of mine who had a question about something. It turned out that his plans had fallen through for going home with his wife, and they were going to be around. So, on the spur of the moment, I invited them over. “It won’t be turkey,” I said, “but I’ll make something.”
And I did. Beef stroganoff for Thanksgiving. And we had a great time. We knew each other but not well. But that day, we got to know each other much better and it started a friendship that has lasted all these years.
Scotty and I did eventually get together. Through him I was able to reconnect with his family as well. And the Thanksgiving that started out in loneliness, ended with the realization that we are not alone.
Thanksgiving is about remembering.
It’s about remembering that our presence can have great impact in other people lives.
I remember a time that wasn’t thanksgiving, but it certainly felt that way to me. It was a Saturday night at the Women and Children’s Shelter at Peachtree and Pine.
I was there with a group from a church I used to serve. Each Saturday, a different group would come to the church and prepare a meal for about 30 to 40 women and children that would be at the shelter. We would make a big pot of stew, salad, dessert, drinks and then we would put it in the church bus and take it to the shelter. We would also bring Danish for breakfast and make bag lunches to distribute for the next day.
The group that volunteered that particular Saturday seemed a bit unclear on the concept. They were a group of older women, very nicely dressed, some even with pearls and high heels.
As we cooked, they wanted so badly to do something to season the stew to make it more palatable but we explained because of a variety of tastes, we need to make it very basic and hearty but let the guests salt or pepper it to taste. When making the lunches someone asked, “Why are we making lunches? Why don’t they just have lunch at home?” We had a long discussion about homelessness, about what the shelter was, who would be there, and how we could help.
But soon it was going to get even tougher for them to grasp.
Peachtree and Pine is a huge former car dealership and warehouse. When were serving dinner there, only about 10% of the space was anywhere near inhabitable. And using the word inhabitable is being generous.
There was no running water, no heat, no food preparation area. Bugs, rodents, and even birds had taken up residence in the unused portions of the warehouse. Essentially, what the shelter offered was a roof. And a leaky one at that.
As we rode up on the rickety old service elevator, I could see the trepidation in the eyes of some of the women. When we got to the big room where the shelter guests would spend the night, we were met enthusiastically by the shelter workers, some of the guests, and several noisy, happily playing children. We set up our stuff and were prepared to serve. The women in our group were pitching in, setting up, and as they had interaction with the folks who had come to the shelter, some of the trepidation started to fade away. They found themselves in a strange place for them, to be sure, but the guests it turned out, were just folks, and the two groups worked together and conversed easily.
Then, I asked the shelter guests if anyone would like to say the blessing. If there were no takers, then I would do it.
A young woman, a stunningly beautiful young woman, probably in her 20s raised her hand and said she would. Her clothes were worn and mismatched, but as she stood, her bearing was straight, her manner confident. She asked us to bow our heads and began the most beautiful prayer of thanksgiving I have ever heard. She thanked God for the food that they were about to eat, for the shelter that had been provided, for the friendship of the church folks there to help, for God’s very real presence in their lives, for the hope of tomorrow. And then she prayed, “And Lord, please be with those who are less fortunate tonight.”
Over the next hour, as we served and ate and played with the kids and laughed with the mothers, each and every volunteer from the church came to me alone, away from the others and asked a variation of the same question, “Did she say ‘those who are less fortunate’? Who could possibly be less fortunate?” And I would point out the window and say, “the ones who couldn’t get in here.”
To a person, each of those volunteers had had their world rocked on that evening. And to a person, each of them became huge supporters of the church’s efforts to assist those who were “less fortunate.”
Thanksgiving is a time for remembering.
It’s about remembering that God has seen us through the worst we have faced, and God will see us through whatever the world throws our way.
The Judeans under King Jehosophat got an object lesson in that from the priest Jahaziel as they prepared to go into battle. Jahaziel told them to not be afraid. The enemy is strong, he said. But our God is stronger. The battle is ultimately not ours, he told them, the battle is God’s. And God will prevail. Believe in God, he said, believe in the prophets. Remember, he said, remember where we come from. Remember what has been done for us. He used the words of Moses, he used the words of King David, he helped the followers of King Jehosophat remember that God had never left them. He instructed them to give thanks. He instructed them to praise God. And they did. And God did not leave them.
Thanksgiving is about remembering.
Remembering that we have been here before, and God has never left us. We have faced uncertainty in our lives and God has never left us. We have grieved the loss of too many people and God has never left us. We have been lonely and God has never left us. We have faced seemingly insurmountable odds and God has never left us. We have doubted God, we have cursed God, we have turned away from God, and still, God has never left us.
When I remember those Thanksgivings that were so important to me as a kid, when I remember the Thanksgiving of loneliness that turned into the Beef Stroganoff Thanksgiving, when I remember the most beautiful Thanksgiving prayer I have ever heard, I realize that in those old stories of hard times, in that new connection, in the simple provision of a meal to someone in need, is a reason to praise God!
Thanksgiving IS a time for remembering, but the real impact of Thanksgiving is when that remembering leads us to action.
It’s fine and good to accept God’s presence as real, God’s grace as strong, but what do we do with those gifts?
Thanksgiving is about sharing our story with the next generation, so that they will never forget where they come from.
Thanksgiving is about reaching out to those who do not have what we have and helping out by donating of our time and our resources.
Thanksgiving is about reaching out to those who are lonely and making a call, stopping by for a visit, maybe issuing an invitation for a meal.
Thanksgiving is about welcoming all who would come into this place who are experiencing the things we have experienced and now need the thing that we possess, the peace that come from knowing God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
And all that comes from our remembering, because at the heart of it all, Thanksgiving is about remembering.
Remembering to praise God.
Remembering to thank God.
Remembering to share God.
Remembering that thanksgiving is not just a day, but a way to live. May it be so, now and always.
Let us pray: Lord, for the days ahead, give us strength, give us courage, give us faith. But most of all, Lord, give us thankful hearts, that we might remember that you are our God, and we are your children, now and always. Amen.
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