Liturgies of Thanksgiving

 

November 23, 2023 – Thanksgiving Day, Year A

Deuteronomy 8:7-18; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15; Luke 17:11-19

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

Dear God, we thank you for the food that we will eat this day and the hands that have prepared it. We thank you for the farmers that tended the fields and cared for the flocks. We thank you for the laborers who harvested the produce and packaged it for transport. We thank you for the truck drivers who delivered it and the shelve stockers who made it available to us. We thank you for the cashiers who may or may not have helped us purchase it and the marketing teams who showed us where to shop for it. 

We thank you for the oil workers and power plant laborers who make it possible for those trucks to run and stores to stay open. We thank you for the road crews and first responders who make safe and efficient transportation possible. We thank you for the financial professionals and software engineers who enable us to use a debit card or a smartphone to move money from one account to another whenever we buy something.

We thank you for the support staff who helped us do our jobs and the managers who trained us for them. We thank you for the HR professionals who hired us and the teachers and professors who taught us. We thank you for the investment managers who safeguard our resources and the government officials who protect our markets. We thank you for the labor organizers and creative geniuses and venture capitalists and bond issuers who keep our economy going.

We thank you for every sacrifice that was made in order for us to feast on the bounty that will be on our tables today, and we pray that you would make us mindful of the innumerable multitude that has contributed to our celebration this Thanksgiving. Amen.

It takes a lot of work to make a Thanksgiving meal happen. How much are you responsible for? Moses has an answer.

“When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God…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, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.”

When Moses spoke those words to the people of Israel, they were nearing the end of their journey through the wilderness from Egypt to the land of Canaan. The snakes and scorpions they had encountered in that arid wasteland were memories that had not yet begun to fade. Everyone who heard Moses’ voice had a story of struggle and triumph that they could tell. They all knew where they had been and that it was God alone who had brought them safely to that point. But Moses knew that it would not be long before the people forgot—before the stories of struggle lost some of their historical precision and became mere legendary tales of the ancestors passed down through their families.

“Remember the LORD your God, for it is God who gives you power to get wealth,” Moses urged the people. That’s easier said than done. That kind of remembering takes considerable effort, especially when our tables are full of food and those moments of hardship have passed beyond our personal experience. To remember the way that God invites us to—in a way that brings the covenant between us back to life—is more than a conscious recollection. It means to reembody something—to reconstitute in our lives a truth that is more than the stories we tell. But how can we make real for ourselves something that none of us remembers?

We use liturgies to help us with that. Some of our liturgies are formal and religious. Think of the truths we bring to life each time we gather for Holy Communion or Ash Wednesday, for a baptism or a funeral. Other liturgies are personal and familial. Think about how you open presents at Christmas or what you do to celebrate a birthday. Think about what you communicate to the members of your family when you fall almost effortlessly back into the pattern of doing things the way that they have been done for years and years. Our liturgies are what tie us to the past and help us reencounter that part of our story that we can’t afford to lose.

Thanksgiving is a holiday full of liturgy, and I don’t just mean what we do in church today. Think about the hand-shaped turkey you drew in grade school and how you learned from childhood to name the things for which you are thankful. Think about the way each member of the family is invited to say a word of gratitude before the Thanksgiving blessing is said. Think about the people whose recipes you will enjoy today—a great-grandmother’s cranberry relish or a housekeeper’s famous rolls. Allow your sense of gratitude to spring forth from the child within you and fill those lives that stretch back even to before you were born. 

The kind of thankfulness that we are invited into this day is normally controversial. On almost any other day of the year, it is a hard thing to convince someone that every ounce of their success has been a gift. Whether it’s the college we got into or the business loan we received or the real estate holdings that were passed down to us or the property taxes that funded our education, we did not get where we are by ourselves. We had help along the way. Many of us had a lot of help. And even that bit of progress that we scratched out through our own sweat and toil is still a gift of God. It is all a gift. And we depend upon rituals of thanksgiving to help us remember that.

Moses did not tell the people of God to remember where their success had come from because God is expecting a thank you note. Neither do we come to church this day because we think that God will bless those who say the Litany of Thanksgiving once a year. We come because we cannot have a relationship with the giver of all good gifts if we have forgotten where those gifts come from. We cannot turn to God for help if we have forgotten that it is God who has helped us in every generation. Today we rekindle the spirit of gratitude that binds us to the God whose blessings have no limit. May the remembrances we offer to God this day strengthen our faith and sustain us in times of plenty and in times of want.

Celebrating All God's Gifts

 

November 19, 2023 – The 25th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 28A

Judges 4:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video from the service can be seen here.

In November 1558, when Queen Mary died, the Church of England was in crisis. Thirty-five years earlier, Henry VIII, Mary’s father, had refused to accept the authority of the Pope, and Parliament had passed legislation making it clear that the English monarch alone was supreme head of the Church in his realm. When Henry died and his nine-year-old son Edward took the throne, Protestant leaders carried out further reforms in the boy-king’s name, stripping the church of many of the catholic practices that Henry had maintained. But, six years later, Edward became ill and died, clearing the way for his older and faithfully Catholic half-sister Mary to become queen. She undid virtually all the reforms put in place by her father and half-brother, including the act of Parliament that had made the monarch the supreme head of the Church.

Five years later, when Mary died, her half-sister Elizabeth ascended to the throne, and she and her Protestant allies began the work of reestablishing a Church of England that was separate from the Church in Rome. This time, however, the reformers had to act more gently in part because the nation was tired of flipping back and forth between Catholic and Protestant rulers but also because Elizabeth was a woman. One of the first acts passed by her Parliament was a new Act of Supremacy, modeled after the one her father had pushed through and which her half-sister had repealed. But, in this version, instead of calling Elizabeth the “supreme head” of the church—a title that upset both Pope-supporting Catholics and woman-skeptical Protestants—they identified the monarch as the “supreme governor” of the Church of England, and it has been the same ever since. 

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but how can a woman fulfill her destiny as the leader of her people if they refuse to call her by her proper title? Deborah, whose leadership we hear about in today’s reading from Judges, would like a word. This short passage is the only selection from the Book of Judges that we encounter in our three-year lectionary, so we had better make the best of it. 

You might have noticed that Deborah is identified first as a prophetess and then as the wife of Lappidoth. Some more recent translations of the Bible take out the gender-exclusive suffix and identify Deborah as the full prophet that she was, but almost all translations continue to label her as Lappidoth’s wife. Several scholars, however, including recent Tippy speaker Wil Gafney, suggest that the Hebrew, which literally means “woman of Lappidoth” or “woman of torches,” just as likely means “fiery woman” as “Lappidoth’s wife” and that, since prophets were rarely married, the attempt to define Deborah by a husband’s name is probably an overreach by those who were not accustomed to strong, independent women exercising authority. [1]

Even more remarkable is how the author of Judges goes out of his way to describe how Deborah judged Israel without actually calling her a judge. At this time in their history, as the name of this book of the Bible implies, God’s people were ruled by judges, a pre-monarchical title that obscures the fact that these leaders were less likely to rule on matters of law and more likely to lead an army into battle. In fact, among all the judges mentioned in the book, Deborah is the only one who is said to have settled disputes among her people. As Robert Alter notes, a better title for these leaders would be “chieftains,” though “Book of Chieftans” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. [2] Perhaps the reason the author of Judges withholds that official title from Deborah is because, as a woman, she was less likely to ride out into battle with her people. But, if we expand today’s reading by only a few verses, we discover that that wasn’t the case either.

At the end of today’s reading, we hear Deborah order her general Barak to lead ten thousand troops to Mount Tabor, where they would fight against Sisera and Jabin’s army. In the very next verse, we hear Barak’s uncertain response. “If you will go with me,” he said to Deborah, “I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” To him, this mission against 900 iron chariots might have sounded like suicide. Or maybe he was simply unable to trust a woman commander. Regardless, Deborah would not allow his cowardice to thwart God’s plan, so she replied, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”

After they had reached Mount Tabor, when Deborah perceived that the time to attack was right, she ordered Barak to lead his troops into the Wadi Kishon: “Up! For this is the day on which the LORD has given Sisera into your hand.” Her military insights proved effective. In the ensuing battle, God’s people routed their enemies. Amidst the chaotic fighting, Sisera got down from his chariot and ran away on foot, and Barak chased him. But, as Sisera approached the tent of one of his allies, a woman named Jael saw him and encouraged him to seek refuge inside. 

Parched from the fighting, Sisera asked her for some water, but Jael went a step further, mothering the fugitive general by giving him milk to drink. “Stand at the entrance of the tent,” Sisera told his host, “and if a man comes and asks you if a man is [hiding] here, tell him no.” Then Jael, after having wrapped him up in a rug, snuck up to the great warrior, and, taking a tent peg and a hammer in her hands, she drove the tent peg through his temple and into the ground, killing him where he lay. When Barak finally showed up, Jael said to him with no small dose of irony, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” No glory came to Barak that day. It belonged to the women whom God had used to deliver God’s people, just as Deborah had prophesied.

Sometimes God gives us gifts that God’s people don’t want us to use. Sometimes God bestows talents upon individuals whom society will not allow to use them. Sometimes people who have been given the authority to speak for God will tell you that you had better bury your gifts in the ground or else you will be rejected for daring to show them off. But they are the ones whom God has rejected because God will never give you a gift that you are not supposed to use for God’s glory.

“You are the light of the world,” Jesus tells us. “A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket; rather, they put it on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.”

You are the light of the world. In every generation, God uses those who have been overlooked by the powerful and mighty as vessels for God’s work in the world. It is always those who work outside the power structures of society who bring victory to God’s people. And, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we know that there is no force strong enough to defeat us or hold us back. Nothing can overshadow God’s glory shining through us. 

As disciples of Jesus, we are called not only to devote our gifts to God’s transformation of the world, but we are also called to celebrate those among us whose gifts might be buried out of fear. We must encourage those who have been told that their gifts are not welcome to let their lights shine until the world sees how God is showing up around us. We must tell them that they have no reason to fear because God’s gifts always belong where everyone can see them. Jesus teaches us to watch for the coming reign of God wherever it may be hiding and give all that we’ve got to be sure that that reign comes. Surely God’s reign comes when all of God’s children are able to use what God has given them for the glory of God.

_________________________

1. Gafney, Wilda C. Womanish Midrash. Westminster John Knox Press; Louisville: 2017, 97f10.

2. Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible Vol. 2: Prophets. W. W. Norton & Co.; New York: 2019, 77.

Challenge to Faithfulness

 

November 12, 2023 – The 24th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 27A

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

© 2023 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

We all have a story of salvation to tell. What does your version sound like? When you tell the story of your people’s faithfulness—of the relationship with God that spans the generations and that has brought you to this moment—what story do you tell? Where does the story start? Who are its main characters? What are the plot twists and turns that reveal a covenant relationship built on God’s love and mercy and lived out in the lives of your spiritual ancestors? What are the themes that emerge again and again as your people have fallen in and out of love with the God whose love has never abated?

The Book of Joshua records a part of salvation history that we don’t tell very often. It’s the story of what happened after the twelve tribes of Israel entered the land of Canaan. It’s the story of Joshua’s leadership after Moses’ death. It’s the story of God’s people crossing the River Jordan, encountering the resident tribes, and destroying them through military conquest. It’s the story of Israel carving up the Canaanites’ land and redistributing it among their own ancestral tribes. It contains a few episodes of remarkable faithfulness that we teach to our children, like that of Rahab the Canaanite woman who gave shelter to two of Israel’s spies, but mostly the book is a blood-thirsty campaign of genocide that results in Israel’s occupation of the land promised to Abraham.

Like I said, it’s a part we usually skip over. But our spiritual ancestors did not record this part of our story because they wanted future generations to celebrate the violence carried out in God’s name. They recorded it because they wanted us to remember that we belong to a God whose identity is distinct—unequivocally distinct from all the other deities that are celebrated and worshipped throughout history, distinct in a way that doesn’t allow mixing or merging with other religions. And they wanted us to remember that, because we belong to that particular God, we must live in a particular way. The Book of Joshua isn’t written to be an historical account of how God’s people came to possess the land of Canaan. It’s a spiritual account of what happens when God’s people come face to face with the challenge of remaining faithful to God when that faithfulness is hardest to maintain. And that’s a story worth telling.

“Choose this day whom you will serve,” Joshua demands of the people of Israel, “…but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” If only faithfulness came as easily as the people’s response to Joshua’s words.

This is Joshua’s farewell speech to the people of Israel. These are his final instructions. Like any gifted leader, Joshua has a realistic understanding of the challenges that his people will face after he is gone. He knows that saying you will be faithful to God and being faithful to God are two different things, and he anticipates that Israel will have a hard time embodying the distinct identity of their God as the years go by.

“Choose this day whom you will serve,” Joshua said to the people, putting to them the decision of faithfulness. And what did they say in response? “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight.” In their reply, the people rehearse for Joshua a brief summary of all that their God had done for them, including enabling their conquest of the Canaanites. Given God’s unwavering provision, how could they choose any deity but the God who had brough them thus far?

Yet, in a moment of remarkable leadership, Joshua refused to accept the people’s declaration of faith. “You cannot serve the LORD,” he said to them incredulously, “for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after having done you good.” As if he had the power to see the future, Joshua knew that the God who had saved his people when they were slaves in Egypt and who had provided for them in the wilderness and who had brought them safely into a new land was not the same God to whom the people would turn in the years ahead.

But how did he know that? How was Joshua so sure that the people were making a promise they couldn’t keep? For starters, it helps that the Book of Joshua was revised into its current form generations later—after the people of God had experienced the hardship of attack, defeat, and exile. Those who retold this moment of decision already knew that the people of Israel would suffer great loss, and they identified the people’s faithlessness as the cause of their downfall. But you didn’t have to be a fortune teller or a revisionist historian to know that remaining faithful to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob wouldn’t be easy. That’s because our God isn’t the God of the prosperous and the powerful but the God of the weak and the vulnerable, the poor and the oppressed, the destitute and the brokenhearted. And building a nation around a relationship with that particular God isn’t easy at all.

Have you ever had a favorite restaurant go out of business because it grew too fast and lost touch with what made it special? Have you ever felt the spark that drew you to a challenging job fade when lean times at the company gave way to sustained success? Have you ever thought that a church which once embodied God’s mission in the community seemed to lose its way when it got so big that its leaders forgot what it means to be faithful?

Joshua knew that, as the nation grew in prosperity, God’s people would have a hard time staying true to their humble roots and to the God that had blessed them in their humility. He knew that it was only a matter of time before the people began to associate their success not with the God of the poor but with the gods whose carved images are overlayed with precious metal—the so-called gods of the Canaanites whose worship was never really removed from the land. And Joshua knew that, once you turn to a god who promises wealth and strength and success, only a path of pain and hardship can lead you back to the God who is found amidst the outcast and the downtrodden. How did he know? Because that unchangeable truth is written into our human nature. 

We believe in a God who saves us not by giving us the power to avoid hardship but by promising to accompany us into it. That is the theme of salvation history. That is the truth that is lived out in every generation that belongs to our God. But it’s a truth that many people would rather forget. 

If you ask a rich person which god they prefer to belong to, what do you expect them to say? It’s a whole lot more fun to belong to a deity who blesses the rich and rewards the powerful. Even though we know that those gods cannot promise anything but fleeting happiness and false security, we turn to them again and again because they are the gods that we have made in our own image—the idols of our success. This might not be our favorite part of our people’s story, but Joshua’s words are important for us to hear.

The Book of Joshua uses the language of violence and total destruction not because our God calls on us to commit genocide but because of our propensity to abandon the distinct ways of our God for the ways of the world around us. Joshua’s warning to the people is a warning to us—that, no matter how hard we try to get rid of those false gods, their allure is never-fading. It is a dangerous and evil myth, of course, that ethnic homogeneity could ever produce religious purity. Remember that caring for the stranger in our midst is a fundamental imperative in our religious tradition. The Book of Joshua’s portrayal of the Canaanite religions as self-serving is overly simplistic, just as its depiction of ethnic cleansing isn’t historically accurate either. But one aspect of the story is as true today as it was for the people who gathered around Joshua and heard his challenge.

When we replace the God of our ancestors with the god of our accomplishments, we bring ourselves face to face with God’s judgment. When we worship the idol of progress instead of the God who cares for the poor, we call God’s wrath down upon us. When we forget which God we belong to, we rob ourselves of the beautiful and life-giving truth that our God saves us. We are saved not because we have the power to make the world a better place but precisely because we don’t. We are rescued not because we can invent our way out of a crisis but specifically because we can’t. Choose this day whom you will serve, Joshua says to us—the gods of your greatest accomplishments or the God who rescues you, saves, you, and redeems you. To the only true God be all glory, honor, and praise, now and forever. Amen.