Thanksgiving Sermon

As I say the following words, I invite you to ponder each one for a brief moment:

Goodness, flowing streams, springs, welling up, milk and honey,  abundance, blessings, satisfied, manna, give,  forgive, deliverance, hope, strength, awe, joy, enrich, provide, bounty, overflowing, richness, sing together, cheerful, righteousness, great generosity, increased harvest, thanksgiving, glory, surpassing grace, compassion, mercy, healing, praise

Breathe in deeply and consider the feeling you have at this moment.

Now in the same way, ponder each of these words for a moment:

Busy, schedule, running around, tired, confused, plodding, buy,  consume, use, revenge, fight, aggression, compete, pursue, power, more, time crunch, money, better, own, entitlement, scarcity, pollution, sadness, sick, depression, anxiety, destruction, death

Breathe in deeply and consider the feeling you have at this moment.

The feelings produced by these two very different paragraphs of words are an example of the difference between what Lutherans call law and gospel.  The law demands that one fulfill a set of rules and be in complete obedience to the ethical will of God, where as the Gospel is full of promise, including the forgiveness of sin through Christ. In scripture, law and gospel are both present.  Today’s texts are heavy on Gospel.  The first group of words are words from the texts of the day... words and thoughts that are Good News.

  How did you feel after pondering them? Uplifted, comfort, peaceful, content?

 You could feel the difference, right, especially in comparison with the second group. The second group of words are those that we experience in our day to day lives; words that bring on stress, knots in the shoulders, a sinking feeling, malcontent, dis-ease.

There is a story of a man in India who lives in a mud hut with his wife, two children and mother-in-law. He finds that the hut is crowded, loud, and chaotic.  He goes to the village shaman to see what could be done.  He commiserates with the shaman that the chaos of his family in the hut does not allow for time of quiet and reflection; there is no personal pace...he feels stressed in his own home.  He asks the shaman for advice about what he should do.

The shaman suggests the purchase of a king-like lounge chair.  A chair that says he is the man of the house, a chair that is comfortable, protects his space, allows him to sit and direct the traffic in the hut; a chair that commands respect.  So a large chair is bought, taken to the house and placed directly across from the door, where it is obvious; and the family takes notice for the chair takes up a large chunk of floor space in the hut.  The family walks around it –way around – the man has his space.  For two months the chair works wonders and the man is on top of the world...but then one day when he arrives home the chair, his chair, is full of children, the next day his mother-in-law is taking a nap in it, the next it has become the depository for laundry. Frustrated he returns to the shaman, unhappy.

The shaman suggests to the man that perhaps on his way home he should visit the local market and buy a couple of chickens; chickens would make everything better.  The man is not sure how this will help but doesn’t question sage advice; so he buys a couple of chickens.  The chickens are in the yard during the day, but as the desert cooled the chickens found their way into the already tiny hut.  For the first few weeks the man enjoys the eggs they lay for breakfast, but after 4 weeks it is too much and no better than the previous situation.  He returns to the shaman.  After a similar exchange of his last visit, the man is advised to go a buy a goat.  The goat also stays outside during the day, but as the desert cooled in the evening the goat entered the hut.  The man tolerates the goat because it is producing milk, but with the early rising chickens, the children, his wife and his bossy mother-in-law taking over his chair, it is enough after two weeks to trek once again back to the shaman. 

The shaman suggests that music would be a good idea to drown out the noise and chaos, so on the way home the man finds the only music available, the local snake charmer, who follows him home and plays every night for a bowl of food. For awhile, the goat and chickens are afraid of the snake in the basket so quietly stay in a corner, the children and mother-in-law are put to sleep by the charmers flute.  This too however after a short time losses its pleasure as the rest of the house begins dancing and clucking to the music, or biting at the basket for something to eat.  And if this is not enough, the ruckus is drawing complaints from the neighbours, the goat is eating the straw in the mud bricks of the hut, wild animals are trying to get in to snatch the chickens in the wee hours of the night, his wife is threatening to leave, there is nowhere left to sleep that does not smell like animal......a very sad and tired man plods to the shaman.

In exhaustion the man sits with the shaman, the shaman says, my son, “go home.  Send home the snake charmer, sell the goat and chickens, give away the chair...and all will be well”  The man does just this and do you know what he found, the little hut was perfect with plenty of room for his wife, children, and mother-in-law.  For the rest of his days he was content with what he had and with the relationships around him.  Life was good.

Would you say that you are content?

We spend a lot of life living the second paragraph of words that I shared earlier.  We spend a lot of time being busy, seeking more, go-go-going.  We overeat, oversleep, overwork, over play, over schedule, over indulge, over spend -trying to fill a need in our lives, trying to be content, to find a place where we have what we want so that we can be totally happy.  And in the end we end up with a hut full of chaos, with things that we don’t need, didn’t really want, and didn’t think out.  We are addicted. We have been conditioned to be consumers.

Think of your life, how much time do you fill with consuming things, events, wants, needs?  Which paragraph do you put more energy into?

Earlier it took less than two minutes to read the Good News paragraph of words. In that two minutes your body and spirit went through a transformation, mind you it was short lived, but it was a transformation none the less.  The feeling created by hearing the Good News was what contentment feels like.  As the apostle Paul says it is indescribable.  Over and over again throughout scripture God’s people are commended to “mediate on these things”...”these things” are scriptures and thoughts that are wholesome, life-giving, full of expectant promise.  If we can feel connected to God’s promise in a short exercise in a sermon, what if we meditated “on these things” more frequently?

Currently the church sign says, “Right now, say something aloud that you are thankful for”. Try it, say something aloud that you are thankful for....something else...something else...something else.  This is thanksgiving – a joyful expression.  Contentment is staying in the Good News even in times when we may not be all that thankful.

In our lives, just like scripture, there is law and gospel.  Far too often we spend our time focused on the laws, and the darkness we see and experience in the world around us; it comes out in our pains, sufferings, complaints, suggestions of unfairness directed at us.   We forget about the Good News, the light of Christ within and in the end we fall short of living in the abundance of God; content.

On this thanksgiving Sunday you are invited to not just be thankful today, you are invited to accept and pursue the promises of God every day.  You are invited to be Good News by meditating on Good News –to repeat as a in a mantra-while driving, or falling asleep, or while walking, or while taking a shower, the words of Good News you remember...

Goodness, flowing streams, springs, welling up, milk and honey,  abundance, blessings, satisfied, manna, give,  forgive, deliverance, hope, strength, awe, joy, enrich, provide, bounty, overflowing, richness, sing together, cheerful, righteousness, great generosity, increased harvest, thanksgiving, glory, surpassing grace, compassion, mercy, healing, praise

( big breath in and out)

By entering a state of contentment, into the promises of God, into the realm of indescribable grace –the world will change because you have changed. And the kingdom of God will come near.