Text: Psalm 126 VU #850
Worship lead by the Rev. Earl M. Gould
The opening hymn has set the tone for our worship –
“Come, You Thankful People, Come”
In this sermon I may not share anything about thanksgiving you don’t already know. But I am here to lead us in public worship, to help us come into God’s presence to find our souls, to reconnect with God.
This day set aside for giving thank is far from nice and serene…
And admittedly there have been a few dimensions in my personal life that have coaxed me into digging deeper into being thankful.
Anyway – what I have to offer you is this:
You and I have this in common:
You come here today,
I come here today.
We can each create a Thanksgiving 2024 sheet with two columns:
on the one side – things we are thankful for;
on the other side – things we are not thankful for.
Yes we are thankful for so much – but even in adversity, times of hardship we are still thankful.
Push deeper – go deeper – thanksgiving comes from a deeper place than how much we have. It comes from our relationship with God.
You are in a different place than I in your relationship with God. No judgement on that. But God is God. And our Judeo-Christian God of the Old and New Testament is the same God.
The God we grow into relationship with is a God of Love. That God does not have a magic wand that can make things appear or disappear for us at our beck and call. Be around for a few decades – you start to get in touch with a God who cries with you, and a God who celebrates with you – giving joy a spiritual depth.
For you, for me, the two columns we prepare and share with God are in the context of this deeper soul place.
Our God always has our best interest uppermost.
Our prayers help us get in touch with God’s richest blessings.
Life’s lessons teach us that things are not always fair, not always just.
For we who practise Christianity, make it a lifestyle choice – the cross is part of everything – including our thanksgiving. For us, Jesus dying on a cross reminds us that life is not always without pain – it can even bring death. But our Cross is always, always in the Easter dawn light. The Cross is empty.
Our Jesus is here among us, in and through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit – to bring us life – and life more abundantly. That is the heart and soul of our Thanksgiving. We share this God with our mother faith – the Jewish Faith. We share this God with our sister faith – the Muslim Faith.
Two years in remote rural India left me with the conviction the Hindi community I came to know was not outside God’s care and love. I came home from India – over a period of time came to the position that I accepted the Christian Faith as my way to God. (Had church check me out, see if it agreed.)
But my Christianity would never be in a sense that God was not the one true God of all creatures, all people.
I graduated from the United Church of Canada’s Emmanuel College- part of the Toronto School of Theology – fifty years ago. Then – it was a big deal that as a student at United Church Emmanuel College – I could take courses in Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and Anglican Seminaries on Campus.
This fall – if I were starting all over – I would have class mates in Emmanuel in one of three focus streams: Christian, Muslim or Buddhist. This Fall’s 2024 Emanuel College Newsletter shares with we alumni the staff are in close communion with their Jewish counterparts. Also in the newsletter – telling us the east lawn of Emmanuel College Campus is being transformed into an Indigenous Healing Garden.
In my time at Emmanuel – I was a token student sitting on the Board of Governors that oversaw the ecumenical venture. Then, I often felt I was out of my depth.
But aren’t we all – when it comes to living. We get to a deeper place as we mature – what life is all about. But we always live into the reality that God is mystery, not a problem to be solved.
Ever old, ever new is our God.
But our God, yesterday, today and tomorrow is a God of love.
Just a word of caution about this half sheet: things I’m grateful for│things I’m not grateful for.
The easier part is sharing with God our offerings of thanksgiving. The more complicated is sharing with God what we are not thankful for. My advice to you: Be honest with God about that column.
A verse from I Thessalonians came into my mind – NRSV
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ.” (I Thess 5:18).
Dollar Store – Thanksgiving aisle – bread board inscribed – “in all things give thanks”.
I ask you:
Was the severity of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton the will of God, or the outcome of Climate Change?
A wife is a victim of abuse: is this the will of God? I don’t think so.
A child dies from cancer. Is this the will of God? I don’t think so.
A Palestinian family living in Gaza is killed in an air strike. Is this the will of God? I don’t think so.
It is very important to take our not thankful list to God. Maybe God will help us see things in a different light. Maybe what we thought was a crisis turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
On my “not grateful column is the dying of the Amazon Rain Forest.
Taking this to God has lead me to do something: So this week I am going to write a letter to the Government of Canada urging it to be more forceful on the Global stage – taking steps to preserve what is left of the forest: calling for total cessation of clearing forest (to make way for cattle pastures).
By the way – thank you Westworth Outreach Committee for helping us be servants of Christ fighting wrongs in our midst.
“Message” sort of Bible and commentary wrapped into one – often helpful to get at what a Chapter and verse means.
I Thessalonians passage in context:
“And be careful that when you get on each other’s nerves you don’t snap at each other. Look for the best in each other and always do your best to bring it out.
Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.
Don’t suppress the Spirit, and don’t stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don’t be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what’s good. Throw out anything tainted with evil.”
I have things on my not grateful list – that I am confident with all my mind and heart and soul that God also wants them on that site of the ledger… that God is crying with me.
So, as we gather here for Worship – Thanksgiving Sunday – 2024 we join in the Psalm for the day that opens:
“When God brought Zion’s captives home, it seemed to us like a dream.”
Eerie isn’t it, as we follow the saga of the hostages taken an year ago – Oct 7th(2023).
The Psalm continues–
“Truly God has done great things for us, and therefore we rejoice.”
Admittedly, we don’t always feel God had done great things for us. Sometimes we need to be helped by those who are feeling more positive than we are. Fortunately God’s blessings for us aren’t dependent upon how appreciative we are, or even how aware we are. But we have a Judeo-Christian heritage to embrace that shows us a God who has always been there for us, and who always will be there for us.
And the invitation is always, always open to us to grow into this faith.
We can live a life that makes this more like being part of a healthy community of faith. We can practise spiritual disciplines that make it more likely to be in communion with this God.
The test of whether this God coming through to us is the one and only God is simple.
Is it a God of love?
Is it a God that forgives us when we fall and picks us up?
Is it a God who always picks up the pieces and makes each day a new day?
And is it a God who assures us that this life journey is not the end – but opening into something beyond the grave? Not something we earn by being good enough – but something in store for us because this is part of God’s grand scheme of things.
This I know with every part of my being – and so it is what I leave with you:
Thanksgiving – true thanksgiving is the by-product of being in communion with God.
You don’t come to church to be beat up because you’re not thankful enough! But if you leave worship with a song in your heart because you’ve got reconnected with a God whose name is love, then it’s been good worship!
“God, who touches earth with beauty, make my heart anew,
with your Spirit recreate me pure and strong and true.
Like the birds that soar while singing, give my heart a song,
may the music of thanksgiving echo clear and strong.”
