Thanksgiving Among the Weeds

 It has been a rough year. Now that we have arrived at Thanksgiving, many people wonder how they can give thanks in the midst of what seems to be an overwhelming number of problems. People have given thanks for years, though, no matter how many difficulties surrounded them. And that is the subject of this sermon!

This Thanksgiving will be anything but traditional. Oh, there are plenty of frozen turkeys in the meat case at Kroger, but most of us won’t be eating them with our extended families. It’s just too dangerous this year; one of those extended family members might be an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19! And because we won’t be visiting with friends and family, we’ll miss out on everything that we have come to expect from Thanksgiving Day. We won’t hear Uncle Harry holler at the intercepted passes during the afternoon football games. We won’t hear Cousin Marge comment, as she does every year, about how the kids are just growing up too fast! We won’t even have to listen to Grandpa pontificating about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket as he sits at the head of the table. No, all those Norman Rockwell scenes won’t be taking place this Thanksgiving, and it’s all because of an invisible virus that has put our lives on hold for almost a year! That virus is behaving like the weeds in Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30). Jesus’ disciples knew all about weeds that appeared in a wheat field. They were all too familiar with weeds that spring up and cause us no end of trouble.

When Matthew wrote his gospel, of course, he knew nothing about viruses or a global pandemic. Some biblical scholars think that Matthew was talking about people in his church which at that time was made up of a very mixed bag of Christians. The wheat may have been devoted followers of Jesus, and the weeds were those who were there for other reasons. Christians, for example, had a reputation of taking care of their own, so that no one in their church community went hungry. That might have attracted people who were more concerned with their stomachs than with their spiritual lives. Other church members might have been spies, sent there by the Roman authorities who wanted to find a reason to arrest members of this new religion. When Matthew wrote his gospel, the weeds that he talks about might have been sitting in the church pews! Today, we aren’t worried about Roman spies; and people who want a handout usually go to the food pantry or show up at the soup kitchen. No, we’re standing among other weeds today; and we don’t have to look very far to see them.

Over here is a patch of financial problems. Lots of folks are standing in those weeds. They live from paycheck to paycheck – if they even have a paycheck! They don’t have enough money to feed their children, or to buy them warm clothing for the winter. Some have even been evicted from their homes because they lost their jobs during the shutdown after COVID hit. And the worst part about these weeds is that if you stand there for very long, their tendrils snake around your ankles and hold you there. These weeds are really nasty!

Right next to the financial weeds is a big patch of medical problems. Lots of us are standing there. Some of us have medical concerns of our own, while others are coping with the medical needs of loved ones. Those weeds can get so tall that they dwarf us! If we get stuck in these tall weeds, they are all we can see; and pretty soon we can’t see the wheat at all.

And all around us are weeds that have popped up during the election season. I’m not even talking about our country as a whole – plenty of weeds there, though. I’m talking about the relationships that have been strained, even broken, because we disagree on how to go about repairing the problems that face us. We even disagree about what those problems are! Oh, yes, we have weeds all around us. And Jesus tells us that they aren’t going anywhere any time soon. When God comes at the end of time to harvest the field, those weeds will be burned in the fire. But until then… well, here they are.

The Pilgrims – our ancestors who first celebrated Thanksgiving on these shores – lived among weeds, too. Those early settlers landed on what is now called New England late in the fall, just as winter was setting in. The supplies that they had brought from Europe weren’t adequate to get them through that year’s harsh winter. Many were already ill with scurvy after the long overseas voyage. Others became ill from cold and hunger. Some starved to death. Of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower, over half died during that first terrible winter. We tend to forget how tall and abundant the weeds were then. Over 250 years later, in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln established an official Thanksgiving Day, the weeds may have been different, but they were just as abundant. In that year, our country was divided by civil war. During the previous summer, the Battle of Gettysburg had stopped the invasion of Confederate troops into the north, but at a terrible cost – almost 50,000 troops killed or wounded in just three days of battle. During those days, just as in the time of the Pilgrims, the weeds threatened to choke out everything else. But even in the middle of all those weeds, both the Pilgrims and President Lincoln chose to give thanks. They couldn’t ignore their weeds, and it was very difficult to simply make the best of them. So they decided to give thanks for what they did have instead of focusing on what they didn’t have! They gave thanks for loved ones who survived cold, hunger, illnesses, and battle. They gave thanks for friends who supported them when they were certain that they could not get through another day. They gave thanks to God whose presence went with them whether their days were good or bad. They gave us a good example to follow as we struggle to live among our own weeds!

We can choose to give thanks, too. Some years ago, several people who are Facebook friends of mine posted daily what they were thankful for during the month of November. Now, I know these folks; and I know that they all have weeds in their lives: some small, some large, and some very large, indeed. You might be interested in what they were thankful for.

I am thankful for co-workers who care enough about me to phone me when they hear there's a huge accident that would keep me from getting home safely.

I am thankful for the songbirds in our yard.

I am thankful for my spouse. It’s not always easy, but it is completely worth it.

I am thankful for warm jammies.

I am thankful for books, because I love to read!

I am thankful for conveniences – a washer, a dryer, and a dishwasher.

I am thankful to spend time with my family.

I am thankful for the opportunity to learn. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to get a good education.

I am thankful for laughter.

I am thankful for life.

Are you thankful for some of those things? I know that you are – and for many others that I didn’t mention. This year, I invite you to give thanks despite the weeds in your life, no matter how many of them there are and how big they are. I invite you to hang on to God’s promise that the weeds won’t last forever, and that one day, they will all be thrown into the fire! I invite you to join the Pilgrims, Abraham Lincoln, and all the saints throughout the ages in giving thanks to God for all the good things in our lives. Even in the midst of the weeds, may you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Practicing for the Kingdom

Today is the Sunday that is known as either Christ the King Sunday or the Reign of Christ Sunday. Regardless of its name, it is the day when we look forward to the time that Jesus' reign of love and peace will be fully realized. But as we look forward to it, we need to ask ourselves, "What do to get ready for it?" This sermon answers that question.

Today is the Sunday that we look forward to the coming Reign of Christ, when the Kingdom of God will be established in its fullness for all time. We all wonder what that Kingdom will look like; and the prophet Isaiah gives us some tantalizing glimpses of it. He tells us that there will be universal peace. People won’t have any more use for swords and spears, so they’ll melt them down and remake them into hoes and hedge clippers. (Isaiah 2:4) He describes a time when everyone will live together, even those who are natural enemies. When little lambs lie down to sleep, friendly wolves will be their furry pillows. (Isaiah 11:6) He shows us a picture of a table groaning with all kinds of good things – apple dumplings, roast new potatoes, fresh-picked pears, and chocolate mousse – and everyone can eat as much as they want and never gain an ounce! (Isaiah 25:6) And the best part is that death and the sorrow that accompanies it will be a thing of the past! (Isaiah 25:7) The peace, the feast, and the fellowship with God and with one another will go on forever! 

If Isaiah, though, is the one who offers us glimpses of the coming Kingdom, Matthew is the one who tells us what will happen before that Kingdom begins. In his description of what is known as the Last Judgement (Matthew 25:31-46), Matthew envisions all people being divided into two groups: one group that will be welcomed into the Kingdom, while the others will be shown the door. His description reminds me of tourists on a cruise ship who are being divided into groups for shore excursions. As they gather in one of the larger rooms of the ship, they mill around asking one another, “Where are we supposed to be? Are we in the right place?” while cruise personnel direct them. “Group 9? Over in this corner. Group 12? The front row, please. Group 19? You’re on my right. Now, don’t wander away. We’ll be leaving any minute.” After everyone is organized, a tour guide in each group raises a brightly colored paddle that looks like a big lollipop and says, “This way, please. Stay with me!” and they’re off to explore exciting sights on the shore. In Matthew’s vision, however, there are only two groups – he calls them the sheep and the goats – and instead of a cruise director running the show, Jesus is up front holding the microphone.

After everyone is assigned to a group, Jesus turns to the group on the right. “Welcome, friends!” he says. “I’m happy to have you traveling with me! You have done some fantastic things! Why, you’ve helped me again and again. You’ve invited me to dinner, you’ve made sure that I was warm in the winter, you’ve brought me chicken soup when I was under the weather. Why, you were the first one to call me to offer help when I had a spell of bad luck! Good job! The entrance to the Kingdom is the first door on the right. You don’t have to hurry; you have all the time in the world.” But those folks will answer, “What? I never helped you, Jesus! You lived almost 2,000 years ago! How could I have possibly helped you! You must be mistaken!” And then Jesus will answer, “Oh, no; no mistake. Any time you help someone who can’t return the favor, you help me. Now, welcome home!”

Then, Jesus will turn to the group on his left. “I’m sorry,” he’ll say, shaking his head. “I’d love to invite you in, but my Kingdom isn’t for you. You never did anything for me – no food when I was out of a job, no gently used clothing for my kids, no twenty-dollar bill to help me with gas money. In fact, when I asked, you gave me every excuse in the book, but you never gave me any help. I’m sorry. The exit door is right over there.” Then those folks will object, too: “Wait, wait, wait! What are you talking about? I would have given my life for you if I had seen you – which I never did, by the way. And I’ve led a good life! I haven’t broken even one of the Ten Commandments. I’ve read my Bible every single day; I’ve gone to church every single Sunday; and I even tithe! I haven’t done anything wrong!” But Jesus will answer, “No, you haven’t done anything wrong; but you haven’t done anything right, either. You haven’t done anything; and that’s the whole point. You wouldn’t fit into my Kingdom, because people here love one another. Who exactly is it that you love? I’m so very sorry. You can let yourselves out.”

Now, I’m not convinced that Jesus will be as hard on us as Matthew says he will be. Matthew, after all, comes from a time when the Christian church was being persecuted; and I’m sure that he was more than a little resentful of those people who called themselves Christians but didn’t act like Christians should. I’m also pretty sure that life isn’t nearly as black and white as Matthew would have us believe. But he makes a good point, and one that we would do well to take to heart. What we do speaks louder than any words we might say. We can profess loudly that we are Christians, but if our actions don’t reflect what we profess to believe, then our Christianity looks a little thin. The Kingdom isn’t for those people who just talk about Jesus; the Kingdom is for those folks who treat other people like Jesus. The Kingdom, in other words, is for those who practice what they preach.

And practicing being a Christian is what makes us fit for the Kingdom. Imagine, if you will, a football team getting together for their first practice of the season. All the young men bounce up to the coach, each one hoping to make it into the starting lineup. “OK,” the coach says, “it’s good to see all of you again! Now, before we get started, I want to know what all of you did to stay in condition during the off-season.” “I did weight training,” one says. “I lifted weights every single day.” “I worked on running,” another says. “I ran at least a little bit every day.” “I worked on my catches,” says a third. “I can catch that football now if I’m upside down!” I imagine that the coach is happy with all those answers. But what if those young men would have said, “Oh, we didn’t do anything. We stayed home and didn’t risk an injury. We read all about football, though, and organized a discussion group about the game. We’re all ready to play!” Coach wouldn’t be so happy about that, would he? He might say, “What do you mean? You can’t get ready for a football game by talking about it! You have to practice for it!!” In the same way, God wants us to practice for the Kingdom by showing love, compassion, and acceptance through our actions. We can talk about it all we want, but we need to do something to practice our Christian skills. Otherwise… well, we just won’t be ready!

There is an old story that illustrates the difference between being in the Kingdom and being on the outside of it. The story goes that God offered to show one of the saints the difference between heaven and hell. God took the saint to hell first. There was no fire and brimstone, and no little black imps tormenting the residents with pitchforks. In fact, the residents of hell were seated at a huge banquet table with all kinds of delicacies in front of them. They were lamenting bitterly, though, because none of them had elbows and they couldn’t get the food to their hungry mouths. God then took the saint to heaven. The scene was the same. The residents were seated at a banquet table there, too, with the same delicious food in front of them. None of the heavenly residents had elbows, either. But the scene was entirely different. The people in heaven were rejoicing, because they fed one another.

Have we practiced for the coming of the Kingdom? Have we considered the hunger of others when we go shopping at Kroger? Have we been as concerned about the clothing on the back of a poverty-stricken child as much as the clothing in our own walk-in closets? Have we worried about the availability of health care for others, or only about the cost of our own? Have we tried to connect with people who are different than we are, or do we just ignore them? Maybe we need to look around and realize that Jesus is in every one of them. OK, saints, so practice starts right now! After all, we want to be ready for the big game! And God wants us to be ready, too.

 

Two Winds, One Spirit

The election is over. Finally. This seemed to me to be to be the election season that would never end; and maybe some of you feel the same way. And now, we are called to begin the work of reconciliation. Here are my thoughts about that, and about the Spirit that leads us on.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the wind this week. Maybe that’s because last Sunday, a strong cold front blew through this area with lots and lots of wind. That wind last week was pretty strong; strong enough to blow my heavy plastic Adirondack chairs all the way across our deck! And last week’s wind couldn’t compare to the power of hurricane winds. Hurricane winds move a lot more than plastic deck chairs. Hurricane winds push boats up onto the beach, carry cars away, and destroy small buildings. But the most powerful of all winds are tornados. When they hit, house trailers, semi trucks, and even whole houses can be destroyed and scattered across the countryside like so many matchsticks. We ignore the power of the wind at our peril.

In the biblical text, the wind has long been identified with God’s Spirit. That Spirit blows where it wants to, and brings about all kinds of things we never expected. And sometimes the Spirit moves with the power of a hurricane! Writer Annie Dillard reminded us of the power of the Spirit when she wrote, “Churches are like children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT…. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.” If you think that she’s exaggerating, just look at how the Spirit moved on the very first Pentecost. Jesus’ disciples gathered one morning to pray, share a pot of coffee, and eat a few doughnuts; but then the Spirit blew through the room like a hurricane and everything changed. They were all filled with the spirit and could suddenly speak languages that they had never even heard before! The flames that danced on their heads that mroning get all the press, but it was the wind of the Spirit that blew those flames in! When the Spirit moves with that kind of power, it can cause a lot of commotion! Some of the people in Jerusalem that day were puzzled, wanting to understand what had happened; but others were less than impressed. They just laughed, saying that all the disciples were drunk. I’ve often wondered if any of the ones who laughed stayed around long enough to hear the sermon that Peter gave later that morning – the one that converted three thousand people. I imagine that, while some stayed, others went home jeering. Maybe they were even some of the Jews who ended up persecuting the Christians. Whenever the Spirit blows with hurricane force, it causes a reaction, both in those who are filled with it, and in those who aren’t impressed at all.

I wonder if much of the social upheaval that we are seeing these days is a result of the Spirit blowing with that kind of hurricane force. The Black Lives Matter movement insists that blacks be treated fairly, not targeted because of their skin color. The LGBTQ community is asking that they have the same opportunities as everyone else in society. People who take the threat of COVID-19 seriously are asking that everyone wear a mask to protect those who are the most at risk. And environmental activists remind us daily that our entire planet is at risk. It seems to me that the Spirit is blowing powerfully in our country today, insisting that all people are equal, urging us to care for others as much as we care for ourselves, and reminding us that that God asks us to be stewards of creation, not its exploiters. And that movement of the Spirit has sparked violent reactions from those who are threatened by it. White supremacists surround protestors who support Black Lives Matter and threaten violence. Mobs gather weapons and march on the offices of governors who dare ask them to behave in consideration of the common good. Corporations that harvest fossil fuels and clear-cut forests pay millions to be able to use the earth solely for their own profit. Yes, whenever the Spirit blows with power, there are those who feel threatened, because they don’t like the changes that the Spirit brings.

But even as we witness the incredible power of the Spirit blowing through our society, stirring us up like leaves that have fallen on an autumn lawn, we remember that the Spirit doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes the Spirit works in whispers that are almost too faint to hear. When that happens, the wind of the Spirit is less like a hurricane and more like the breath of a sleeping baby, almost too faint to perceive. The Spirit spoke to Elijah that way. Elijah had run to Mount Horeb to encounter God, expecting to hear God in the blowing of a mighty wind, in a great earthquake, or in the midst of a fire. Instead, Elijah heard God’s voice as a whisper that was almost too faint to hear. I’m convinced that while the Spirit sometimes moves through our world with hurricane force, that same Spirit works in the human heart through whispers like the one Elijah heard. Those whispers remind us of who we are as the people of God; and of what we’re supposed to be doing. God calls us to be compassionate, patient, and loving with all people, not just the ones who share our political and religious convictions. God calls us to listen to others, opening our ears more than we open our mouths. God calls us to act with conviction, but to base those convictions on the good of others. I do believe that the Spirit blows through our society, upending our old assumptions and overturning our dysfunctional systems; but I also believe that we focus too much on that hurricane force and neglect the Spirit’s whispers.

Maybe that’s one reason why our country is in such bad shape right now. We have watched the Spirit sweeping through our society, and we have taken sides. We love the Black Lives Matter movement or we loathe it. We support our elected leaders or we detest them. We forget that behind every movement, every opinion poll, every vote are people – real, human beings – who have reasons for doing what they do. We feel anxious, afraid, and threatened; and so do they! We have focused so much on which opinion others have that we have missed the people who have those opinions! We have neglected the whispers of the Spirit calling us to listen to one another, to have compassion on one another, and to remember that our own reactions to what happens in the world around us are not the reactions of everyone! Compassion, patience, and humility are in short supply these days; and the Spirit is trying her best to remind us of that.

I read part of an essay by Christian writer Jen Hatmaker last night. She wrote it on the eve of the recent election, not knowing what the results would be. Her opinion, though, was that it didn’t matter who won – at least, not as far as our behavior as Christians is concerned. This is what she wrote. “[Regardless of who wins this election,] Our marching orders are the same. We are still about the same things we've always been about! We will still love our neighbors and resist fear. We will stick up for the marginalized and protect the vulnerable. We will show up for the hard work of good citizenship and remain faithful to God and [to] each other. We will insist on bringing hope and grace and strength and love to this busted up world. We will not malign people out of fear or confusion. We will love God and love people; and that is the same basic plan it has always been.” Love God and love other people. That’s what the Spirit is whispering to us right now, even as she sweeps through the world bringing changes yet undreamed of. “This is the day that the Lord has made,” said the psalmist. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it!” As we rejoice, let’s listen for the whispers of the Spirit. It is through her love and wisdom that God will lead us on.