Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
November 18, 2007
Habakkuk 3:17-18, Ephesians 5:15-20
In spite of our often romantic Currier and Ives-type images, that first Thanksgiving was actually rather harrowing. Half of those hearty souls - our Congregational forebears - who left England on the Mayflower and landed on the shores of New England, died after one year in the new world. All but three families dug graves in that rocky soil to bury a husband, wife, or child. They had brought plants and seeds with them, along with provisions for that first winter. The barley they planted did poorly. The peas failed altogether. Starvation was a real possibility.
But these were also people of faith, people of the Bible. And we really don't know the Pilgrims if we don't know this. They knew about ancient Israel's harvest festival, how Israel, at the end of a successful harvest, thanked God for the bounty of creation and for giving them their freedom as a people. They would also have known the words from Habakkuk, which we heard today; "Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines...yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exalt in the God of my salvation." In the words of Presbyterian pastor, John Buchanan, "The Pilgrim fathers and mothers read their own story in the light of Israel's story. God is thanked for the harvest, but also for something more, something not actually dependent on a successful harvest; namely, for God's presence and grace and love. The Pilgrims thanked God for enough corn to survive the winter, but they were also thanking God for the guiding presence they had experienced, the strong hand they felt leading them, and the love that had sustained them. They understood that God is to be thanked in the good times and in the not-so-good times."
Well, that's the hard part, isn’t it. I mean, giving thanks in the good times - when there is a fire in the fireplace and food on the table and everyone is well and happy - well, anyone can do that. But giving thanks in the not-so-good times, when you are cold and alone and far from home, well, that's a different story. The great theologian, Karl Barth, once said that the basic human response to God is not fear and trembling, not guilt and dread, but thanksgiving. "What else can we say to what God gives us but to stammer praise?" Barth asked. Ah, to stammer praise, in good times and bad - the Pilgrims understood this, as did old Habakkuk..."Yet I will rejoice in the Lord"...as did the Apostle Paul, telling the Ephesians to give thanks, "at all times and for everything." Words written from prison...not exactly an easy place from which to speak of thanksgiving. But how could they do this? How could the Pilgrims, Paul and so many others possibly speak of thanksgiving in the midst of all they had suffered.
A story told by Fred Craddock. "When I was a boy, I liked to lie on the grass - just lie there, chew the tender stems of grass and look up at the sky. Once my father came out and said to me, 'Son, how far can you think?' I said, 'What?' He said again, 'How far can you think?'
"' I don't know what you mean.'
"'Well, just think as far as you can up toward the stars'
"So I screwed my imagination down, and I said, 'I'm thinking...I'm thinking'
"'Think as far as you can' he said.
"'I am,' I said, 'I'm thinking as far as I can think'
"He said, 'Well then, drive down a stake out there, here and now. In your mind, drive down a stake. Have you driven down that stake? That's how far you can think.'
"I said, 'Yes sir, I've done it'
"'Then he asked, 'Now, what's on the other side of your stake?'
"I said, 'Well, there's more sky.'
"'Then you better move your stake,' he said."
Says Craddock, "We spent the entire evening moving my stake further out there. It was a crazy thing to do, but I have never been able to thank him enough for doing it.”
It seems to me that this is precisely what thanksgiving does for us. It moves our stake, it broadens our vision, it opens us to so much more than our own trials and needs, our own worries and cares. I think of Rabbi Abraham Heschel, truly one of the saints of the 20th century. I've shared this story before. Late in his life, he suffered a serious heart attack from which he never fully recovered. A friend who visited him in the hospital found him weak and barely able to talk. But Heschel could whisper this. "Sam," he said, "when I first regained consciousness, my first feeling was not despair and anger. I felt only gratitude to God. Gratitude for my life, for every moment I have lived. I have seen so many miracles."
Ah, don't you wish you could say that some day? I known I do. And it seems to me that the key to that kind of appreciation, that which opens us to a fresh awareness of all the daily miracles around us, of the giftedness of life; what moves our stake ever further outward, is the spirit of thanksgiving, thanksgiving in all things. The older I get, the more I'm convinced of it
Have you ever heard this prayer? "Lord, thank you for this sink of dirty dishes, we have good food to eat. Thank you for this big pile of dirty clothes, we have them to wear. Thank you for these unmade beds, they were all comfortable last night. Thank you for this finger-smudged refrigerator that needs defrosting so badly, it has served us faithfully for a long time. Thank you for that slamming door, the children are healthy and able to run and play. Lord, the presence of all these chores awaiting me says that you have richly blessed this family. So I shall do them all gratefully" A little too sentimental? A little maudlin, perhaps? Maybe. But do you see how an attitude of thanksgiving, an openness to and indeed an expectation of blessing, can change our perspective on even the most common aspects of our daily life?
It was that great preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick, who made this point better than I when he said, ”If one should give me a dish of sand and tell me that there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes and search for them with my clumsy fingers and never detect them. But let me take a magnet and sweep through that dish of sand, and the magnet would draw those tiny particles of iron to it through the power of the magnet's attraction. The unthankful heart is like my finger in the sand. It discovers no mercy. But let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find in every hour some heavenly blessing, only the iron in God's hand is gold."
Now, I know, we all live, in the words of singer, songwriter Leon Russell, up on a tight wire suspended, in his words, between fire and ice...or between sorrow and joy, between the terrors and delights of life. Indeed it often seems that that which brings us our greatest delight can also cause our deepest pain. And I do not, in any way, want to downplay or gloss over or trivialize the pain and loss we experience. Life isn't all good, but it also isn't all bad. And so how do we learn to live with this ambiguity? How to affirm that life is blessing and gift, even with all its imperfections?
And again, I believe a key is thankfulness, gratitude for everything. As a thankful heart sweeps through the day, it opens us to the essential fullness and goodness of the life God has given us, to original blessing - the awareness that, even in our troubles and trials, truly goodness and mercy have followed and sustained us all the days of our life. What a wonder it is, Lewis Smedes once said, simply to wake up each day to another day of conscious living among conscious neighbors. Gratitude - it moves our stakes.
Yes, our Pilgrim forebears knew more than their share of sorrow and pain. Who would have blamed them if they had given up, given in, packed up and gone back to England. And you could say the same for Abraham Heschel, or Habakkuk, or Paul. But they didn't. Instead, incredibly, they spoke of thanksgiving, of grace, of faith in a God who stayed present with them through it all, working in and through them to bring blessing and newness, even out of what seemed to be unredeemable wreckage. My old friend and mentor, Bill Nelson, said it like this: "They received Life, just as it came to them, in its pain and beauty, as a gift from God. They accepted the gift and made everything they could out of it. They took nothing for granted. They did not ask: what is the world coming to or why didn't the world treat me differently? They did not complain because water is wet or rocks are hard. They did ask: what can I give to the world in gratitude for simply having been part of its wonder and mystery... for having been invited by God to this great banquet of life."
It was that grand old preacher, Carlyle Marney, who said, and I've shared this with you, “Roses grow out of horse manure. So if we live in a world where roses grow out of horse manure, who are we to despair?" Roses out of horse manure... I don't know why I can't think up illustrations like that? But it is the spirit of thanksgiving, you see, that opens us to the beauty and the fragrance of the roses. Please, by the grace of God, don't miss them.