Thanksgiving Eve Service â November 25, 2015 Vicar Brian ...
Thanksgiving Eve Service – November 25, 2015 Vicar Brian Middleswarth The text for tonight comes from the latter part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount from Matthew. Prior to this reading Jesus has taught on a wide variety of things from heightening the Ten Commandments concerning murder and adultery, to loving our enemies, to how we pray, and now to our relationship with wealth and material things. Do not worry, be pulled apart by anxiety, Jesus says, about your life; what you will eat, drink, and wear. Is not who we are more than the food we eat, the things we drink, the clothes we wear? Is not life, our very soul, about more than food, more than clothes? Look at the birds, they don’t work a 9-5 and store away food and grain, but God feeds them. Aren’t you of more value to God, in whose image you are created, than they are? Don’t worry, trust God! Also, does this anxiety, this being pulled apart about these things, actually add one hour to your life? Give you one more breath if your time has come? Can we control even that about our lives? No! So, don’t be torn up over your clothes. Instead, study nature and learn about how God works from it. For example, look at the flowers of the prairie; do they work to exhaustion to produce their vibrant colors? No, they grow as God has made them to, through the sunshine and rain God provides. So, if God will do that for flowers that live only for a season. How much more will God clothe us since we live for many years? Don’t worry, trust God!
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Don’t be pulled apart over what you will eat, drink, or wear. It is those outside the faith who seek after these things. Their goal is to accumulate wealth, thinking that by doing so they can overcome their anxiety, so that through their accumulated stuff they might feel safe and cared for, saved. Now God understands that we need food, drink, and clothes. God knows that these things are necessary for our life. After all, God is the one who created that need in us. And God will provide what we need. Don’t worry, trust God! As believers in God, Jesus says, our concern, our focus, is on God’s Kingdom and being right with God. Pursue this and the rest will come. Don’t worry, trust God! Don’t worry, trust God! For a simple message, this can be pretty challenging. For me, in my relative affluence, and for other folks in a similar position, I think there are two challenges here, both related to our faith. The first is the worry about ourselves. The second is in the pursuit of the Kingdom. The worry that Jesus warns against is an anxiety that pulls us apart. It isn’t some mild concern or being attentive to these things but something that tears at our life and well-being. As Jesus seems to understand it, this worry is based in a fundamental lack of understanding our relationship with God and where our food, shelter, and clothing comes from. Don’t worry, Jesus says, it doesn’t do any good. Does your tearing yourself up over anything actually change the outcome? No. All it will do is give you ulcers and lead to an anxious life. You worry, Jesus seems to say, because you don’t remember the natural order of things. Study nature to see how God works. Birds, flowers, trees all of these are provided for by God. But these are not made in God’s image. So, if God will care Middleswarth 2
for the rest of creation, won’t God do the same for you? Now, it doesn’t say that we won’t need to work or plan to get what we need, but that ultimately God will provide, so relax. This is an echo from Israel’s time in the wilderness. They too didn’t remember how God worked. They had been in slavery in Egypt where Pharaoh controlled what and how much they ate. Where Pharaoh seemed to be the source of their food, drink, and shelter. God needed to remind them how things really worked. That even Pharaoh got the food from somewhere else. So God provided manna. Enough for each day. Now, the Israelites did need to collect what God provided, but what happened if you try and store some away for the future? Took more than you needed for the day? Well, it spoiled. In this way God reminded the Israelites to trust God and God alone for their food. Reminded them that God provides what they need for each day. Even in the wilderness. Jesus points to the natural world as the “manna moment” for his disciples. Look how God cares for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, he says. There is enough for them and they don’t labor as you do. How much more will God provide for you? Trust God to do that. This trust is challenging enough for those of us who have relative wealth and privilege. But how does this text sound to those for whom it is a daily struggle to earn enough to provide food for their bellies, clothes on their back, a place to rest their heads? There must be some incredulity, what do you mean don’t worry! I never know where my next meal is coming from or where I will lay my head. There is good news here, that God does provide enough each day for us to go on. However, I think in this sense, the challenge actually falls on those of us who have means and on what Jesus says we should focus on instead of our worry. Middleswarth 3
God’s Kingdom and our relationship with God should be our first concern. God’s kingdom is a reflection of the natural order that Jesus is pointing out earlier in the passage. That the Jews are reminded of through manna in the wilderness. In God’s kingdom, there is enough in this world for everyone to have what they need. Our call is to love God with all our being and trust that promise for us, and to love our neighbor enough to be a means by which God provides for them when they don’t have enough. So that they too may not worry about what they will eat, drink, or wear. No one ought to be torn apart by anxiety over their next meal, having a warm coat in cold weather, having a place to sleep. Even the birds in the air have nests in the trees. Even the cows in the field have grass to eat. So, as members of the Body of Christ, what we are called to do is be a means by which God makes sure that everyone has enough for the day. To be faithful in that care so that they do not have to be torn apart by anxiety, but can focus themselves on the Kingdom of God and their relationship with God. Another way we can remind ourselves of who ultimately provides for us is through the practice of giving thanks to God for what we have. The fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Give us today our daily bread, points to God as the source of our daily bread. Martin Luther in his Small Catechism says that God gives daily bread to all whether we pray this prayer or not. But by praying it, we ask that God would help us to recognize what our daily bread is and to receive it with thanksgiving. What is daily bread according to Luther? Everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies; food, drink, clothing, shoes, farm, money, property, upright rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor… it is everything we have.
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It is God, not ourselves, who provides these things. But we forget. Or we don’t trust that God will provide all that we need (back to the “do not worry” issue). So, we tuck a little bit away, just in case. Or maybe it’s a lot. And then we begin to think we are the ones who are providing this food. That we are the authors of our own wealth and success. This way leads to trouble. One of my favorite shows was Home Improvement. I appreciated Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor and his striving to be the best dad and husband he could be. One of my favorite episodes was one that I have often used to talk with Confirmation Students about thankfulness. Tim’s three boys are having trouble with bad behavior at the dinner table. Jill, Tim’s wife, is fed up with all the chaos and just wants a quiet, stress free dinner. As Tim strives to provide this, he approaches his neighbor, Wilson, for advice on how to settle the boys down at the table. Wilson suggests that their rudeness might be because they don’t have respect for their food and where it comes from, they don’t have any gratitude for it. In the past, the boys would have hunted their meal, been involved in the work to get it to the table. This might lead them to be more thankful for that meal and might also make them more respectful of those around the table. So Tim, in his own unique way, has the boys “hunt” the chicken they are having for dinner. In this way they have some sense of how the meal they are eating was provided. They have some sense of thankfulness for the bounty at their table. Lesson learned, Jill gets her quiet, stress free dinner, mostly because Tim wore the boys out and they were asleep at the table. Luther understands that the purpose of our prayer for daily bread, much like the “hunt” that Tim organized for his boys, is to point us past the immediate meal, or clothing, or shelter and to the ultimate provider of all we have. God. It is a means of stopping ourselves from skipping right past God in the rush of our lives. The thank you for what we have also points beyond ourselves to the many people who Middleswarth 5
have played a part in our having this meal. The farmers who grew it, farm laborers who harvested it, the buyers who paid for it, truckers who got it to the distribution center, workers who packaged it, the railroads who transported it, the stockers in the grocery store who put it on the shelves, the cashiers who helped us check out. All of these are part of the way in which God has provided what we have. This realization also reminds us that we too are a means by which others receive their daily bread and that this bread does not come from us, but ultimately from God. Don’t worry, trust God. Have faith that God will provide what you need when you need it; not necessarily out of the blue for no reason, but through means; our vocations and labor and the generosity and labor of those around us. Give thanks to God. Don’t forget where what we have ultimately comes from. Through our thanks, be reminded that we too are a means for daily bread to come to others. In the midst of the business of family and friends gathering, cooking and setting the table, traveling to and fro. Take a moment to stop. Release your anxiety, and give thanks for God’s daily bread of food, shelter, clothing, friends, and family. And hear the call this gives for us to be a means for God to provide that to others. Don’t worry, trust God. Thanks be to God!
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Don’t be pulled apart over what you will eat, drink, or wear. It is those outside the faith who seek after these things. Their goal is to accumulate wealth, thinking that by doing so they can overcome their anxiety, so that through their accumulated stuff they might feel safe and cared for, saved. Now God understands that we need food, drink, and clothes. God knows that these things are necessary for our life. After all, God is the one who created that need in us. And God will provide what we need. Don’t worry, trust God! As believers in God, Jesus says, our concern, our focus, is on God’s Kingdom and being right with God. Pursue this and the rest will come. Don’t worry, trust God! Don’t worry, trust God! For a simple message, this can be pretty challenging. For me, in my relative affluence, and for other folks in a similar position, I think there are two challenges here, both related to our faith. The first is the worry about ourselves. The second is in the pursuit of the Kingdom. The worry that Jesus warns against is an anxiety that pulls us apart. It isn’t some mild concern or being attentive to these things but something that tears at our life and well-being. As Jesus seems to understand it, this worry is based in a fundamental lack of understanding our relationship with God and where our food, shelter, and clothing comes from. Don’t worry, Jesus says, it doesn’t do any good. Does your tearing yourself up over anything actually change the outcome? No. All it will do is give you ulcers and lead to an anxious life. You worry, Jesus seems to say, because you don’t remember the natural order of things. Study nature to see how God works. Birds, flowers, trees all of these are provided for by God. But these are not made in God’s image. So, if God will care Middleswarth 2
for the rest of creation, won’t God do the same for you? Now, it doesn’t say that we won’t need to work or plan to get what we need, but that ultimately God will provide, so relax. This is an echo from Israel’s time in the wilderness. They too didn’t remember how God worked. They had been in slavery in Egypt where Pharaoh controlled what and how much they ate. Where Pharaoh seemed to be the source of their food, drink, and shelter. God needed to remind them how things really worked. That even Pharaoh got the food from somewhere else. So God provided manna. Enough for each day. Now, the Israelites did need to collect what God provided, but what happened if you try and store some away for the future? Took more than you needed for the day? Well, it spoiled. In this way God reminded the Israelites to trust God and God alone for their food. Reminded them that God provides what they need for each day. Even in the wilderness. Jesus points to the natural world as the “manna moment” for his disciples. Look how God cares for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, he says. There is enough for them and they don’t labor as you do. How much more will God provide for you? Trust God to do that. This trust is challenging enough for those of us who have relative wealth and privilege. But how does this text sound to those for whom it is a daily struggle to earn enough to provide food for their bellies, clothes on their back, a place to rest their heads? There must be some incredulity, what do you mean don’t worry! I never know where my next meal is coming from or where I will lay my head. There is good news here, that God does provide enough each day for us to go on. However, I think in this sense, the challenge actually falls on those of us who have means and on what Jesus says we should focus on instead of our worry. Middleswarth 3
God’s Kingdom and our relationship with God should be our first concern. God’s kingdom is a reflection of the natural order that Jesus is pointing out earlier in the passage. That the Jews are reminded of through manna in the wilderness. In God’s kingdom, there is enough in this world for everyone to have what they need. Our call is to love God with all our being and trust that promise for us, and to love our neighbor enough to be a means by which God provides for them when they don’t have enough. So that they too may not worry about what they will eat, drink, or wear. No one ought to be torn apart by anxiety over their next meal, having a warm coat in cold weather, having a place to sleep. Even the birds in the air have nests in the trees. Even the cows in the field have grass to eat. So, as members of the Body of Christ, what we are called to do is be a means by which God makes sure that everyone has enough for the day. To be faithful in that care so that they do not have to be torn apart by anxiety, but can focus themselves on the Kingdom of God and their relationship with God. Another way we can remind ourselves of who ultimately provides for us is through the practice of giving thanks to God for what we have. The fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Give us today our daily bread, points to God as the source of our daily bread. Martin Luther in his Small Catechism says that God gives daily bread to all whether we pray this prayer or not. But by praying it, we ask that God would help us to recognize what our daily bread is and to receive it with thanksgiving. What is daily bread according to Luther? Everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies; food, drink, clothing, shoes, farm, money, property, upright rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor… it is everything we have.
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It is God, not ourselves, who provides these things. But we forget. Or we don’t trust that God will provide all that we need (back to the “do not worry” issue). So, we tuck a little bit away, just in case. Or maybe it’s a lot. And then we begin to think we are the ones who are providing this food. That we are the authors of our own wealth and success. This way leads to trouble. One of my favorite shows was Home Improvement. I appreciated Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor and his striving to be the best dad and husband he could be. One of my favorite episodes was one that I have often used to talk with Confirmation Students about thankfulness. Tim’s three boys are having trouble with bad behavior at the dinner table. Jill, Tim’s wife, is fed up with all the chaos and just wants a quiet, stress free dinner. As Tim strives to provide this, he approaches his neighbor, Wilson, for advice on how to settle the boys down at the table. Wilson suggests that their rudeness might be because they don’t have respect for their food and where it comes from, they don’t have any gratitude for it. In the past, the boys would have hunted their meal, been involved in the work to get it to the table. This might lead them to be more thankful for that meal and might also make them more respectful of those around the table. So Tim, in his own unique way, has the boys “hunt” the chicken they are having for dinner. In this way they have some sense of how the meal they are eating was provided. They have some sense of thankfulness for the bounty at their table. Lesson learned, Jill gets her quiet, stress free dinner, mostly because Tim wore the boys out and they were asleep at the table. Luther understands that the purpose of our prayer for daily bread, much like the “hunt” that Tim organized for his boys, is to point us past the immediate meal, or clothing, or shelter and to the ultimate provider of all we have. God. It is a means of stopping ourselves from skipping right past God in the rush of our lives. The thank you for what we have also points beyond ourselves to the many people who Middleswarth 5
have played a part in our having this meal. The farmers who grew it, farm laborers who harvested it, the buyers who paid for it, truckers who got it to the distribution center, workers who packaged it, the railroads who transported it, the stockers in the grocery store who put it on the shelves, the cashiers who helped us check out. All of these are part of the way in which God has provided what we have. This realization also reminds us that we too are a means by which others receive their daily bread and that this bread does not come from us, but ultimately from God. Don’t worry, trust God. Have faith that God will provide what you need when you need it; not necessarily out of the blue for no reason, but through means; our vocations and labor and the generosity and labor of those around us. Give thanks to God. Don’t forget where what we have ultimately comes from. Through our thanks, be reminded that we too are a means for daily bread to come to others. In the midst of the business of family and friends gathering, cooking and setting the table, traveling to and fro. Take a moment to stop. Release your anxiety, and give thanks for God’s daily bread of food, shelter, clothing, friends, and family. And hear the call this gives for us to be a means for God to provide that to others. Don’t worry, trust God. Thanks be to God!
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