Thanksgiving Sunday
12 October 2014
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
Readings: Joel 2.21-27; Psalm 126; 1 Timothy 2.1-7;
Matthew 6.25-33
As
many of you may know, I have been an Anglican all my life. I was baptized in the Church of Saint Mary in
East Molesey near Hampton Court Palace in July of 1953. My sister and I became charter members of
Saint Michael’s Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs in 1963. Two years later I was confirmed by Bishop
Thayer at Grace Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs. Sixteen years after my confirmation I was
ordained deacon in my home parish and, six months later, priest at the
Cathedral of Saint John in the Wilderness in Denver. My whole life has been spent within the
embrace of this community of faith. Some
people might even say that I have spent my whole life ‘confined’ within an
Anglican cocoon.
So,
on this Thanksgiving weekend, I think that no one will be surprised that I draw
upon this Anglican heritage to offer some reflections on what it means to offer
thanks to God. Given the turmoil that
surrounds us in the world today, some may think, even in the Christian
community, that there is little to reason to give thanks to God or that it mean
seem insensitive to the needs and concerns of others to do so. But it is precisely in times such as these
that we need to live our lives in gratitude.
For
most of my life, until the ‘new’ American prayer book of 1979, every
celebration of the holy communion included the presider saying or singing these
words: “It is very meet, right, and our
bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto
thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God . . . .” Following this introduction the presider would
give a specific reason why, on this Sunday or holy day, we were lifting up our
hearts to give thanks to the living God, the source of all life, the creator of
all things, visible and invisible.
These
words echoed through my home parish on every Sunday of the Vietnam War. These words echoed through my home parish on
every Sunday of the struggle for civil rights of the 1960’s. This words echoed through my home parish on
the Sunday following 4th of July floods that swept away homes and
lives in 1976 as Colorado was celebrating the centennial of statehood and the
United States the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. And, when the presider finished singing these
words and those that followed, we the people of God responded by singing the
ancient hymn of Isaiah: “Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord most high.”
Were
we ignorant of what was going on around us?
No, we were not ignorant. Did we
not care about what was going on around us?
Yes, we did care. So, why were we
praising God? For what gifts were we
giving thanks? As a young boy I probably
was giving thanks that I had a secure home, food on the table, a family who
cared for me, teachers who taught well and friends who enriched my life. These are gifts worth giving thanks for, but
it does not explain why we give thanks when things are not well for others in
our world.
It
was later that I heard words for the first time that words that have helped me
understand how it is possible to give thanks to God even in the worst of
times. These words were written by a
layman, Howard Galley, whose eucharistic prayer was included in the American
prayer book:
Lord God of our Fathers; God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob; God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver us from the presumption of coming to
this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for
renewal. Let the grace of this Holy
Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve
the word in his name. (The Book of
Common Prayer 1979, 372)
We
give thanks because, even in the worst of times, we can see the hand of God at
work in the world around us: aid workers
who risk their lives to minister to the sick, to refugees and to those caught
in zones of conflict; young women who risk their lives to advocate for
education of girls; older men who risk their lives to rescue children caught in
the web of child-labour. We give thanks
because, in receiving the gift of the body and blood of Christ under the signs
of bread and wine, we feel his life moving within us and helping us, even in
the worst of times, to ‘do more than we can ask or imagine'. We give thanks because, even in the most
difficult of times, we are willing to acknowledge both our failure to act at
all and our failures to act faithfully, not to beat our breasts in self-pity,
but to be renewed to be God’s people in the world.
It
is right, good and a joyful thing to praise God at all times and in all places
because, in the act of praising and thanking God, we remember that all things
come to us from God and that we are only the stewards not the possessors of the
bounty of God. This remembering stirs up
within us the will to act in ways that enable these gifts to be shared by all
our sisters and brothers. Times such as
ours when, in the name of God, people persecute the people of God; when, in the
name of security, authorities restrict the freedom of their people to speak out
about injustice; when, in the name of present prosperity, we exploit the
resources of ‘this fragile earth, our island home’; it is right to give thanks
to God in order to bring us to our right minds and right spirits.
So,
whether we have a festive meal today or tomorrow, let Tuesday see us
remembering who we are and what we are called to be. Let Tuesday find us setting our minds on
God’s kingdom and on God’s justice before everything else (cf. Matthew 6.33 in
the Revised English Bible). Let Tuesday
find us praising and thanking God at all times and in all places by the lives
we live as salt for the earth, a light to enlighten the nations and agents of
God’s reign of justice and peace. Amen.
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