Wandering Britons Were My Ancestors
Reflections on Deuteronomy 26.1-11
RCL Thanksgiving C
9 October 2016
Saint Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
26.1 When you have
come into the land that the Lord
your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and
settle in it, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of
the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a
basket and go to the place that the Lord
your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3 You shall go to the priest who
is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the
land that the Lord swore to our
ancestors to give us.” 4 When
the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of
the Lord your God, 5
you shall make this response before the Lord
your God: “A wandering Aramean was my
ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number,
and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6 When the Egyptians treated us
harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, 7 we cried
to the Lord, the God of our
ancestors; the Lord heard our
voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and
wonders; 9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land,
a land flowing with milk and honey. 10
So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. 11 Then you, together with the
Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the
bounty that the Lord your God has
given to you and to your house.”
I
cannot remember how one of the more important conversations in my life started,
but I can remember what I learned. I was
talking with Fr Joseph Hunt, may he rest in peace and rise in glory, who was my
professor of Hebrew Bible at Nashotah House.
Fr Hunt had been a Benedictine monk before alcoholism and restrictions
on his freedom to teach led him out of the monastery and on the road to
recovery and ministry within the Episcopal Church in the United States.
I
think we were talking about the reciprocal relationship between host and
guest. It is, of course, the host’s
responsibility to make her or his guest as comfortable as possible. But Fr Hunt reminded me that it is a guest’s
responsibility to accept the hospitality that is offered as genuine and to
avoid making any value judgements on the quality of hospitality offered. ‘If you want salt and there is no salt on the
table,’ Fr Hunt said, ‘you do not ask.
It is possible that one’s host has no salt. Even if you are asked whether something is
lacking, you should offer thanks for what has been offered and ask for nothing
more. Everything is gift, whether great
or small, and gratitude is the only proper response.’
Over
the years I have tried to follow in the path of Fr Hunt’s wisdom, but I admit
to repeated failures to do so. One of
the sins that constantly affects me is the sin of envy. When I hear of the fabulous trips that
friends have recently enjoyed or I ponder why I do not have everything I want,
I am often deaf to Fr Hunt’s words. I do
not give thanks for the stories my friends share with me about their adventures
nor do I thank God, my parents and my friends for all the many gifts and
experiences I have enjoyed over the years.
When
we are not able to see what we have and who we are as a gift, we may find
ourselves plagued with a pernicious spiritual disease, a virus called
‘entitlement’. Our employers, our
friends, our families, our world ‘owe’ us certain things and we are wronged
when we do not receive them. But the
darker side of entitlement is the temptation to deny others the dignity, the
compassion, the justice which God intends for all of us. My needs, whether material, emotional or
spiritual, begin to define the boundaries of the world in which I live. Other people are competitors for the ‘goods’
of life or become means to my ends. We
begin to live in a world of scarcity rather than abundance.
One
of the symptoms of entitlement is amnesia. We forget any stories that contradict our
perception of the world. We get angry
when someone or some community dares to suggest that there are other dimensions
to the story.
For
example, today’s reading from Deuteronomy tells the story of the migration of
the people of Israel into the land of Canaan from the perspective of a
community of nomads who fled slavery in Egypt and believed that God had a place
for them. And so God did indeed have a
place for them, a land flowing with milk and honey. There they settled down, raised crops and
families and gave rise to the religious tradition from which our own is
descended.
But
what story would the Canaanites tell?
Their story is not part of the historical record you and I read as part
of our Scriptures. The silence of the
Canaanites is a silence which continues to haunt us to this day. While the conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians has many causes and there are wrongs perpetrated by both sides,
Israelis cannot forget the Canaanites nor can Palestinians forget the
Holocaust. It is this amnesia that
provides some fuel for the fires that consume the region.
This
weekend our country celebrates Harvest Thanksgiving and, in a month’s time, our
neighbours to the south will celebrate their Thanksgiving. It is right and proper to give thanks for the
abundance our two countries share. But
if our thanksgiving is not tempered by remembering that our abundance is gift
not entitlement and by forgetting how our abundance has come at the cost of
others, then our abundance will only feed entitlement.
For
Anglican Christians every Sunday is Thanksgiving. In the eucharist we begin by remembering our
past by listening to the words of the sages, the prophets, the evangelists and
the apostolic writers. But even as we
hear these words, we are called to ask whose words and whose stories we do not
hear. And so we offer our intercessions,
our thanksgivings and our petitions, words which remind us of the untold
stories, the forgotten needs, the past acts of generosity. And then we offer thanks by taking bread and
wine and asking God to use them to empower us to become generous agents of the
One who brings us out of darkness into light, out of forgetfulness into
mindfulness. Then we go forth
- to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers
- to persevere in resisting evil and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord
- to proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ
- to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbour as ourself
- to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being
- to strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth.
My
friends, wandering Britons were my ancestors.
They came to the shores of this continent and found it a safe harbour
from the pursuit of political enemies.
Here they started families and worked the land. They prospered. But they forget why they came here and they
enslaved and exploited other peoples, both those were indigenous and those who
were transported from other places to be sold.
But by God’s grace my ancestors’ descendants began to remember and we
will not forget the whole story. And
together with those whose stories we forgot, we give thanks that a new future
is possible and we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, our hearts and our
hands, to bring that future into being.
Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we
can ask or imagine.
1 comment:
Brilliant. Thank you Richard.
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