Sermon: Thanksgiving plus ...
Thanksgiving is a harvest festival -- and more, and it’s the “and more” that I want to think about, because sometimes it’s the “and more” that we really need.
The history of Thanksgiving as we know it in Canada dates back to 1578 and the third voyage of the English explorer Martin Frobisher. Frobisher had been to the New World twice before searching for a Northwest Passage, and this time he was also to establish a small settlement. He set out with 15 ships, but along the way one -- the one with almost all the building materials for the settlement, was lost in a collision with ice. More ice and freak storms continued, scattering the rest of the fleet, and the crews feared for their survival. When they finally re-united at their anchorage in Frobisher Bay, the crews landed and Robert Wolfall, their minister and chaplain, preached what was called a godly sermon, exhorting the men to be thankful to God for their miraculous deliverance through dangerous places, and they shared in communion as a sign and seal of their death and resurrection in Christ.
A generation later the French attempted a settlement on Ste. Croix Island in the Bay of Fundy with almost 200 men landing on the island in 1604. The site was so poor and disease-susceptible that by spring of 1606, only 75 severely weakened men were left to carry on. Samuel de Champlain, one of the officers, moved the settlement across the Bay to Port Royale -- a more hospitable site, and some historians suggest that even then the settlement survived mostly because in November of that year Champlain created the Order of Good Cheer -- a weekly gathering through the winter months of all Order members and some of the local First Nations people to feast and to celebrate the gifts they were given, to give thanks for what they could do, and to encourage one another in counting and sharing their blessings.
Fifteen years later, it was the Pilgrims’ turn in Massachusetts. In 1620 when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock they were ill prepared for the New World. They struggled to survive the first winter with poor shelter, insufficient food, and no experience of New World agriculture and fishing. The next year the nearby Wampanoag tribe reached out to them -- taught them to fish for eel and to grow corn, and when the harvest that fall was bountiful, 53 Pilgrims and 90 members of the Wampanoag tribe shared a three-day harvest feast, with the Pilgrims expressing gratitude to God for their having been delivered from death and extinction.
Thanksgiving is a harvest festival -- and more. It’s an occasion of giving thanks to God for deliverance through dangerous places and survival against fearsome obstacles. It’s a practice that can be learned of celebrating what’s given, and encouraging one another in good cheer by counting and sharing blessings. It’s accepting and acknowledging much-needed help and support from others, and giving thanks for neighbours and strangers who help us survive a world we just weren’t prepared for.
And I wonder which of these it is for you this year, and for your family or household? I ask because we too live in, and through such times and landscapes.
All of us at times find ourselves on a journey through dark and dangerous places, with great obstacles and storms in our path that we fear we might not survive -- and we wonder, “Will we make it through?”
All of us at times end up in uncomfortable places that seem not good for our health or well-being, sometimes because of bad choices and poor planning, other times because life just happens -- and we wonder, “How ever did I get here? However did this happen to me?”
All of us at times also find ourselves in an unexpectedly strange new world we just don’t understand, that we seem to have nothing to offer to, and that makes all we know seem obsolete and irrelevant -- and we wonder, “Is this where I’m supposed to be? What good am I, or will I ever be in this place?”
We don’t have to be sailing with Frobisher, or settling with Champlain, or struggling with the Pilgrims to be facing these questions. We just need to be living in the world as it is. So I wonder: are any of these among the questions that you and yours face this year?
If so, Thanksgiving as a remembrance and celebration of hope in the power of God to see us through, is especially for you.
We’ve read from the prophet Isaiah:
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come
to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine/milk without
money and without price.
Seek the Lord while he may be
found...
…and then you shall go out in
joy,
and be led back in peace;
…instead of the thorn shall come
up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come
up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for
a memorial
for an everlasting sign of God’s
grace that
shall not end.
In
other words, we shall be fed -- as much as we need, by the grace of God. We shall find joy in place of sorrow, in
openness to God. And the place we are in
shall be fruitful and good, instead of empty, hurtful and fearful, by the working
of God in our time.
This
is a word of hope, and it is hope in the real world because the people Isaiah
speaks to are people who have suffered greatly, have had time to reflect on
their losses, and who have no illusions anymore about their own or other
people’s goodness, or about any guarantee of blessing or immunity from
suffering just because they are God’s people.
They know they have suffered in part because of their own sin and bad
choices, in part because of the ruthlessness and coldness of others, and in
part because sometimes bad stuff just happens.
They
are no longer children in some Garden of Eden.
They are adults with their eyes opened to the world as it is. And what Isaiah helps them see as part of
what the world is, is the real and present hope of God helping us endure and
survive what we face, and even thrive in spite of it -- maybe even because of it.
This is
the same Isaiah who also says,
Do
not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I
have called you by name, you are mine.
When
you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and
through the rivers,
they shall not
overwhelm you;
when
you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and
the flame shall not consume you.
For
I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One, your
Saviour…
you
are precious in my sight, and I love you.
So what
is it you and your household face this year?
Are you sailing through dark and dangerous waters, with overwhelming
obstacles and problems that make you afraid?
Are you stuck in a bad spot -- no matter what the reason or who is to
blame, and not sure how things will change for the better? Are you somewhere you just don’t understand,
where you don’t how to cope or contribute, and where you might need to accept
the help of strangers -- even potential enemies or threats, to help you fit in?
Remember
Thanksgiving is a harvest festival -- and more.
It is a celebration of hope, a remembrance of God’s help in times past,
a promise that God will see you through to a new and joyous day.
As
Isaiah says to the people of his day in their time of fear and need:
For as the rain and the snow
come down from
heaven,
and do not return there
until they have
watered the earth,
making it bring forth and
sprout,
giving seed to the sower and
bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes
out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that
which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for
which I sent it.
Thanksgiving
is for you. As you remember and
celebrate God’s goodness, may it bring you joy, peace and hope, wherever you
are and however you remember and celebrate it.
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