Being on purpose how the flora and fauna just are

Reading:  Matthew 6:25-33

 

In the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew chapters 5-7, Jesus describes for his disciples and for the crowd around them, what truly human life is like.  And the more he describes it, the more it becomes clear how different it is from what some religious people think it is, and how different it is from the kind of life the world tells us to aspire to.  It’s harder than both, but also more easy and simple.  It’s unusual and distinctive, but also the most natural way of being when we are open to the real, living presence and purpose of God.

Thank you, Linda – and Winona Gardens, for the wonderful fall and Thanksgiving display.   What a welcome addition and point of focus in our worship space!

Every year we look forward to it, and we are not disappointed.  It fits in so well with where we are.  Fruits, vegetables and flowering plants really are Winona, and they help us remember how blessed and thankful we are to be here.  To be able to call Winona home – or at least one of our homes.

Noteworthy, I think, that it’s actual pumpkins – or at least representations of them, that we have here, and not canned pumpkin puree.  Even though it’s from the can, not the field that most of us get what we need for our pumpkin pies and tarts and bread.  This one was for the pies I made Friday for our Thanksgiving dinner with my sister and brother-in-law yesterday.  Using the Women of Fifty recipe for pastry, of course.  And thank you for that.

But it’s the actual fruit of the field that we celebrate.  It’s our rootedness in Earth as God has created it to be – good and bountiful, that we remember.  It’s not just specific gifts and particular blessings that are the object of our gratitude, but the whole gracious matrix of God, Earth, nature and neighbour that we live within.  And depend upon.  And are part of.  Come rain or shine, in good times and bad, no matter if at the moment we seem blessed or cursed. 

And I wonder if this is a difference between thanksgiving and gratitude.  We offer thanks for particular gifts and blessings; but we live in gratitude for the goodness of everything.  And the more we open ourselves to the goodness, the divine beauty and the bounty of all Earth and life and people around us, the more we become aware that all is gift – not earned, deserved or self-created, but given, the more we grow into grateful and gracious members of the whole.

Diana Butler Bass, in her recent book called Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks, writes that gratitude is a matter “of gift and response...  The universe is a gift.  Life is a gift.  Air, light, soil, and water are gifts.  Friendship, love, sex, and family are gifts.  We live on a gifted planet.  Everything we need is here, with us.  We freely respond to these gifts by choosing a life of mutual care.”

Think of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field that Jesus points to, and tells us to emulate in our attitude about life and how we get through it.  They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, they neither toil nor spin, yet they are cared for and loved, fed and clothed by their Father who loves them.  And how?  Why?  What do they do to be so well loved?

What they do is take their part in the matrix of life on Earth as God has made it to be.  They receive – from soil, from water, from sun, from other parts of creation, what they need.  And they give – beauty, song, creation and transport of seeds in the world’s ecosystem, and in the end give their own life, for the good and well-being of the whole.   They just are part of the matrix of good life for all that God has made Earth and all its creatures to be.  And the only difference between them and us is that we get to be – in fact, we have to be, conscious and intentional about being and doing what they are and do unconsciously and by nature.

It makes perfects sense that we have both communion and the beginning of our collection for the food bank as part of our Thanksgiving display. 

Because this is the good news – the gospel of mature human living that Jesus lives and points us towards.  God gives, he says.  We are given to, he reminds us.  And we, called from among all creatures to live intentionally in the image of God, also give – also share, as we have been given.  Because this is the way God has made the Earth to be, and be well.

And, you know, it also makes sense that in our Minute for Mission this week we were able to highlight the certificate of recognition we received this summer from The Town of Grimsby, for our part in helping the A. family find a safe, new home here among us, as part of United to Help Syrians.  Because this too is part of a life of gratitude – of spiritual thanksgiving.

I think it was Cindy S. at the mission-statement workshop last Sunday who mentioned how deeply moving it was to be able to do this as a church.  How we so easily forget that not everyone in the world enjoys the kind of security, comfort and affluence that we do.  That there are ways we can give and share what we have, and help others to have a good life too.  And how good it feels when we do that.  How holy and divine, how truly human and meaningful our own life becomes when we do that. 

When like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field we take our place as we are able in the gracious matrix of God, Earth, nature and neighbour working together for the good and well-being of all.  What Jesus calls the kingdom of God and its righteousness.