Come, you thankful people, come; raise the song of harvest home!
All is safely gathered in, safe before the storms begin;
God, our maker, does provide for our needs to be supplied:
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home!
Reading: Genesis 8:15-22 (Good News Translation)
The Flood is over. God’s experiment in cleansing the world of
human sinfulness is done, and the agony of Noah and his family isolated in
their little ark has come to an end. In
effect a new Adam to re-start human history, as Noah leaves the ark, is
grounded once again in the life of Earth, he stops to offer thanks, and God
offers him and all his family a promise.
God said to Noah, “Go out of the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives. Take all the birds and animals out with you, so that they may reproduce and spread over all the earth.” So Noah went out of the boat with his wife, his sons, and their wives. All the animals and birds went out of the boat in groups of their own kind.
Noah built an altar to the Lord; he took one of each kind of ritually clean animal and bird, and burned them whole as a sacrifice on the altar. The odor of the sacrifice pleased the Lord, and he said to himself, “Never again will I put the earth under a curse because of what people do; I know that from the time they are young their thoughts are evil. Never again will I destroy all living beings, as I have done this time. As long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”
Meditation: God, Grinch and the Game
In the Great Game we’re all in, who’s winning right now? God? Or Grinch?
It says “How Coronavirus Stole Christmas … and New Years and Thanksgiving and the Santa Claus Parade and Hallowe’en and Hannukah and … on and on.” And The Grinch, with what has to be mock-sad resignation on his face, says, “Gotta roll with the times.”
I don’t know: does it feel to you like you’ve lost Thanksgiving this year? That it’s been stolen from you?
Thanksgiving as we’ve known isn’t happening for Japhia and I this year. Her mom Pearl is not being picked up and taken from the nursing home to visit with family. Her sister is not hosting a dinner for Japhia’s side of the family, nor are my sister and brother-in-law hosting a dinner – a nice second dinner, for my side. No one is gathering outside their immediate household, which means that even the modest little meal we had planned with Tiffany and Mike and their two kids – little Japhia and Sam, has been cancelled.
And it’s not just COVID-19 that’s to blame as The Grinch’s ally this year. For weeks at a time recently Japhia’s been hospitalized with extreme nausea – so much so that St Joe’s has become a second, and sometimes a first home. And the medical teams and other staff there like family – in some ways closer than family. Just being home for two weeks now seems a treat, and in the midst of all that making plans for anything more than a day ahead seemed kind of off the table. Plus, even now, we’re never sure at what point just the smell and sight of a big meal will be more than can be stomached.
And it’s not just us. We all know families – some in our congregation – who have suffered a death in the family this year, and Thanksgiving weekend brings with it awareness again of the break in the circle, and the image of a newly vacant chair. Others have suffered other kinds of family breaks and hard changes through conflict, separation, divorce, and distance. Some are struggling with unemployment or precarious employment and other things that make it harder just to make ends meet. And there are many others – hidden and unhidden – who spend every day without what they need for a comfortable life, living first-hand with what we call food-insecurity, support-deprivation and homelessness.
Does this mean that this year Grinch is winning? That this year Thanksgiving really is teetering towards being stolen?
Or do we hang our hat and lift up our hearts on the belief and the experience that just as Christmas comes and happens whether we feel ready or not, or able to celebrate it or not, Thanksgiving does too?
And not just because of a date on the calendar, but because it’s God who really is at work on Earth.
The incarnation of the Word and the Light and the Way of life – the heart of Christmas – happens no matter what because it’s God’s desire and God’s way of being. And so does this time of seasonal progress, of harvest, and of Earth’s bounty – the heart of Thanksgiving – because this is God’s way of making the world to be.
It’s an understanding of God embedded in the ancient story of Noah coming to rest after The Flood, and being grounded once again in the life of Earth.
“Never again, [God says] will I put the Earth under a curse because of what human beings do … Never again will I destroy all living beings … And as long as the world exists, there will be a time for planting and a time for harvest. There will always be cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”
Or as it says in the NRSV:
As long as the earth endures,
seedtime
and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
shall
not cease.”
As long as Earth endures. It calls to mind another affirmation: “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.” Or more simply, “no matter what.”
As long as we keep our eye on the big picture, and take a moment to pause and let the Word and Spirit of God to rise up within us and speak to whatever moment and circumstance we are in, Grinch doesn’t stand a chance.
So whatever you do this weekend, whatever you do this season, as you look at vibrant colours of the trees splashed across the escarpment, as you take in the Thanksgiving display here in church or on store shelves or on your own table, and as you taste even the slightest bit of food I invite you to take that moment to rest, to pause as Noah did as he knew the goodness of Earth in front of him again, and to give thanks to God whose unending love makes this to be, however it may come to us at any time.
And remember, it is Noah, and Noah’s family who are blessed in this way, and to whom God intends this promise.
It’s not Abraham, the father of faith and the father of a particular, chosen people. It’s Noah – after the Flood in effect the new Adam, father of all humanity now on Earth.
Which means it’s not just for us. Not just for those who believe. Not just for those who deserve it.
It’s for all – all people on Earth, and meant to be shared among and for all. No matter what.
Happy Thanksgiving. May God be with you as you find your own way to enjoy and to share the goodness of God and the bounty of Earth with others.
For how else will we let The Grinch know he is never going to win?
As long as Earth endures. And no matter what.
Prayer
And now, O Lord God,
Creator, redeemer and sustainer of all that is
from the farthest reach of the cosmos –
and beyond,
to the smallest element of energy
at the heart of the tiniest particle –
and even deeper within,
in each and every moment of time
through all the ages
and in all streams and cycles of life world without end
May there be bounty
enough for all
May there be beauty
to make us all whole and well
May there be generosity
and openness of heart
May there be goodness
as we and all people learn
to know and to share your love for all
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