Sermon from Sunday, November 1, 2015 (All Saunts' Day)

Reading:  John 11:1-3, 17, 32-35, 38-46, 53
Theme:  "Come Out!"

Why would they want to kill him?  Someone with such life-giving and life-restoring power? 

What is there about the Pharisees that cannot stand someone bringing a person back to life?  Or what is there about new life coming into the community that brings out the worst in the Pharisees, or even brings out the Pharisee in us?

When I lived in Vineland thirty years ago, I knew a minister who was called by a church in the area specifically to help bring new people in and renew the congregation.  He did that.  For the six or seven years he was there, he reached out to the community and attracted new people and helped them see that church had something for them.  He also encouraged some of the more marginal or un-noticed people of the church to take greater part – to start offering their gifts and their faith to the larger life of the congregation. 

The church began to grow.  There was a new sense of life and vitality.  And you know what happened.  The minister had to leave.  When the Church Board and Elders saw what it really meant in terms of the makeup and message of their church, it turns out that new life and a new direction for the congregation was not what they really wanted.

I know what that’s like.  I think of our plan to install a platform lift in the back part of our building finally to make the whole of the building accessible.  I was at the last few AGM’s where you made clear your impatience with how long this has taken, and with you I long for the day – hopefully next summer, when the project is done.  But the members of the Accessibility Project Group can also tell you – I hope with a laugh, of the meeting where we were looking at the plans and I realized that installing the lift would mean losing a big part of what we now use as church office.  My face fell.  My brow furrowed.  I grew quiet.  Then I said with some anxiety, “You mean, we lose the church office?” 

For a few moments there, I was reluctant to let go of what we have.  I couldn’t imagine such a loss – or sacrifice, being good.

Lest we be hard on churches and their leadership, I think we all realize that churches and their leaders are not alone in that kind tension between wanting new life and a life-giving, life-saving direction, and not really wanting it – or not wanting its cost.

Governments want watch-dogs and auditors-general and statisticians and scientists, until they start pointing out too clearly places where the government is missing the mark or going astray.  Societies love prophets and people who tell the truth, until they start poking around in corners we’d rather leave untouched, shedding light on things we’d rather not look at, calling for change we’re not willing – or not ready yet, to make.  People in general want constructive criticism, as long as we – as long as I, don’t have to really work at changing the way I go about being myself.

What’s the line from Bruce Cockburn?  “Everybody wants to see justice done … on somebody else.”

In many ways we are bound and not free to live and move and change and grow as might be best.  In politics we’re often bound to tradition, ideology, party line and self-interest.  In society we’re bound to status, the longing for respectability, and fear – of failure, of weakness, of others.  In our selves and our lives, we’re bound to shame and anxiety, our own personality quirks and disorders, and needs for security, love, control.

And maybe the saints around us – the real human beings of our time, are those who are free.  Who are un-bound.  Who are set free from at least some of the things that constrain us, to be able to speak and act and live in the world with a freedom for what is true and truly good, with a freedom the rest of us can only envy.

As Jesus says, “Take the stone from the tomb!  Lazarus, come out!  And you there … un-bind him; let him be free.”  And the ones who come out from whatever little grave they’ve been in, and let themselves be un-bound, are the saints of our time who on the one hand attract us with their freedom to follow and live out what is true, and who scare us with it and make us want to lock it up again, get new and true life back under wraps and under control.

Church is supposed to be one of the places in the world where we learn that kind of freedom, though – learn it for ourselves, and help our kids and grand-kids and maybe our friends and neighbours grow into it too.  I wonder if it is, and if we do.

In church, for instance, do we learn how to talk in real community with one another, and speak together in new and life-giving ways?  One of the things we lament about our society and our time is the death of real human communication and wise discourse, and the ability to explore ideas, talk constructively and compassionately across boundaries, and grow together towards new wisdom.  So in church do we take the stone away from the mouth of the tomb – take the time and effort to learn to do it better, to learn how to listen as well as speak, to learn how to have difficult conversations with people we disagree with, with a measure of grace and openness to a truth that’s bigger than ourselves?

In church, do we learn to open ourselves in life-giving ways to the world?  Again, one of the things we suffer from in our time is that in spite of – or maybe because of global awareness and instant information, we have a stronger tendency maybe than ever to try to insulate ourselves in our own little groups for the sake of our own security and survival.  So in church, do we learn come out of hiddenness – to open up to what’s out there – to come out of whatever tomb we build around ourselves – and even though we don’t have all the answers, at least to let ourselves freely see and hear and be touched by the wind and spirit, and the pains and possibilities of the world in our time?

Which also means, in church, do we let our own lives be opened up and maybe changed?  There’s a line in a song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds called “Dig!!!  Lazarus Dig!!!” that says, “He never asked to be raised up from the tomb, no one ever actually asked him to forsake his dreams.”  And maybe that’s the question that church is meant to ask us – do you really want to be set free?  In your life and in your living, in the way you go about being your self in the world and among and for other people, in the kind of parent or partner or sibling or friend or citizen you are, do you want to be free of what constrains you, what holds you back, what makes your life more limited and narrow and bound to unholy and less-than-true things than you really want?

“The stone is taken from your tomb!  Lazarus, come out!  There are people nearby just waiting to unbind you, and let you go.” 

I hope church and what we do together here brings us at least every now and then up against this holy invitation.

 

Towards Sunday, November 1, 2015 (All Saints Day)

Reading: Isaiah 25:6-9 and John 11:32-46, 53
Theme:  Saints unbound

Why isn't the raising of Lazarus just a good news story?  What is there about the Pharisees that makes them want to kill Jesus for bringing Lazarus back to life? 

Or, what is there about people coming to life again, that brings out the Pharisee in us?

It's interesting this story is chosen for worship on All Saints' Day.  Maybe it suggests that saints -- the persons in our time who practice a certain wholeness of life, are really just those who are un-bound and set free from the kinds of things that hinder and tie up the rest of us.

And according to Isaiah, one place we find something to free us from the things of our time that tie us up and enslave us, is on "the holy mountain" -- wherever we go to worship God, to hear God's Word of good news, to become a community of holy spirit together with other worshippers.  At least, that's where he places his hope in his time.

But when I read the story of Jesus raising Lazarus and setting him free from his grave-clothes, and the reaction of the Pharisees to try to keep this kind of thing under wraps and stop what Jesus is doing, and I remember they are the religious leaders of their time in charge of the places where people most commonly went to worship God, it makes me wonder what our religious place and my own and others' leadership in it is like.

Here in our church do we help set people free from the things that tie us up?  Or do we try to keep things under wraps, tightly tied up, and just a little bit dead?

Sermon from Sunday, October 25, 2015

Reading:  Job 42:1-9 and Mark 10:46-52
Sermon: Disturbing the Peace

“Not now, Bartimaeus!  Can’t you see we’re trying to listen to Jesus?  Be quiet with your hollering!” 

The funeral service was in the church.  It was for a woman who had served the congregation well for most of her adult life – for about 40 years, church secretary; for almost as many years, co-ordinator of the semi-annual church sales.  One of the stories told of her was that as sale co-ordinator she would take it upon herself to inspect all the clothing donated, and take home to wash, mend and iron any articles that needed it, to make them suitable to be offered at a church sale.   

It was those kinds of stories people remembered at the funeral, until the woman’s niece came forward to offer her words of remembrance, and in addition to those kinds of memories that she also had of her aunt, she also took the risk of briefly sharing her feelings of disappointment and even anger at the way her aunt seemed to have been forgotten by the end of her life.  Her aunt lived a good long life but in the end suffered badly with Alzheimer’s Disease, and because people did not know how to relate to her, talk with her, or spend time with her, they stopped visiting.

It was a hard thing to hear.  It raised up a lot of feelings within the congregation.  It created some discomfort in the minister leading the service.  At least momentarily, it disturbed the peace of the occasion. 

I wonder, though, if it maybe opened a way to a fuller peace, if only we had the wisdom and wherewithal to walk through it, and accept its invitation. 

I wonder about that because of my own experience almost two years ago now, when I disturbed the peace of my family and of this congregation when I finally broke down, said I have a problem and I can’t go on doing things the way I’ve been doing them.  I took a leave, received some help, and then was able to come back and try to start living and doing things in new and different ways. 

It wasn’t convenient.  It was the 2^nd or 3^rd Sunday of Advent.  At home, Christmas plans were thrown into chaos.  At church the big Christmas services were coming, and different people had to step in and lead with no warning.   

“Not now, Bartimaeus.  Can’t you see we’re getting ready to celebrate the coming of Jesus.  Be quiet with your needs and your brokenness!” 

 

I’m glad nobody said that.  You were gracious and kind. 

But I wonder if you ever feel like I did before that moment.  Like that niece did for all those years.  Like there’s something wrong, but you don’t feel free to say it.  Like you really want help, but don’t know how to ask for it.  That you try to cry out for something, but you’re convinced no one wants to hear it. 

How many people in the world suffer in that way?  The poor pushed to the edge of public awareness … refugees front-page news for two weeks, then forgotten as the media move on to the next big story … families and friends of hundreds of missing and murdered First Nations women across our country whose calls for a federal inquiry into their fate our government has so far ignored … the neighbour down the street whose family’s hunger and sense of hopelessness go largely unnoticed. 

The Bible has many stories of many people whose cries for help aren’t convenient or welcome to those around them, but which God hears with utter clarity and takes action on. 

From ancient Israel -- probably in the 6th century B.C.E., there is the story of Job, who spends 35 of his story's 40 post-tragedy chapters crying out with increasing anger and vehemence for attention and justice after his life has fallen apart for no good reason.  He says what’s happened to him is wrong and inexplicable.  God has made a mistake, he charges.  Or God isn’t paying attention.  Let me see God and talk to God, he says, and I’m sure God will see my point and make things right. 

And through all these 35 chapters, Job’s friends – good religious folk that they are, tell him to shush, to stop shouting at God, to just learn to accept things the way they are. 

When God finally appears, in chapters 38-41, Job of course is humbled.  He admits he’s been more than a bit presumptuous to have challenged and yelled at God the way he did, and repents of his anger and pride.  But at the same time, God lifts Job up as an example of righteousness to his friends, and tells them if they want to be right with God too, they better ask Job to pray for them – ask Job to put in a good word on their behalf, because as religious as they were, there was something decidedly ungodly about the way they acted towards Job and the advice they gave him, and something more faithful to God about the way Job kept calling out for healing and justice. 

Then from first-century Palestine we have the story of Bartimaeus, a blind man crying out in his darkness for help, with the people around him (all wanting to see Jesus themselves) telling him to be quiet and not disturb either them or the messiah with his shouting for help.

“Not now, Bartimaeus!  Be quiet with your hollering?  Can’t you see we’re all trying to listen to Jesus?” 

Well … he doesn’t see that.  Instead, with greater insight than they have, what he knows is that Jesus is listening for him – that above all the chatter of the religious crowd, Jesus is listening for that lone cry of help from the back row and the outer fringe. 

And we shouldn’t be surprised.  Because the God Jesus lives among us, is the same God whose story with Israel begins in Exodus, where at the end of chapter 2 the story says, “in Egypt, the Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out.  Out of their slavery their cry for help rose up to God.  God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with their forefathers.  God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.”   

And the rest is history – at least the history of God.  That’s how the story starts and that’s the kind of encounter that continues always to propel it along.  And that’s the God Jesus comes to live among us, which is why when Jesus hears Bartimaeus crying out for help, instead of finding some way to just carry on with what he’s doing with the crowd, Jesus says, “Call him here!”  He makes Bartimaeus the focus of his attention and his holy, healing presence.

I wonder how we do that.  How we live in the way of Jesus and that kind of God. 

Two images came to mind this week. 

One is the little bit I know about the Western Wall in Jerusalem, believed by many to be the only standing remains of the Second Temple of the people of Israel built by Herod at the time of Christ and destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 of the Common Era.  The wall is a sacred site to Jews, and thousands make pilgrimage to it every year.  It used to be called the Wailing Wall, because when they got there Jews would wail in lament for the ancient destruction of the Temple, and cry out to God to restore it again.  The name “Wailing Wall” fell into disfavour, though, and now it’s called the Western Wall.  Still, though, the practice for pilgrims is to write their most heart-felt prayer on a piece of paper, and slip it into cracks between the stones of the wall in the hope that maybe God will see their prayer and answer it. 

I wonder what our church walls would look like, if people around us saw our walls as places where they could place their prayers. 

The other image is from last week after worship.  I said goodbye at the front door to people leaving.  Then I went downstairs to see how things were going with the coffee and cake to celebrate Ryker’s baptism.  After a while I happened to come up to the sanctuary and over on one side I saw 10 or 12 people who had stayed behind and were still there at an informal meeting to talk about possible ways we as a church might respond to some of the needs in the Syrian refugee crisis.  No one had any clear answers.  It seems pretty certain we’re not in a position to do any sponsoring of families by ourselves.  We’re not even sure what the best response is.  If we do anything it will probably be in co-operation with some other like-minded churches. 

But that meeting and the interest of those 10 or 12 people seemed a pretty clear sign that we were listening.  Instead of saying:

“Not now, Bartimaeus!  Can’t you see we’re trying to listen to Jesus?  Be quiet

with your hollering!”   

this church once again was acting in the spirti of the One who says, “Listen!  I hear someone crying out.  Call them to me.”

Towards Sunday, October 25, 2015

Readings:  Psalm 34: 1-8, Job 42:1-9 and Mark 10:46-52
Theme:  Hello?  Hello?  Is anybody listening?

The readings today are about people not being heard -- of souls in distress not being listened to by people around them.

From ancient Israel -- probably in the 6th century B.C.E., there is the story of Job, who spends 35 of his story's 40 post-tragedy chapters crying out with increasing anger and vehemence for attention and justice after his life has fallen apart for no good reason, and being shushed by his friends who tell him to just learn to accept things the way they are.

From first-century Palestine comes the story of blind Barimaeus, loudly crying out in his darkness for help, with the people around him (all wanting to see Jesus themselves) telling him to be quiet and not disturb either them or the messiah with his shouting for help.

And there is the psalm in its universal and timeless wisdom, celebrating the experience of being heard and answered by God -- something that Job and Bartimaeus also experience by the time we get to the end of their stories.

But is that happy ending all that common? 

Do we -- do I or do you, ever feel unheard?  That no one is listening, or cares enough to hear us?  Is there something in your heart you wish someone could hear?  Something you wish you knew how to say?

And how many others in the world still and always suffer the same experience?  The poor pushed to the edges of public awareness ... refugees featured by the media for two weeks and then left behind on the way to the next big story ... hundreds of missing and murdered First Nations women in Canada for whom the government refuses to call an inquiry ... church members and neighbours who we stop visiting because they have Alzheimers or cancer or something else that makes us feel uncomfortable if we visit them ... people of other traditions trying vainly to explain to the mainstream why they do some of the things they do?

What good news is offered in the story of Job, the Gospel of Mark and Psalm 34?  What encouragement?  What challenge?

It was 50 years ago that Paul Simon wrote and Simon and Garfunkel recorded "The Sound of Silence," an achingly beautiful indictment of our unwillingness -- or maybe inability, to hear and pay attention to many voices and souls around us.

...in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools," said I, "You do not know.
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you.
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence." 

Where is God, and where are we in this story?  

Sermon from Sunday, October 18, 2015

Reading:  Mark 10:32-45
Sermon:  We Are Able

There is good purpose in all of us. 

This is one thing the sacrament – or the ritual – the sign – of baptism is about.  In baptizing Ryker with water – the water of life and of deliverance and of cleansing, this morning we have joyously declared that he is a beloved child of God, born as we all are to good purpose – to live in this world as God does, loving it for what it is, caring for it for what it is meant to be, taking conscious care of the web of life that God has called into being and called Earth. 

With oil we have anointed Ryker with a sign in the shape of a cross – an affirmation that he is part of the community that Christ calls together, and a prayer that he will feel this call upon him, and grow into this identity and this way of being in and through his life – that in himself, he will come to claim the way of Christ as a way of real life. 

And with our hands we have held and blessed him – asked for God’s blessing on him and through him – asked that a holy spirit will grow within him – that he will be blessed all his life in different ways with spiritual company – and that he will be good company, support and encouragement to others in return. 

There is good purpose in all of us, and it’s both harder and easier to live out, and live into, and live up to than we sometimes think. 

It’s harder than we sometimes imagine and count on, because sometimes – maybe often, maybe even always, it runs counter to the way of the world in which we live.  The world does not always live by the values and priorities of the kingdom of God.  It does not always choose what’s best for its own largest well-being.  We live in ways and with goals and priorities that are selfish, short-sighted, fearful rather than faithful and loving and bent towards the good of all life on Earth. 

As Jesus lived his life in the way he felt led and called by God – God above, God within, God all around, the best God of his people’s tradition – he could see where it was leading him.  He began in Galilee – teaching and preaching, healing and feeding, forgiving and gathering people into new and good community, meeting needs and empowering people of all kinds to stand up and live together the way they were meant to in peace and with compassion and with an eye towards justice and the well-being of all.

In Galilee, people responded.  Disciples gathered.  New kinds of community began to form.  As well as opposition to it.  Fear about it.  Hostility against it. 

And as Jesus turns his steps from Galilee to Jerusalem –to the holy and the royal city, the seat of religious and imperial power in their world, he sees pretty clearly just how this will turn – how it will have to turn out – how it always turns out.  How does he put it? 

       See [he says], we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man [the real human being, the one who shows what human life is really to be], will be handed over to the religious leaders, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Romans – the imperial and imperious power of our day; they will mock him, and spit on him, and flog him, and kill him … and we will have to trust that if this is really of God, somehow and in some way he will rise again  … that this will not be the end … that there will never be an end of what it is really true.

But the way to get there is the cross.  That’s the consequence of living towards a better, alternate world and of helping to create it and call it into being.  The disciples imagined they were on their way to Jerusalem to take over – that somehow because they were in the right and God was on their side, there would be a coup or revolution or miracle of some kind that would suddenly put Jesus and them in charge of things, to make the world right. 

But that’s not how God works, is it?   

And that’s what makes it hard to really follow Jesus, to live in his way all the way through, to be the kind of people God intends us to be on Earth. 

But on the other hand, it’s easier than we usually fear.  To take up our own cross and follow him doesn’t mean being crucified ourselves the way that he was.  It doesn’t mean literally losing and giving up our last shred of dignity and our final breath on a lonely hillside surrounded by our enemies.  Jesus was clear about this, and when he was arrested he did and said all he could to ensure his disciples got away and were not arrested with him. 

Jesus says, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.”  But what this means – how it’s lived out and experienced in each of their lives, is different and personal and unique.   

To put it in modern terms: Mother Teresa was a daughter of God who lived out her calling as she was meant to; but we are not Mother Teresa, and the place of her calling and her life of faithful following is not ours.  Jean Vanier, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela and Gandhi are saints and spiritual heroes of our time who inspire us and help us to catch a glimpse of what good and holy life is about today; but we are not them, and the call upon each of us is unique and personal to our own situation and circumstance. 

And we don’t have to be the best in order to hear it and follow it.  We don’t have to be rich or powerful or have a privileged position to be able to live it out.  We don’t have to be on top of the world, or even on top of our game, to be of meaning and purpose.  We don’t have to be most of the things the world tells us we need to be, in order to count and be important and worthwhile. 

It’s a matter of accepting, first of all, that there is good purpose in all of us – in me as well as in you, that comes from outside us, but lives at the deepest part of who we are.  And then it’s a matter of listening – of opening ourselves to the call and good will of God, of seeing how the Word and Way of God intersect with where we are in the world, of letting ourselves be part of a community that seeks to live in the world by faith and hope and love, and learning to recognize and follow the movement of God and God’s spirit in our own heart and at the real heart of the world that we live in. 

And whether that’s easy or hard, and just how hard or easy that is at different times of our life and in different situations of our living, is up to us. 

Andrew King, who describes himself in his blog as “a 60-year-old ‘customer service worker’ for a fast-food restaurant in Oakville, Ontario” and is also a member of Maple Grove United Church in Oakville, posted this poem this week in response to the reading today from the Gospel, and I’ll end with this.  I’ll give Andrew King the last word to us this morning, as we seek to know what it means to drink the cup that he drinks, and be baptized with the baptism with which he is baptized: 

NOT TO BE SERVED BUT TO SERVE
(Mark 10: 35-45)

Is that you, Lord,
changing the diaper in the nursing home,
holding the spoon for the woman in her wheelchair,
wiping down the toilet and the floor;

is that you
serving the dinner at the homeless shelter,
sorting the cans at the food bank,
mowing the aged neighbour’s lawn;

is that you, Lord,
bandaging the wounds of the bomb victim,
erecting the tent for the refugees,
handing out the water and the food;

is that you
driving the patient to the treatment center,
sitting through the night with the family,
making the call to the forgotten friend;

is that you, Lord,
lighting the candle in the darkness,
keeping vigil for compassion and justice,
loving in us and through us and with us

until the world that you love has been changed?

Towards Sunday, October 18, 2015

Reading:  Mark 10:35-45
Theme: We are able

Jesus talks about godly, kingdom-style leadership as servanthood -- contrasting

• leaders of the day, not of the covenant community but to whom the people of the covenant are subject, who rely on power to enforce what they see as the best policy for all, with
• leaders who serve the needs of the people in their charge by becoming "slaves" to their people's needs regardless of what it costs them, rather than masters of the people's lives regardless of what it costs the people.

Not that his disciples will ever rise or be invited to the position of king, governor, procurator or even mayor of any city of their time (as much as they thought they would).  The point is that they can (and are called to) exercise that kind of servant-hood in their personal and communal lives wherever they are, every day and week of their lives -- and in that way, change the world.

In Toronto at the ferry terminal there's a memorial statue to Jack Layton that offers a striking image of leadership -- a very different image of a political leader than we usually see.  Instead of standing alone on a pedestal, looking uniquely regal or wise or strong, Jack is seated on the back seat of a tandem bike, ready to provide the pedal power to help whoever sits in the front seat, to get to where they need to go. 

This is not to say that only Layton and/or the NDP offer such an image of leadership, nor that this is the whole of what can be said good or bad about Layton or the NDP.  The point is, it is an intriguing image of what servant-hood might mean today for people like us in positions of privilege in the world and in our own society -- providing the pedal power to help others without the resources we have at our disposal, to get to where they need to go. 

Within the Liberal tradition, maybe think of Lester Pearson's creation of the UN Peacekeeping mission during the Suez Crisis -- a new political model for our time by which non-combatant countries use their resources to create time and space for countries in conflict to resolve their differences and meet their own and the other's needs in more constructive ways than war ever allows for. 

Regardless of what else may be said both good and bad about Pearson and the Liberals, and even of the way UN Peacekeeping has devolved, is not this mythic image of Pearson an image maybe of God's way of life in our time that somehow still speaks to our highest self, and that we are called to live out in our own lives and communities?

Among Conservatives, maybe think of Robert Stanfield -- a good and quiet man with sound and compassionate policies, who never got a fair shake in the national media.  Remember the unfortunate and mean-spirited story and image of him fumbling a football? 

It was just one of several instances of a good, compassionate man serving others well and humbly, quietly accepting his fate in the public eye.  And regardless of what else may be said of him, is this image and memory of his public career perhaps not a modern echo of Jesus being portrayed in the media of his day as a bumbler when it came to matters of theology and law, accused in the attack ads of his day as a son of Beelzebul and by the government as a heretic and traitor, in the end quietly accepting his fate at their hands, letting the future of the kingdom of God rest not in his power but in the hands of God beyond him?   Does not this image of a leader's character still speak somehow to our own deepest soul, and remind us of the humble, selfless service of others' needs regardless of our own fate, that we are called to live out ourselves?

Jesus talked a lot about the kind of life we are called to live as God's people in the world, and used the public images of leaders of his day to help flesh out the call.  Are there particular images of servant-leadership today that help you to picture what it means to you to live and serve in God's way in your life, and in the world you live in?

Towards Thanksgiving Sunday, October 11, 2015

Reading:  Matthew 6:25-33
Theme:  Where does the "happy" come from in Happy Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving is a harvest festival.  What do you do -- how do you celebrate it, when your harvest seems bitter, small, or unusually full of weeds?

Thanksgiving is different in our family this year.

No turkey dinner and an evening of rummoli, euchre and other games with my sister and her family.  She gets a chemo treatment this Wednesday and even with the drugs she expects to feel pretty sick through the weekend.  The most we might manage is a lunch out together before she retires home to rest.

And I know we’re not alone in this.  I think of other families in our congregation struggling with illness and loss right now.  Of families of our area devastated by two recent highway pile-ups on the 401 near Whitby.  Of people in our city living daily in poverty and homelessness.  

What is Thanksgiving, really?  What do we remember and celebrate it in the midst of illness, loss, loneliness, sorrow, injustice and anxiety?

In this Sunday's Gospel reading, Jesus says to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  Until this year I hadn’t really thought about how birds don’t always have it easy, either.  We speak longingly of being “as free as a bird,” but birds are also exposed to a lot of nasty weather, risks, brutal exposure and sometimes harshly short lives.

I wonder what I can learn from them -- or from the beautiful but unprotected lilies, about living within the goodness and good purpose of God.

And then there are also the first-Thanksgiving stories of our country's three founding peoples. 

On the English side is Martin Frobisher.  In 1578 on his third expedition to the New World, he ran into trouble he had not faced before – freak storms, extreme cold and drifting ice.  One ship was lost and those that remained were scattered.   When finally they were reunited and able to land together on the shore of Frobisher Bay (now so called), the expedition’s resident priest led all hands in a service of thanksgiving.

A generation later and on the French side of our heritage, in 1604 Samuel de Champlain was leader of the new French colony in Port Royal struggling to survive an unexpectedly harsh winter.  His solution was to create the Order of Good Cheer, by which the members of the community took turns in groups preparing and hosting a feast and an evening’s entertainment for the entire community, including their First Nations neighbours.

Passing through adversity … reconnecting after separation … struggling with hardship and anxiety … creating and enjoying community against the cold and across boundaries.

Anything there relevant to our time?  And Thanksgiving?

And then there's the third (really the first) of our founding nations’ thanksgiving stories -- no once-a-year-holiday, but repeated rituals in the course of ordinary life. In the potlatch of the West Coast First Nations, for instance, it’s interesting that the emphasis is not so much on giving thanks for and celebrating how much you have, but on demonstrating and enjoying how much you are able to give away.

I wonder ... anything there similar in spirit to what Jesus says about not focusing on what we will have to eat and drink and wear, but on “striving first for the kingdom of God,” within which all that we need will be given?

I trust our worship this Sunday will only deepen our Thanksgiving spirit.