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Sermon

Thanksgetting at the Thanksgiving Table

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John 6:25-35

When the crowd found Jesus on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. (Read the whole passage)

Thanksgiving is a strange day for us. We celebrate the occasion as Canadians. As Christians we note the day and we even appoint readings about thankfulness. But strictly speaking, Thanksgiving is not a Christian Holiday because it is not really about Jesus. Thanksgiving is more about us… it is day to reflect on all the good things that we have been blessed with during year, to give thanks for harvest, thanks for family, thanks for health… or at least that is the ideal of thanksgiving.

Often the day is less about giving thanks and more about getting thanks. To get thanks for the best mashed potatoes, turkeys, gravies, stuffings, yams, place settings, napkin foldings and fine china. And if not to get thanks, than to get stuffed, to fill empty bellies and empty hearts. It is a day to create memories and nostalgia of family and friends that will last us during the hard times until next year.

It was to spend the weekend looking for that perfect thanksgiving table to fill us up, at least for a while.

The crowds that come to Jesus today are looking to get stuffed too, while probably in the last few moments before thanksgiving dinner is ready, most cooks feel like Jesus does today too.

“Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves”… Translation, you don’t really see what I am doing for you, you only want the food.

Thanksgiving is not so much about gratitude as it is about the memories and nostalgia rooted in autumn colours, fall sweaters, family gatherings and an extra day off work.

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When the crowds come to Jesus today, they come demanding a sign, and thinking about food. They want something for themselves. You can hear it in their words

“What must WE do?” “What sign will you give US?” So that WE may see” “ Give US this bread”.

Doesn’t sound like thankfulness does it?

Its selfishness through and through. And the self-centred questions and demands won’t end there this weekend. “When is dinner ready? Can I have some more? Pass me that. I’m hungry”.

And toughest part of all? There is nothing we can do to be different. As human beings we slip so easily into these self centred ways. If we aren’t putting all the pressure of an entire year on our shoulders, we are sniffing out our next feeding time. We live in a world that is slowly slipping out of our hands. And the tighter we try to hold it, the more it falls away. All the self centredness comes from a the primal hunger to be fed, and the subtle hunger that pressures us to impress our family and friends, to earn their approval.

Yet, Jesus is not concerned with selfish motivations to get fed or the hunger for approval, Jesus is about providing what we need. Even as he scolds and chides the crowds, he reminds them of the ways in which God changes our world. “You are looking for me… because you ate your fill of loaves.” God provides what we need to be satisfied. The need for approval, the hunger to be full — God is what fills that empty void within us.

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

This thanksgiving, along with the disciples we look for miracle bread, for that next thing that will fill our bellies, fill our empty hearts. But today with just bread and wine, Jesus fills us to the brim. What a contrast to the meals we will all go home to and share. There is but one course here. One item on the menu, one choice of beverage. And this table? This table can be found all over the world, at any time of the day or night, and there is always room. It is a common feast and it is each day given for us. It is not reserved for that one special day a year, but rather it makes each day special and holy.

This simple meal of bread and wine, this feast that God offers to each and every one of us, it does teach us about the holiday we celebrate today. There are many names for this meal, Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper. But it is the Greek name that is important today.

The Eucharist. The Thanksgiving.

And this Thanksgiving, God’s Thanksgiving, is not about having thanksgiving just the way you want, its not about getting your fill of mashed garden potatoes, or approval for your hard work. Its about giving. Its about the words “Given for you”. The Body of Christ Given for you. The Blood of Christ Given for you.

The bread of God comes down from heaven and feeds the world. The bread that God serves here today does what we cannot. God fills our empty bellies AND our empty hearts, God feeds us with food that will satisfy, God loves us enough to make us full.

The real thanksgiving table that we sit at today is the table of the Lord. It is a table of thanks for God’s gift of love. We eat and we are satisfied. We drink and we are no longer thirsty. This is what Thanksgiving is at its core.

It is God who sets and welcomes us to the table.

It is God who serves us what we need to be full.

It is God who makes sure that none leave the table hungry.

So today, we will all celebrate thanksgiving with people that we love, and no it won’t be the perfect celebration, in fact it will be a very human way of giving thanks, it will be wrapped up with selfishness. But God is present in our Thanksgiving despite this, and more importantly God is the one doing the giving part. Giving us what we do not deserve, love and mercy. Giving us himself, in body and blood.

In the Eucharist, in the Thanksgiving meal, God gives us life that is life.

Sermon

Adding “Do Not Worry” to the Worry List

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Matthew 6:25-33

Jesus said, “I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? (Read the whole passage)

Sitting down for a fancy meal, is something many of us are about to do, or have done already this weekend. Feasts fit for kings and queens. Thanksgiving dinners, like any celebration, often carry many rituals and traditions. Family and friends travel to be with one another. People dress up to eat in their own homes. There are special roles like turkey carvers, potato mashers, grace prayers and dessert testers. The way dinner is eaten and celebrated will also be passed on to young kids and future generations, so that even when we are long gone, our family dinners won’t be. 

And along with the ritual and formality comes worry. Worry about getting all the details right, worry about making all the food in time. Worry that guests and those sharing in the meal will enjoy themselves. Worry and fear that this Thanksgiving won’t go as planned, that it won’t be perfect. 

There will be several hosts and cooks this weekend who will worry their way right through Thanksgiving, without having a moment of relief to actually enjoy it. There will be many family gatherings wrought by tension because cousin so-and-so and grandpa don’t get along, there will be fear and worry about fights and arguments breaking out, which will only be relieved when the weekend is over. 

It is not without irony that Jesus speaks about worry today. Thanksgiving is supposed to be about giving thanks for the blessings of the year, it is supposed to be about acting out gratefulness. Thanksgiving is supposed to be a celebration of abundance. But Jesus is talking about scarcity. 

Today, we hear a small piece from Jesus’ sermon on the mount. That sermon that begins “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Jesus is teaching the crowds, but out of context and on a weekend like this, the advice “do not worry about your life” probably causes more worry than it solves. 

As human beings we are prone to worry. It all began in the garden of Eden, as Eve worried about the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit. And since then, we have worried. Worried about getting enough food, having enough clothes to cover our bodies, having a shelter over head. And now we worry about money, about jobs, about illness, about family, about marriages, about parents, about children. We worry about being good enough, about being smart enough, about being beautiful enough. 

And as we worry, we seek control. We seek to clamp down on everything and everyone around us. The more we worry, the more firm our grasp becomes. The more we seek to keep our world in check. And our worry always comes from the same place. Fear. Fear that things will not go the way we want. Fear that we won’t know what is to come. Fear that we are not good enough to be liked, to be loved. Fear that we might die, that we are going to die. 

It is the old adam, the old self, it is original sin living with us that worries, that fears, that seeks control. And as we worry, as we fear, as we seek control, we find ourselves unable to let go, unable to release all the things that we work so hard to hold on to. We cannot let go and we are stuck. 

When we are stuck in worry, we lose sight of the bigger picture. Jesus’s encouragement to “not worry” is more than just another task on the to do list. As Jesus speaks to the crowds gathered to hear him, he sees that worry is unavoidable. It is unavoidable when there is not enough food on the table, or warm clothes to wear in the cold, or a place to sleep at night. Worry is unavoidable when there are bills needing to be paid and not enough money for all of them, when the stress of work begins to consume all our waking moments, when the brokenness that exists between families, between spouses needs to be resolved. 

Jesus says, “do not worry” but we are only reminded of all the things that cause us worry, the big details, the little details. The things we know we can do something about but haven’t, and the things for which there is nothing we can do.

Yet Jesus is giving us more than advice or instructions. Jesus is also giving us a promise. Our worries do not just belong to us, they are not something we bear alone. God comes to us precisely in the moment of our worry. God picks up and cares for all those things that we cannot hold on our own, all the things that feel like they weigh us down and make us stuck. 

Jesus says, “do not worry” and reminds us that we do not worry alone. All the worries we carry, all the things that we hold and desperately grasp, all the fears we carry. God is worrying and carrying them with us. Jesus knows that we cannot help but worry, and instead of telling us just to stop, Jesus offers us a place to share their burden. God comes to us in the midst of the worrying, comes to us in our stuckness. God comes to pick us up, and scoop us up as a parent would a child, and God declares that our worry is NOT ours alone to bear. 

And so this weekend, as we worry about creating the perfect thanksgiving and as we worry over all the other worries of life, Jesus comes to share our worries and share our tables, to give us food and shelter, to wrap us in God’s love, to make sure that we are fed with the bread of life, and clothed in mercy and grace. God knows that we cannot help but worry, that we cannot help but wonder how we will deal with all those things that weigh us down. And God reminds us that, we do not worry alone, we worry with God.  

Today, as all the worry surrounds us. God comes to our tables and takes a seat with us, takes a seat and shares in our worry, and shares also in our thanksgiving. God gives us a place to share all that we carry, to give our worries up, to give our selves up. And as God takes up our worries and God gives us a taste of the Kingdom.  

Sermon, Theology & Culture

How God Responds to Violence – Edmonton, Vegas and the Wicked Tenants

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Matthew 21:33-46

Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” (Read the whole passage)

Over the past week, we have born witness, once again to violence and tragedy in our world. Last Saturday night, in Edmonton, a police officer was hit by a car, and then stabbed. And then hours later the same attacker hit four people with a u-haul truck. Thankfully no one was killed.

But then the following night, as if on cue, another mass shooting took place in the US, this time in Las Vegas. And again, the scale of the shooting was thought to be previously unimaginable. 59 dead, over 500 hundred wounded.

And these two events, perhaps more than many of the acts of violence in the past few years, have hit closer to home. An attack on Canadian soil makes us feel vulnerable. And despite being far from here, the Las Vegas shooting has reached all the way into our community, with two of the injured victims being from our part of the world.

A because of these events, it is hard to gather around food with family and friends this Thanksgiving. Hard to know that as we eat and spend time with family, our friends and neighbours are on a long road to healing. These events make us feel more thankful and less thankful at the same time. More thankful for our own safety and the safety of our loved ones. But harder to be thankful for a world that seems to be getting more dangerous each day.

As we have worked our way though the stories of Jesus ministry and teaching this summer and fall, it has often felt like the stories we have heard have had something to say about the things happening in our world. We heard the story of Jesus and gentile woman dealing with issues race just as the protests were happening in Charlottesville. We heard a God who searches out the last, lost and least just a hurricanes were ravaging people islands, coasts and cities.

And today, as violence and tragedy is on our minds, we hear Jesus tell us a parable that deals with the topic of violence.

Jesus is still talking to the temple priests and pharisees as he was last week. Following up the conversation about where Jesus’ authority comes from, he tells the priests and pharisees a parable meant to upend their understand of authority and power.

A landowner plants a vineyard and then rents it out, while he goes off to another country. The agreement with the tenants is that they will be free work and live off the land if they send the owner a share the fruits.

But when harvest time comes, nothing is sent to the owner. So he sends some of his slaves to collect… yet when they arrive the tenants decide that they can renege on the agreement. So like a group of mafiosos, they kill one servant, stone another and beat the third to send a message.

But the landowner doesn’t give up. Being landowner in those days wasn’t simply a business opportunity. Owning land came with responsibility. The responsibility to provide for the community and people that lived near and on the land, as they were often the relatives and extended family of the landowner. If these tenants keep the harvest for themselves, a whole community could go without.

So again, the landowner sends his slaves to collect the fruits of the harvest. And again the tenants kill the slaves.

But not willing to give up on his responsibilities as a caretaker of the land and community, the landowner sends his son.

Yet, seeing the opportunity to not just hoard the harvest, but tenants see that killing the son, the heir to the land, is their opportunity to appropriate the land… to take the place of the landowner themselves.

And then Jesus cuts the story off, without finishing it. And instead asks the Pharisees and temple priests what they think the landowner would do.

Their response to Jesus is that the landowner will finally come a set things right… set things right by bringing down his full power and might on those wicked tenants, by putting them to death and renting to new less wicked and more fearful tenants who wouldn’t dare try to take what isn’t theirs.

Almost sounds like the plot to an action movie doesn’t it. A good and virtuous landowner’s son is killed by some bad dudes while the hero is far away in a another country… so now the landowner will spent two hours kicking butt with explosions and car chases to rain down righteous vengeance on these bad renters.

And isn’t that how we imagine power to look like. Power is to be the strongest and most mighty of them all, the one able to demand and take the things that truly belong to heroes, while the bad guys are the ones who just weren’t quite strong enough.

The pharisees and temple priests imagine power and strength in the same way that our world does. The strongest, the most powerful, the most god-like among us, are the ones who can strike the most fear, who are the most violent, who can control the world around them the most.

The tenants see something that they want and can take, so they use violence to do so. While the pharisees and temple priests believe that the landowner, the one who should be the most powerful will exercise that power and squash those wicked tenants like the bugs they are.

Given that the brightest religious leaders and authorities of Jesus’ believe that greater violence is the answer to violence, that greater power and might the answer to power and might, it is not hard to see 2000 years later, we hold the same idea.

It is easy to see that we too so often see violence and power and might as the solution to our problems. Whether it is gaining the upper hand in argument with a loved one at the expense of their feelings, or hoarding control and power over those we work with, or treating badly those who serve us our food, cut our hair, provide medical care, or plow our streets because we know they have to take it. We often see violence and power as answer to problems, or the easiest way raise ourselves up while pushing others down.

It is even easy to see that regardless of the particular motive of the Edmonton attacker or Vegas shooter, that our desire for power and might and control turned extreme quickly becomes tragic.

It impossible to miss the fact that this all because of original sin, the same desire of Adam and Eve to be God in God’s place.

And so when Jesus tells the Pharisees and temple priests this parable of violence and they suggest that more violence is the answer, it is hard for us to disagree.

But God disagrees.

In fact, this thinly veiled parable shows us that God the Landowner does the opposite of what we would consider god-like and powerful. God comes from the bottom. If violence were the answer, would have never sent his slaves in the first place. He would have sent soldiers from the first moment that the wicked tenants weren’t paying up. But God sends slaves, servants whose job would be to take the fruits to the harvest out of the hungry community. And when first slaves are killed, God sends more. God sends more as a sign that the importance of caring for those whom God is responsible is no joke. And when those slaves are killed, God sends the son.

And even though Jesus ends the parable there, we know the real ending.

We know that even after the son is met by the wicked tenants shouting crucify him, they nail the son to a cross. They use the power that seems the most god-like to us – death.

But God sends the son again.

And the son comes to us from the bottom. From the place that is surely the least god-like in our minds.

God sends the son to come to us from the grave.

From the place of utter weakness.

From the place where power is completely absent.

God sends the son to come up and out from the grave.

And by doing that God completely re-defines the power of violence.

God re-creates the order of the world.

God-like power is no longer the power to decide who dies.

Whether it is cutting words directed to a loved one,

Or bullets cutting down hundreds at a country music concert.

God undoes the place of violence and strength and might in the world.

God makes weakness god-like.

God makes loves god-like.

God makes grace the new reality.

And all of a sudden violence and power and might, they are not so god-like anymore. In fact, they become very human. And the thing that we thought was the solution to our problems turns out to be no solution at all.

Rather, God uses the weak waters of baptism to change us at our core.

Rather, God uses the foolish word of forgiveness and mercy to make us new.

Rather, God uses the love found in the body and blood of Christ to welcome us home.

And once again, Jesus reminds us that the power to decide who dies is a very human power.

But it is God’s power to make the dead… alive again.

Sermon, Theology & Culture

It was not Moses who gave us Thanksgiving

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John 6:25-35

Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (read the whole passage)

Earlier this week, a New York Times food columnist wrote about “Canadian Thanksgiving.” His article was about the surprising but little known holiday of Canadian Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October. He wrote about  the quieter nature of Canadian Thanksgiving that sadly and unimaginatively mirrors the American one in menu and traditions. He thought that there could be something uniquely Canadian that would make Canadian Thanksgiving our own.

The Canadian Thanksgiving for most of us sounds funny, because for us there is just Thanksgiving, and then American Thanksgiving, which seems to be an excuse to have a shopping holiday on Black Friday.

And so this weekend, as we gather with family and friends around mashed potatoes, turkey and football to celebrate “Canadian Thanksgiving,” it may be worth considering where this holiday came from.

While the legends are that the roots of Thanksgiving takes its roots from the pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock and sharing a feast with the indigenous people that they met in the new world… the reality is that people have been giving thanks around the time of harvest for hundreds of years before the discovery of the new world.

And so for us in Canada, Thanksgiving has been a time to give thanks for all the things that we have been blessed with. To give thanks for the harvest after a long summer of plowing, planting, growing and harvesting.

But let’s be honest, most of us aren’t celebrating thanksgiving for those reasons. Its not like this is the one time of year when we have enough extra food to have a feast. We could probably afford a turkey dinner most days if we really wanted one.

Thanksgiving for us is much more about the time spent with loved ones. We might be able to have turkey whenever we want, but finding the time to be with family and friends… well, that is something we are often desperate for. In fact, unlike the pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, or the extended families working on prairie farms 100 years ago who lived, worked and spent most time together, family time and rest time is very scarce for us. And thanksgiving might one of 2 or 3 times a year when families get to spend quality time together.

We might even get desperate to make this weekend special, with stressing over food and decorations, fighting and bickering because we already sad to say goodbye to loved ones before they arrive, trying to bring back the memories and feelings of the past that we forget to let new memories be made in the now.

As much as Thanksgiving is a chance to be with family and have that moment to pause and relax and just be… it can just as much be that painful reminder of the deep void that we all carry within us. The emptiness that never seems to be filled. The pain of loss and suffering that is never quite healed. The longing for something more than ourselves that we try to fill with things and stuff. That need for meaning in our lives that we push aside with mindless tv or endless internet surfing. That search for happiness that too often ends in substance abuse and addiction, that the next hit never fulfills.

Thanksgiving, like any holiday or time that we try to fill with nostalgia and sentimentalism, can all too often be a reminder of the great void at centre of beings, that we just don’t know how to fill.

Wow… This is a depressing thanksgiving sermon.

Maybe the bible can help? or that Jesus fellow we like talking about in church?

Well, today, when the crowds are following Jesus around the lake, they are clearly looking for something. While they pretend to be surprised to have come upon Jesus, he knows that they are out searching for something to fill their voids. They are doing the same thing that we are often trying to do on Thanksgiving weekend and Jesus calls them on it. These crowds have just experienced the miracles of the feeding of the 5000.  Jesus turned 5 barley loaves and two small fish into enough to feed thousands. And the crowds having experienced this miracles from heaven want more.

More food that is.

The crowds that are following Jesus are probably serial messiah followers. You see, in Jesus’ day, messiahs were a dime a dozen. There were leaders of small religious groups around every corner. Charismatic people who convinced people that they had the solutions to all their problems. The Messiahs promised that they would show people the path to righteousness, or that they would raise an army to oust the Roman occupiers, of that they would make their followers rich… or that they would make the nation great again. And the crowds would follow each would be messiah like the flavour of the week. The messiah they were following last week would different than the one followed now, and the one they would be following next.

And Jesus knows this. “You just want more bread” he scolds the crowds with.

“So show us a sign, that you are real deal” they respond.

The crowds don’t realize they are just following a cycle of disappointment, going from one messiah to the next. They are desperate people, looking for hope anywhere. And each time, they want this messiah to be the one who will fill their voids, who will give them something to hold on to.

But Jesus doesn’t give them a sign. All the other messiahs had signs and miracles too.

Instead, Jesus reminds them of the truths that they have been taught for generations. The manna, the bread from heaven that their ancestors were given did not come from Moses. Or in other words, Jesus reminds the desperate crowds that falling just another messiah in the hopes that this will be the one is not who they are.

Jesus reminds them that is is not Messiahs with big promises, it is not Thanksgiving dinners, it is not seeking after the next hit, is not trying to fill our empty voids with junk that satisfies.

Jesus reminds the crowds that is was God who provided the manna, the bread from heaven.

And then the crowds see.

It wasn’t signs that they needed. It wasn’t more bread. It wasn’t more stuff. It wasn’t more distraction. It wasn’t more escape. It wasn’t more of what they once had.

Jesus reminds them WHO it is that gives true bread from heaven.

Jesus reminds us WHO it is that can fill that void centre of our being, WHO it is that will give us that bread of life. Only God can relieve the our hungry void. Only God can fill our thirsty emptiness.

This weekend, as we sit at Thanksgiving tables desperate for the thing that will fill our empty voids, to satisfy the longing that we carry for something or someone to finally give us what we need… it won’t be the turkey, or the memories, or the stuff in our lives, or the escapes we seek out that will fill us. It will be those moments when we reach out across the table with open and empty hands and say, “pass the potatoes.”

It will be when we look into the eyes of those that we love, and recognize that we are loved, that we will be filled.

Because, those moments of recognizing love in others begins here first. It begins with the open hands and open hearts that we bring to God’s table.

As we come with our voids held out and open, God says to us “the Body of Christ given for you. You are now a part of me and I am a part of you.”

As we come with the emptiness deep inside of us ready to be filled, God says to us, “the Blood of Christ, shed for you. I will fill you with my love, and you will not thirst”

Here, in this Body that is the church, in this family of Christ, we are reminded of what we have been taught for generations. That true bread from heaven, bread that leaves us full inside, that fills our voids and our longing… that God gives us this bread.

That here, at the Lord’s table of Thanksgiving,  God gives us the true Thanksgiving meal.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”