Thanksgiving.
If you were to try to thank the person most important to your
being who and what you are today, who would you thank? Would you
go back to your beginning? Thank God that you were born? Thank
or give thanks for your mother and father?
Our opening hymn for today is the foundation
for our thankful reflections. Now thank we all our God-a
hymn that contains the line--Who from our mothers' arms has
blessed us on our way. Truth be known, we were blessed well
before our mothers' arms. Psalm 139 suggests that we were
known to God while we were yet in the womb.
Who prayed for you before you were born?
My grandmother Hilda died at the age of 103. She told me once that she had no idea she would ever live so long and having six children who all survived to adulthood, have so many grandchildren and great grandchildren. She said it puzzled her that it was so hard to remember all their birthdays, something she strove to do faithfully. But in her prayers, she said, she never had any trouble remembering every name. She told me she even prayed now and then for the generations yet unborn--those not even yet conceived or thought of by their future parents, her great great--many times great--grandchildren. Giving thanks for the blessing of all those who we so easily forget and yet were proof again and again of God's favor upon us.
In a sermon study by Arden Mead the questions are asked--Do you know the name of the doctor who delivered you? Did you ever have a chance to thank that doctor? Did you ever thank God for that doctor--for all the education, experience and skill that made it possible for you to be born successfully? Who else was in the delivery room when you were born--nurses, technicians? Could you even find a record of their names?
Speaking of names, have you ever paged through your baby book and given thanks for those who wished you well at your birth even before you knew your own name? Do you know the name of the pastor who baptized you? Have you ever given thanks to God for that person or for the church that provided and supported that ministry? Who are your godparents? Have you ever given thanks to God for them? Have you ever thanked them?
How many of your teachers can you name? Maybe while you sit around the Thanksgiving table today you might make a list? And maybe in the process remember a few whose names you can no longer remember--maybe not their faces either--but you know they were there. How many other persons in positions of responsibility were involved in your schooling? People like coaches, tutors, crossing guards, librarians, teachers' aids, bus drivers, school nurses, band directors, scout leaders.
Who gave you your first job? Who introduced you to the person you would eventually marry? Who performed your wedding ceremony? Who stood up for you? Maybe that's another memory book that needs to be paged through and given thanks over. Who were the very first people you told when you knew you were going to be a parent? Who was there for you when a real emergency occurred? Who did the most to make or keep you a Christian? Who offered meaningful comfort when someone died? Whose life has most affected yours?
Our reflections this morning for our Thanksgiving sermon have had a slightly different focus from years past. Up to this point there has been no mention of thanksgiving for THINGS the way we usually do. The Thanksgiving tradition is to give thanks for the harvest--the gift of all those things that God has given to us. Blessings of food and shelter--property and possessions--the many items that make our harvest list for thanks. And certainly we should be thankful for the many things that fill our lives, but one of the greatest dangers of our holiday activities is that we so quickly focus on the THINGS of our lives. We forget the personal and the people who have touched our lives--the many people whom God has provided from our mothers' arms through all our life.
In each of the people we have named today and those whose names may still come to us as we continue our personal lists of thanks--God has been at work for us. God has drawn near to us through them--the love of God has been revealed to us in their lives often given for or to us without our even knowing. This is the great gift of thanksgiving--to give thanks for those who have given of themselves for us-to us.
Our faith is grounded in the idea of self giving--of the personal--our God is not found in abstract ideas or good intentions--our God is not found in the things we have or even the things we share with others--our God is found in the person of Jesus Christ.
The center of our faith is God giving his Son for us--that we might be blessed generations before we were even born--God's Son revealing to us the true glory of living for others and giving to others. God loves us so much that he gave his only Son. And, if that were not enough--all those other people too. All those other people--and more, whom we probably can't remember, whom we certainly can't name.
In the midst of all the things that we are thankful for let us not forget the people--the saints of all time who brought us to this time and place. Oh may this bounteous God through all our life be near us--And God has--and God will--that is his promise--a promise we have seen fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord.
Now thank we all our God we sing
-who from our mothers' arms (and even before and certainly
since)
has blessed us on our way.
Let us take the time today and through all our lives to
give thanks to God--not only for the things--but especially for
the people of grace.
Amen.