Thanksgiving Sermon

This weekend we are delighting in the gifts of the harvest!

And what a joy to connect our celebration of Harvest Thanksgiving alongside the cultural celebration of Thanksgiving. We are Blessed!

So I am going to invite us now to think about what we are thankful for!

Hands up if you’re thankful for your family

…if you’re thankful for your friends

…if you’re bursting with delight for the good weather

…if you’re full of gratitude for your health (even if it’s imperfect!)

… for the community you live in?

…For your neighbours?

Alleluia! We are thankful. And we know that it is easy to be grateful for those we love and who love us.

And you’re getting the Anglican aerobics going on. You won’t need arm-day at the gym with all this gratitude!

So! I’m on a roll.

Hands up if you are thankful for having some money in the bank or under the mattress!

…if you are so financially secure that the bank has trusted you with a loan or a mortgage or a credit card!

…if you have, or have had, a job!

… if you are, or have been, in school!

…if you have enough food in your home for a meal today!

… if you are allowed to pray however you like!

… if you got up this morning from a bed.

… and if you did so with a roof over your head…

…and if you have a tap from which flows clean water.

if you’ve never known life to be different than what I just described; Thanks be to God indeed!

Yes, folks, I’m getting deeper. Because Thanksgiving means we are given the chance to be more deeply grateful as we are more deeply aware of the gifts in our life.

Okay! Hands up if you are thankful for pain!

Uh-oh. There’s the rub. Yet we know that pain helps us to appreciate life’s joys all the more

Hands up if you are grateful for tears!

Again. Ouch – yet tears, we know, are liquid love that flow from a blessed vessel – we don’t cry tears if we have not known love.

Hands up if you are grateful for making mistakes!

Ugh, we try to avoid those, but we are blessed if we have been given the chance to learn from our mistakes, to make reparations, and do better.

I think you get the idea – even the challenging things in this life can be an opportunity for us to grow, to improve, to strive to be the best version of ourselves. These challenges also allow us to be more understanding when others are going through them; our sympathy and empathy increase with experience – and for that we are thankful.

So what about the boring stuff?

The flowers in the garden, the pretty sunset last week, the funny joke last month… sure, we enjoy it at the time, but do we remain thankful for it even after it’s not front and centre?

We’re reminded to do that today – as Joel re-orients the community to be glad for the basic local realities of soil, of flora and fauna, and nourishment.

And in the Psalm where a basic farm reality of planting and reaping sets the scene.

And in a letter from Timothy who really isn’t saying anything new.

And in Jesus’ examples of food and drink and clothing – and of the role of faith.

For God is there, in the ordinary-ness of everyday life. And for this, we can thank God.

So: in summary: hands up if you are thankful!

Beautiful. Blessed.

That thankfulness itself is something to recognise as a gift: for the grateful heart is continually seeking out things to be thankful for; it is striving to bring an attitude of gratitude into the world, it is working to keep love manifest in all of the world.

For we have received the gifts of God:

The gifts of love, of welcome, of community, of inclusion.

The gifts of faith, of connection with the divine, of the Gospel truth.

And with ALL of these gifts; the ordinary and the holy - comes the chance – the privilege – the responsibility! of giving back. And of paying it forward. Of re-seeding the world with the love that we have known.

The re-giving is in Joel’s reminder to care for the soil and animals and plants – for the nourishment of today and tomorrow; knowing that we – as God’s people – will never be put to shame.

It’s in the enthusiasm of the Psalmist who reminds us that God has done – and continues to do! great things for us – and we are glad indeed!

It’s in the simple happiness of Timothy’s letter as he overflows with the awesome joy of prayer to chat with God, and of the assurance of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

It’s in the Gospel, as Jesus invites us to focus on the things in our lives that we can so easily overlook, or under-value, or take for granted.

This giving of thanks is there as we train our brain (as a friend reminded me this week) to appreciate the profound goodness that is in our midst.

It is to strive for the kingdom of God, already surrounded by all that we need.

It is to delight in the gifts that God has placed here, for us to recognise, for us to appreciate, for us to enjoy: and for us to share.

For this too is part of being thankful: in giving thanks. And in giving, thankfully.

It’s not an accident or coincidence that our readings today are marked in the lectionary for both harvest AND rogation – rogation, of course, meaning to plant. To sow.

For when we harvest, we know that the abundance that we have has not just appeared – we are reaping the benefits of what has already been planted, and tended, and sown.

And a harvest carries within it the seeds for the future: waiting to be nourished in good soil, and cared for in growth, and enjoyed in the future.

It’s the joy of planting a seed: it’s a giving of thanks for a tomorrow that may not be ours.

So. As we give thanks for the efforts of the past, which we enjoy in the delight of the harvest, we graft thanks into the growth for the future.

So I’m going to invite us to ponder what seeds we can find in this time of abundance, that are yearning to be planted: in trust, in hope, in faith:

Seeds of peace and justice…

Seeds of equality and dignity…

Seeds of worship and praise…

Seeds of compassion and kindness…

Seeds of having enough – for ourselves, and to share…

Seeds of faith, waiting to be nurtured and nourished…

Seeds of things we can’t even yet ask or imagine: but for which God already has a plan.

The seeds of God’s kingdom are sitting in us: waiting to grow…

So – one last time: hands up if you’re grateful for the potential that God is placing in our hearts and hands.

I’ll share a quote from Melody Beattie: “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial to acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, and a stranger into a friend.”

As God invites us to the fullness of life, let us be intentional about knowing, naming, and expressing our gratitude:

let us show our thanks in the seeds of compassion, that we sow;

in the tending of new life, that we eagerly anticipate;

and in the abundance of love, for all to harvest in the kingdom of God.

Thanks Be To God.