|
Well, I don’t believe in accidents,
but it might be seen as an accident of history that Thanksgiving
proceeds the Christmas season. Whether it’s an accident or no, I think
it is entirely appropriate. In the Scriptures, we see an interesting
pattern that we give thanks before the blessing. Often that’s true and
in the Scripture reading I have for you today -- that’s exactly where we
are -- it’s actually a scriptural reading from the Old Testament, and I
want you follow along – it’s hard in some ways because we aren’t used to
the language, but what’s instituted in this particular passage of
Scripture among the Israelites is a Festival of Thanks. The Israelites
were to give their first-fruits of their harvest. Listen to the pattern
and I will explain it as we go along in this service.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
1
When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you
as an inheritance to possess and you possess it and settle in it,
2
you shall take some of the first of all the
fruit of the ground which you harvest from the land that the Lord your
God has given you and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place
that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name.
3 You shall go to the
priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ”Today I declare
to the Lord your God that I have come into the land the Lord swore to
our ancestors to give us.” 4
When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before
the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the
Lord your God, 5 “A wandering
Aramean was my ancestor. He went down into Egypt and lived there as an
alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and
populous. 6 When the
Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us by imposing hard labor on
us, 7 we cried to the Lord
and then the God of our Ancestors, the Lord heard our voice and saw our
affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8
The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm with a terrifying display of power and with signs and wonders.
9 He brought us into this
place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and with honey;
10 And so now I bring the
first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You
shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord
your God. 11 And then you,
together with the Levites and the aliens that reside among you shall
celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given you and
to your house.
12
When you have finished paying all the tithe of the produce in the
third year, which is the year of the tithe, giving it to the Levites,
the aliens, the orphans and the widows, so that they may eat their fill
within your towns.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
This is a passage about Thanksgiving,
and not only is it a passage about Thanksgiving, but it’s a passage
which shows us a pattern that we are to follow in our lives. What’s
interesting about this passage is it begins with a future reference.
God’s first instruction to the Hebrew people was to give thanks not for
what God had done for them in the past, but what he would do for them in
the future. Interesting.
In verse 2 of our passage God
instructs them to make an offering of first-fruits. We have talked
about that a lot in the last couple of weeks. This is the first harvest
that they would have, and when this harvest began to come in, they were
to take the first part of it and go and give it to the Lord. Not
because the Lord needed it, but it was the Lord’s way of taking care of
things, taking care of the alien in the land, taking care of the poor,
but also taking care of the religious needs. It was to go partly to the
Levites, the pastors of the time, kind of like giving to the church. It
was an exercise of faith because what would happen if there weren’t a
second harvest? What if after they gave the first-fruits there were no
other fruits – there was a hail storm, there was a wind storm, there was
a flood, there was blight, and there was locusts. What would happen if
that happened? By requiring the offering of the first-fruits, God was
telling them to trust because he will provide for the future. True
faith means telling God thank you beforehand and then watching his
blessings come later. Interesting, isn’t it?
The story about a couple named Susan
and Harvey and they were going through a rough period that taught them
to trust God and his providence. Harvey couldn’t find work and the
family finances were dwindling quickly. One morning, Susan opened the
pantry to find bags of potatoes and onions and absolutely nothing else.
To complicate matters, as she prayed over the family’s financial
situation, Susan felt God urging her to give away what they did have.
What a dilemma. Then Harvey came home and he asked Susan to take some
food to the new family moving next door. What’s he doing? Didn’t he
realize how dire their situation was? Despite of her misgivings, Susan
loaded a picnic basket with potatoes and onions and delivered it to
their new neighbors. Well, a short time later, Susan answered the door
to find the neighbor’s son on their front steps. He was carrying bags
of groceries. His family’s refrigerator hadn’t been installed, yet they
needed to get rid of the food they brought from their old house. Would
she accept a couple of bags of groceries? Of course, with great joy!
This couple could only interpret the neighbor’s kindness like this: God
had rewarded their giving by giving back abundantly.
God’s first instruction to us as it
is to all his people, give thanks not for what he has done for them in
the past but what He would do in the future. That’s so hard, isn’t it?
So often we want to see the proof before we will take an action. So
often as we do our budgeting now, and I’m not saying it’s wrong, but we
want to see all the pledges come in before we’ll make our budget, and
that’s appropriate, but sometimes we don’t want to have faith. We want
to see the proof. It’s true in our personal lives, don’t we? We don’t
give first we give what’s leftover often.
The story of a pastor named David
Russell who in Tennessee tells about a little boy named Nathan, a little
three-year-old. Nathan’s parents are trying to introduce him to what it
means to be in church. One Sunday they gave him a dollar bill that
Nathan was to place in the offering plate. The plate moved around
Nathan’s pew, his parents held it in front of him and told him to place
a dollar in the plate. Nathan didn’t want to do that. Finally, his
mother gently took the dollar bill from him. She placed it in the plate
and was passing down the pew then suddenly the stillness of the
offertory was shattered with a voice shouting, “I want my dollar back.
I want my dollar back.” Nathan had been robbed he wanted it back and he
wanted everyone to know it, and he kept going, “I want my dollar back.”
Well, everyone in the congregation was fighting a losing battle against
laughter. You can imagine, and throughout the remaining strains of the
organist’s meditative tune, the only thing most worshipers heard was, “I
want my dollar back.” Well, eventually his parents gave him another
dollar and gave it for him to hold and he finally hushed.
The pastor, as pastors often do,
wanted to use this as a teachable moment. He looked out at all the
faces and he said, “We shouldn’t laugh. It may be that Nathan is only
voicing the feelings that some of us have after giving to God. We do so
not joyously but out of a sense of obligation, not willingly, but
unwillingly. We may not say it but some of us think, ‘I want my dollar
back.’” God’s instruction is to give first, not later.
Let me come to the second instruction
which for the Hebrew people is to give thanks to God’s goodness for the
past, but even this is problematic. It’s interesting if you read this
passage, I know, again, it is one – sometimes the Old Testament is hard
to listen to because we do not understand the culture, we don’t
understand what is going on. It’s hard to read sometimes, but
essentially what the passage instructs is for them to give the
first-fruits and then recite to the priest what has happened over the
last 400 years. In other words, I am the son of a wandering Aramean,
that’s Jacob. Jacob and his family, you remember, went down to Egypt
and there they stayed, and they went down few in number and they
flowered, but then another pharaoh came along and said, “This is getting
dangerous,” and he enslaved them for 400 years. Why would they recite
the bad stuff from the past? Life was no picnic for them. Why would
God want them to dredge up these memories? Why would God want us to
dredge of some memories? You know we all come here today with pasts
maybe that are not that great. In any given room in any church of a
hundred people, a few people were probably abused as children. Some
come here with sickness having been or maybe someone is currently in the
hospital. Maybe this year hasn’t been very good for you economically.
All kinds of things we can think of. Some years are better than
others. Why would we want to dredge that up?
Well, as someone once said, “Pictures
don’t lie, memories don’t lie either.” In all our lives, our memories
are like a big grab bag, and there are all kinds in there and we can
interpret them the way we wish. We choose how we remember the past,
even if the past is unbelievably hard, and the fact is, the most
faithful people, people who have the greatest faith are people who are
able to see hardship as an opportunity for God’s redemption. You know,
if you read the Scripture just a few pages, you’ll find again and again
it has several themes, but one theme that happens all the time is that
something bad happens and God takes that bad thing and makes it good.
One of the most famous of these stories is the story of Joseph, the son
of Jacob. You know that story? Joseph the youngest son or the next to
the youngest, and Benjamin was last, is sold into slavery by this
brothers. He gets carted down to Egypt and things aren’t terrible at
first, he works in the household of Potiphar but then is accused falsely
of making eyes at Potiphar’s wife. He is thrown into jail and there he
rots for a long time. In the end though he is taken from jail and made
second in command of Egypt. And later when Joseph’s brothers meet him
again, they are afraid because here is the man they sold into slavery
who suddenly has all kinds of power, he could put them to death at any
moment, and probably very slowly, and they are afraid. And he says to
them, “Don’t be afraid, you meant it for evil but God meant it for
good.” Talk about a reinterpretation. But isn’t that true in many
cases in the Scriptures the biggest story of all is the story of the
cross in the bible where men and women meant it for evil and God meant
it for good. God takes the worst thing that could happen, the death of
his Son, and turns it into redemption. This is not a call on reality.
It is a call to be thankful that God is in control and loves us.
So the second instruction for us is
to give thanks to God for his goodness in the past even if the past
isn’t so hot. It’s amazing how often in life a low moment becomes a
grow moment. We thought it was the worst thing that could happen to
us. We thought we would die, but we didn’t. We hung in there, fought
the good fight, and today we look back and that was the turning point in
our life. Isn’t that true often? The hardest places become the turning
point in our lives? It doesn’t always happen, of course, but it does
happen and more apt to happen when we hold on to our faith in the God
who loves us.
The final instruction, of course, is
to give God thanks for the present. It’s not just doing it, but it is
the how that is important, and it is by rejoicing. Did you notice that
in the end that after they had brought the first-fruits, had faith for
the future, they had recited the past in all its color whether it was
not so good or it was good, then the passage says, “You are to
celebrate,” to have joy. After you have given back to God, after you
have recalled God’s guidance in the past, you leave the altar and go
home rejoicing, and you don’t just have a party for yourself, you invite
the community, even the strangers in your midst to share your joy. We
let them see how much fun it is to have a faith-filled life, a
God-honoring life. Joy is contagious. You know, sometimes we wonder
why we have trouble and churches growing and having others come and
staying with us, but if we were places full of joy, we would have to
beat people up to keep them out of here. You never know whose life will
be touched, whose perspective would be changed by a simple act of
thanksgiving.
The story about Dr. Lynch who was
stuck working the night shift on Christmas Eve and as the newest
resident of the hospital, this lady doctor had the last choice of shifts
so she got the one that no one else wanted. Late that evening, an
elderly man was admitted with chest pains and she treated him for heart
attack symptoms. She checked him out thoroughly and eventually he was
able to go home. The next year Dr. Lynch was stuck once more working
the same shift on Christmas Eve. At 9:00 p.m., an elderly couple
entered the emergency room and introduced themselves to her. The
gentleman was the same one who had appeared the year before, and he
wanted to thank her for saving his life that previous Christmas. So the
next year, the next Christmas, they returned with another gift and a hug
for Dr. Lynch and they went on to do this for thirteen years, and for
thirteen years Dr. Lynch took the same shift because she began to look
forward to the visits of this elderly couple. Joy was contagious.
Thanksgiving was contagious.
So my message to you this morning is
simply to remember to be thankful for the future, the past and for the
present, and to remember this thought: That to be thankful is to taste
joy twice. Once in the thanking and second in the remembering. I
challenge you this Thanksgiving to tell the story of your past – to tell
it in the positive. Focus on how God has guided you and provided for
you or remember what God has brought you through the past year and the
years before that. Remember God’s promise that he has a future and a
hope for you and then leave here rejoicing and all the good things your
God has given to you and to your household.
In the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
|