THANKSGIVING—AND ALL
THAT…. Nov. 23
When
the holidays approach, I find myself becoming quite nostalgic. And when I think
particularly about Thanksgiving, I remember weird stuff—like the condensation
build-up in our kitchen as the turkey was cooking that made the walls sweat. We
had to open the windows in November to balance out the weather in the kitchen.
I
remember waking up on Thanksgiving morning and even up on the second floor,
where my room was, I could smell the turkey already roasting. My mother would
get up very early to get the bird in the oven. She must have had five or six
kinds of vegetables in process on the stove. To this day, I still don’t know
how all you manage to get everything to finish perfectly at the appointed time.
Thanksgiving
was the one time each year when we used my mother’s wedding china. I was not
too thrilled about using the china because we had to take it down from a
cabinet over the refrigerator, and my mother insisted that we wash each piece
before we set the table. I couldn’t understand it; it wasn’t like we put those
dishes away dirty the year before!
The
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade would be on in the living room where my brothers
and I watched intently for all the balloons: We had Underdog and Snoopy and Popeye
and Bullwinkle and Superman and Smokey the Bear; we had Donald Duck and Pink
Panther and Woody the Woodpecker, and I think we even had Puff the Magic Dragon.
New
characters join the parade every year—Kermit the Frog, Hello Kitty, Buzz
Lightyear, Sponge Bob, the Blues Clues dog, Spiderman, Dora the Explorer, the
Monopoly man. I wonder if Elsa from Frozen
will make her hot air appearance in 2014?
What
do you remember from your childhood Thanksgiving days?
Well,
some memories are wonderful, others not so much. With each passing year, the
memories mix together like gravy—a little bit of juice, a little bit of flour,
a little bit of lumpy stuff. I can still hear the fork scraping against the
roasting pan as my grandfather stirred the mixture over and over again until it
magically became gravy.
I’m
grateful for those memories, yet I want to run from them, too. This is my first
thanksgiving without my mother. I know how I feel anticipating Thursday; I discovered pretty much too late that
subconsciously I want to forget about the holiday because I wrote the original
service this past Monday and it had
absolutely nothing to do with being grateful or the holiday. I did not realize
until Friday night that I had not put in one traditional favorite Thanksgiving
hymn! How can we not sing “We Gather Together”? I wait all year long for that
hymn!
Someone
reminded me that people come to church on Thanksgiving Sunday particularly to
sing “We Gather Together,” “Now Thank We All Our God,” and “We Plow the Fields
and Scatter”! Huge pastoral faux pas! I owe my pastoral survival this morning
to our newly installed minister of Music. Thank you, Chris!
The
message today is that we must not make any faith faux pas when it comes to
thankfulness. Even in circumstances that are difficult or painful—when we’re
grieving, disappointed in life, being ill, stressing over finances or a
relationship or the state of the world, basically just knowing this family
holiday will never be quite the same again—we have much for which to be
thankful to God.
These
three verses contain two words that are difficult to handle when you’re hurting
or angry or depressed and disappointed. The words are “always” and
“everything.”
We
worry about generalizing situations in life, don’t we? We catch ourselves
saying “Everybody knows….” Or “I Always forget” or “we Never go without…”. But
God never deals in generalities; everything God says and does is very specific,
well planned and foreknown. He said to Jeremiah, "Before
I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated
you.”
Scripture tells us to rejoice always, pray continually,
and give thanks in all circumstances, yet some days, some years, when the very
worst situation has happened to you, the last thing you feel like doing is
rejoicing ALWAYS or to give thanks in everything. We may think, “Surely God
understands that we cannot always be filled with praise and thankfulness” but
scripture testifies otherwise.
“Why does God ask this of us? It is because God has a
specific purpose for thankfulness. When we are thankful, we become more aware
of his presence and more motivated to find his purpose—the one he consecrated
us for. Thankfulness teaches us to trust God, to build our faith, and to
recognize our dependence upon Him.
How can we be thankful in all things or always find
things about which to rejoice? “The Bible tells us that we must first be a
child of God. Then we will receive the Holy Spirit, who enables us to become
more like Christ; do the work God created us to do, and express gratitude when
we feel that we cannot.
The power of thankfulness works its way in us that will
guide us to rise above our problems and to place our focus upon God. When we
thank God and rejoice in the Lord always, there is the promised energy of the
Holy Spirit who will walk with us as we walk the path set before us in our
lives.
In
Colossians 3:15, God’s word says, “Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in
your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And
always be thankful.” There’s nothing nostalgic about God’s word; it’s always
alive in the present.
Giving
thanks is the will of God. What can you thank God for right now? I thank God for you, the ways you held our
family in prayer, sent cards and flowers, made up the hospital bed, and visited
us this summer. For your gift I will rejoice always. Amen.
November 23, 2014
First Parish
Federated Church of South Berwick,
ME
The Reverend Donna
Lee Muise, Pastor
