"Thanksgiving, Backward and Forward"

A Sermon by The Rev. Keenan Kelsey
Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA)
December 12, 2004

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 is giving 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 that 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, ⁵ you shall make this response before the LORD your God: ‘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, 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 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰ 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 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.

IMAGINE three different people, all from a rural agricultural community, who prepare to travel to a nearby city for the annual thanksgiving worship service. Let’s call them Liz, Sam and Joe.

Liz is married to a farmer. who works a very large plot of land. This past year they did very well. It was a bumper crop for them, and naturally, Liz and her husband are very happy about it. At the worship service, they will tithe a full ten percent of everything that they received from the harvest. Giving away ten percent means giving away a lot, but their remaining nine-tenths is enough to make them quite wealthy and, for that, they are thankful.

Sam also farms. He farms a much smaller area than Liz's husband does. For whatever reason, Sam's crop was not too good this year. Sam's barn is pretty small to begin with, but, even so, his harvest did not come close to filling it. Discouraged as he is by how little he received from the land, he too plans to attend the special worship service. He also will offer 10 percent, although it frightens him a bit. He will give thanks for what crops he does have.

Finally there is Joe. Joe is a very young farmer. Some of his friends tease him about being more of a "nature lover" than a farmer. He sometimes goes out to his field and just looks at the earth. He stands in awe as he watches the miracle of planted seeds sprouting from the ground. As Joe brings his tithe to the special worship service, he does so conscious of the magical wonder that is bound up in the process of planting and harvesting.

Liz is "happy thankful." Sam is "discouraged thankful." Joe is "awe-struck thankful." Yet each knows that God is at the center of their lives, and is the ultimate source of their abundance. They travel to the city to offer God their thanks and their tithe. As the Bible commands, they come with the first part of their harvest, not the leftovers, not the second best, not what is convenient, but the first part, the best portion. They expect to feel good about their worship, their offerings. But this year, they discover something more. For this year, the priest has added a creed, a statement of faith.

This little story is about the ancient Hebrew people who heard the words that Cindy read from Deuteronomy. Liz, Sam and Joe would probably be better known as Elizabeth, Samuel and Joseph. They would be among the hundreds of ancient Hebrews who finished the harvest each year, then traveled to Jerusalem to give a tithe of their crops.

They would be attending the feast of Sukkot, a Hebrew word meaning “booths.” The gathered people would construct temporary tents or booths for the festival, simulating the shelters the Hebrew people used in the wilderness during their wandering. This celebration of nature and agriculture was set by counting seven weeks from the time the sickle was put to the standing grain (Deuteronomy 16:9). Since it was celebrated on the 50th day after the beginning of the harvest, it was later given the name "Pentecost," the Greek word for 50.

In fact, this is the same harvest festival that was taking place when the Holy Spirit came to the disciples and others in the second chapter of the book of Acts. This simple thanksgiving “feast of the first fruits” originally consisted of putting the best of one's harvest in a basket and going to the central sanctuary to offer it before Yahweh. But in our text today, the writer of Deuteronomy adds something. The priest asked them to repeat a brief but dramatic history of how God delivered the people from bondage in Egypt and how God later gave them the promised land. He said, ⁵ you shall make this response before your God: ‘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 God of our ancestors; and God heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. God 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 and brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

In other words, the priest takes a perfectly fine ceremony of thanksgiving, and says to the people: "There's more!" There’s more to this than simply saying thank you, God. The wandering Aramean is their ancestor Jacob. But quickly the pronoun changes from them to us, from he to we; and an historic narrative becomes personal, the worshipper's own story.

Apparently this harvest festival was to be not only about giving thanks for material things. It was also to be a time for remembering who God is, a time to discover who they themselves are as a people in relationship with this God. To the worshippers, it made all the difference.

Today, we come giving thanks for all God's blessings. Some, like Liz, have received much. Others, like Sam, may be discouraged. Still others, like Joe, reflect on the wonder and miraculous glory that is a part of every gift that we experience in and through God's creation. But all of us are reminded by this text that today is not only a time to remember God's material gifts to us. It is also a time to remember who God is and who we are as a people who have been brought into a relationship with that God.

What is it that lifts our souls out of a survivor mentality, a fear mentality, a greed focused existence? How is it that so often we are able to transcend our fears and find a joy or happiness that defies explanation? From whence comes that deep sense of hope, of being held in the loneliest times? Who is that companion during our darkest moments, causing us to be grateful for the good in the midst of tragedy, encouraging us to believe that good can come even when we cannot understand our own suffering or the suffering of others? When we are grateful not just for things, for the presence of the Divine in our lives, for an understanding of Love in capital letters, gratitude which comes over us as a wave lifts us higher than we can normally stand, then sets us back down on our feet after bringing us closer to God. Focusing on what God has done, in addition to merely thanking God for the gift of material blessings, can diminish the intrusive sense of entitlement that creeps into our lives over material comforts.

Gratitude is also a paradox: the more grateful we are, the more reasons we have to be grateful. This is the attitude that brings about a relationship with the Divine, which lets us put our trust in our Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. If this text can humble us, and open us, and remind us of God’s continual saving grace, God’s gift of life, God’s advent in Jesus Christ, then our thanksgiving will become quite a bit more than a simple nod of the head while saying grace before devouring a turkey dinner. Certainly we have a loving God who has provided the miracle of growth and harvest. But there is more, much more.

At NVM, we have been looking back all month, claiming our heritage, our growth from a new church building in 1888, through a life as Lebanon Presbyterian Church, to 20 years as Noe Valley Ministry. We have been marking the journey and remembering all that it took to get us to this place. Today, we are, like the Jews, marking our history while celebrating our present, the harvest, the fullness of our life together! At the same time, we are looking toward the future, offering our first fruits in praise and gratitude and hope.

But we have added something to our harvest table. Amidst all the fruit and vegetable and grain, we have placed bread: the product of the grain which is the metaphor for life itself, the symbol of God’s provision of food for the body and food for the soul. And with this bread, we remember that, just as God provided the desperately hungry Hebrews in the wilderness with manna, bread from heaven to eat; so God provided the desperately needy and spiritually empty people with bread from heaven for the soul, the gift of Jesus Christ. Whether you are a Liz or a Joe or a Sam, Jesus is our evidence that God the Provider still gives bread from heaven.

Listen to the Gospel from the book of John (6:25-35): as Jesus has the last word. ²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ ²⁶ 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. ²⁷ 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. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’ ²⁸ Then they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ ²⁹ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ ³⁰ So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹ Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” ’ ³² 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. ³³ For the bread of God is that which* comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ³⁴ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ ³⁵ 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.

May it be so, Amen.