Happy Thanksgiving now quit complaining. More comforting words from Jesus on this national day of giving thanks, eating too much, and football. It just seems so strange to have Jesus talking about worry, especially worrying about material things on Thanksgiving.
The more I ponder on it; however, I think that perhaps the guys who settled on this text for the lectionary actually had something. It seems to me that Jesus’ call to his disciples that they eliminate worry from their lives is essentially a call to a life of thankfulness. Maybe we can see in this section from the Sermon on the Mount that worry is the opposite of thanksgiving. To worry about life; food, drink, clothing, etcetera is to rely on ourselves. To rely on ourselves means that we are not relying on God. And not relying on God means we ignore the gifts that he has given us; life, breath, food, drink, relationships, even himself. We cannot be thankful for gifts which we ignore.
Jesus knew of the disciple’s tendency to rely on themselves. So he reminds them of the gifts that they so often ignored. He hammers it home with question after rhetorical question, kind of like the way a parent might make a point to a child. Is not life more than food and clothing? Yes. Does God feed the birds? Yes. So will God feed you? Yes. Can you add a year to your life by worrying about it? No. Did God clothe the lilies of the field? Yes. Will God clothe you? Yes. Do the pagans and unbelievers worry about food, drink and clothing? Yes. Does God know your needs for food, drink and clothing? Yes. If you seek the rule of God in your life, will God give you these things? Yes.[1]
All this to get to the heart of Jesus’ lesson, Why do we insist on worrying about tomorrow? Why do we find it so difficult to be thankful for the moment we have right now; for the life we have this instant? In a video we shot for the ecumenical service we asked kids across our churches what they were thankful for. Family, friends, bedroom, etc. were named. We laughed as a couple of children said that they are thankful for running away and then darted off screen, but there was some wisdom even in their jokes, are we thankful for the ability to run away even as our knees start to ache with the changing weather? Are we thankful for children when they fuss around in the pews? Are we thankful for our families when they stay too long on Thanksgiving night? It is interesting to me how things that I was once thankful for as a child now seem like inconveniences.
As I thought about this sermon I found myself back in childhood at Vacation Bible School. We were singing that long standing VBS hymn, this is the day. “This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” I sat in that image for as long as I could, but only a few moments later I found myself back in the present. I was sitting in front of the TCBY at the Pensacola University Mall waiting for my new pair of glasses to be finished. I was tired from a week of travelling. I was frustrated that my glasses and suitcase had both broken on the trip. I was agitated at church requirements for ordination. I was not rejoicing and I was not glad. “When did it happen,” I wondered to myself, “when did I get ruined? When did I stop recognizing this day as a day that the Lord had made? When did I start trying to make my own days by filling them with frustration and worry?” That is when I realized that worrying and giving thanks have a lot in common; they are, in fact, the absence of one another. To worry is to ignore the gifts of the God from whom all blessings flow. To be thankful is to trust him completely for all things.
Now I need to be careful here. I am making a lot of assumptions about those to whom this message will be spoken. I am assuming that everyone’s worries about food and clothing are worries of taste like mine. I am assuming everyone knows where their Thanksgiving meal will come from. And I realize that the old adage remains true, to assume makes something out of you and me… suffice it to say it makes us all look bad. And so I must address the other side of the coin. The first half of this sermon has no doubt infuriated someone as I come at the text from the point of view of middle-class privilege. You see, this lesson from Jesus made sense to his original audience. The disciples had given up everything and so to worry unnecessarily was no doubt one of their favorite past-times. This lesson from Jesus continues to make sense to most of us in South Baldwin County as we live in relative comfort and worry only that our food will be pleasing and that our clothes will be in fashion. But, this lesson from Jesus seems to make no sense for the billions of people around the world for whom worry is not based in luxury, but starvation and exposure to the elements are actual life and death concerns. What does this text have to say to those who this day have not received their daily bread? What does this text have to say about their worries, one’s formed not out of luxury, but out of unjust systems and societies.
I think that Jesus should be able to say, “Do not worry,” even to the hungry and the naked. Jesus should be able to say that, but I fear that the way things are in the world today are still unbalanced much like they were as he walked the earth. I am afraid that Jesus wishes he could tell the hungry and the naked not to worry, but that he can not in good conscience do so. I am more afraid that I have a part in that. I have spent so much time worrying that I’ve overcooked my shrimp and that my shoes aren’t shiny and that my shirts are out of style that I have missed the opportunity of thanksgiving; the opportunity to stop looking in toward myself and instead to look up and out toward God; and to seek and serve Christ in every human being along the way. If each of us who can afford to stop worrying did so and instead looked at the world with an overflowing spirit of thanksgiving then maybe, just maybe Jesus could offer freedom from worry to the whole world. This Thanksgiving each of us has the chance to work with God to inaugurate his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven if only for a moment. By becoming more faithful stewards, by approaching life with thanksgiving for this moment rather than worry for the future we can be freed to offer the kingdom life to others. Just as we are called to share the good news of our salvation in Jesus Christ with the world, so too we are called to share the God-given ability to not worry about food, drink, and clothing with the world around us; both the seemingly invisible poverty in South Baldwin County and the painfully obvious poverty of the third and fourth worlds. This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice, be glad in it, and then share your joy, your thanksgiving, and your refusal to worry with the rest of God’s creation. Amen.
[1] From http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_thanksgiving_GA.htm
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