Today I declare...

This is a sermon that I preached at our Community Thanksgiving Service on November 24, 2013. This Thanksgiving Reflection is based upon Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and John 6:25-35: 

“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.” This is the opening sentence of the formal declaration of President Lincoln as written by his Secretary of State, William Seward in October 1863. Such became our American tradition -- to set aside the last Thursday in November as “a day of Thanksgiving and praise” for the bounty that God has blessed us with today.

My experience this summer has probably not been much different than your experience this summer. This has been a good year for gardens, fields, farmers, and harvest. Throughout the summer and the fall, I’ve been blessed with tomatoes, blueberries, peppers, pears, potatoes, and apples. The farmers in my area, tell me that the harvest has been good, record harvest from wheat to beans. “As the year draws to its close, we have been blessed with fruitful fields and healthful skies…” Our words have spoken about the wonder and beauty of a fruitful year, but how have these blessings translated into meaningful actions? What will our actions declare today? By what action will we declare the goodness of God who has blessed us with our ‘fruitful fields and healthful skies’? By what action will we return our thanks to God? Will we see our blessings and share our bounty? What will our actions declare today – this week?

The Hebrew Scriptures provide us with an insight into an ancient culture that did not write a Thanksgiving Proclamation or set aside the last Thursday in November to be a day of “Thanksgiving and praise”. For this culture, the declaration was not an excuse to invite family and friends to come and eat their fill of Turkey and then spend the afternoon watching the football games. More than a day off, the Hebrew people declared that the land, the fruit of their fields, and the gift of bounty did not belong to them, but was a gift to the people by God’s hand of grace. “When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess…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 declare…” Deuteronomy 26:1-3.

Through their long and tedious journey through the wilderness, a tribal people once enslaved to Egypt are set free from the chains of slavery and through the miraculous power and grace of an omnipotent God they were blessed with a “land flowing with milk and honey” and they would declare their complete dependence upon God’s grace and bounty by remembering their story:  “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. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 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; he brought us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey” Deuteronomy 26:5b-9.  This they would declare on their day of praise and thanksgiving.

Their day of thanksgiving and praise remembered not only their bountiful blessings, but also their faith story – the reason they “live and move and have their being…” What do our actions on Thanksgiving declare? Has Thanksgiving for us become a convenient excuse to eat more in one meal than thousands, perhaps millions of people throughout the world eat in weeks, perhaps months. Is our Thanksgiving a good time to invite the folks over for beer, pretzels, and football? What do our actions declare? As Jesus says to the disciples after John’s version of “the feeding of the 5000”, “…You are not looking for me because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” John 6:26. In other words, do we know that God has blessed us with the food that fills our hungry stomachs or have we become so detached from our Creator that we’ve forgotten who we are and to whom we owe our gratitude for ‘fruitful fields and healthful skies?”

On this Sunday before this blessed holiday, we have the foundation and the time to remember who has given us our bounty. As miraculous as the ‘feeding story’ that the four gospels agree is an important event in one’s understanding of Jesus Christ, the miracle is our invitation to declare our story, our identity, and our complete dependence upon God’s grace. Jesus reminds us, “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. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” John 6:32-33. This is our story to declare – this is the story of Thanksgiving – this is the living bread that endures for eternal life. This is the bread of life. May we proclaim with the disciples, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Amen.