First United Methodist Church of Reno

⁷For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, ⁸a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, ⁹a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. ¹⁰You shall eat your fill and bless the LORD your God for the good land that he has given you.

¹¹Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. ¹²When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, ¹³and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, ¹⁴then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, ¹⁵who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, ¹⁶and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. ¹⁷Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” ¹⁸But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.

¹¹On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, ¹³they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” ¹⁴When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. ¹⁵Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. ¹⁶He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. ¹⁷Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? ¹⁸Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

With that ancient Dutch melody, and those words, still in our ears,^³ I hope that we’ve all gathered in the spirit of thanksgiving this morning and truly feel as if we have, indeed, received the Lord’s blessing. If we haven’t been able to give thanks, daily, for this community in which we find ourselves – even if it’s been a mixed experience and the blessings aren’t really overflowing and we still know pain, heartache and disappointment to be among us – if we only keep complaining to God (as the ancient Israelites did) that nothing is satisfying and that we’re plagued by people’s petty concerns, we will get in the way of experiencing just how richly blessed we are as a people of God.

Thanksgiving is actually part of being human. It’s gratitude in action. It’s our joyous acceptance of life and all of its blessings as a free gift. More than that, though, it’s the generous impulse to share it and so make it a blessing to everybody else. In its purest form, then, Thanksgiving is our celebration of God as the giver of all good, free and perfect gifts, the one “from whom all blessings flow.” It ought to remind us that life should never be taken for granted, and it should never be degraded by hatred, greed or injustice. You see, this wonderful gift can be rejected or abused. All that is asked of us is that we gratefully receive it and share it – as it’s got to be if the joy of Thanksgiving is going to mean anything at all. We gather together, or there isn’t a real gathering at all.

And that’s the root of our problem in this world, I think – we don’t gather together; we gather separately. We are a people both united and rejected. We have become united behind a new president, but we express rejection when we deny people of the same sexual orientation to marry. And make no mistake they feel the rejection. A very dear friend of mine who – at least for now – is married, felt the “Yes on 8” signs in her neighbor’s yard as if they were burning crosses or Nazi swastikas. Why? Because she and her partner in marriage were lesbians. She thought that their neighbors knew who she was – they’d admired and cooed over the child that she and her partner had had; they greeted each other on the street with pleasant hellos. But with that blatant message in favor of Proposition 8 these same neighbors were saying, “We reject who you are.”

But people in the gay community are also united. They are united, at least in part, because they are rejected. When I spoke at that protest rally last Saturday,^⁴ it was to several hundred people who form a close-knit, intimate community of suffering. Curiously enough it was a gathering together of all kinds of people: straight as well as gay, black and white, young and old, privileged and under-privileged, all of us because, either one of us or someone we loved, was being rejected. The community that I saw there in front of City Hall, though, was far stronger than the division that any vote could create. People suffering because of their difference are rejected, but they’re also very much united.

The same has been true of the social disease of racism. The formula is this: prejudice + power = racism. When people of power show their prejudice against any minority, it breeds not only racism, but sexism, ageism, classism, and on and on and on. It was true of our rejection of the American Indian; and for a time it was true of the Irish, of Italians, of Puerto Ricans, of all immigrants. And for far, far too long it’s been true for American blacks. Unequal housing, separate schooling, inadequate medical care, less opportunity – all of these are the marks of rejection common to racism.

But these same ethnic groups are also united. Not unlike the gay community, ethnic communities experience a unique closeness as well. And like the gay community, they’ve gathered together, in part, because of their shared experience of rejection. People of color come in all sorts of categories: Republicans as well as Democrats, rich and poor, well-educated and not; and yet in spite of their difference, most feel a deep unity with one another. Racism may be a blatant rejection of others solely based upon color, but it also unites.

For a long, long time, the same was true of lepers – it certainly was during Jesus’ time. According to Jewish law, lepers had to live outside the city walls. Wherever they went they were required to call out “Unclean! Unclean!” as they passed so that others could get away from them and never be touched by them – even a marketplace through which a leper may have passed was considered to have become ritually unclean. Such was the understanding in ancient times of the nature of disease. If lepers were lucky enough to recover (or maybe they’d just been misdiagnosed), they were required by religious law to be certified by a priest before they could become part of the community again. This is why Jesus urges them to show themselves to the priests – the final arbiters in that culture, unfortunately, of who was to be deemed clean or unclean. Can you imagine what having such power might mean?

The same was true in Europe during the Middle Ages. Again lepers were forbidden from entering cities. They were segregated into what came to be known as leper colonies. They were prohibited from selling food and drink. And they, too, had to warn others of their approach. Many walked with the help of a cane or a staff to which was hung a bell – its signal a ringing warning: a leper is coming! Even in Europe lepers were rejected.

But they also were united. In this passage that we read today from the Gospel According to Luke, we find a group of ten lepers – nine of them Jews and one a normally hated Samaritan.^⁵ And yet leprosy overcame all of their differences. In the community of that disease, Samaritan and Jew traveled together. They were united.

So how do we overcome that kind of profound separation and, together, make it a gathering? In two simple steps, really: one toward our humanity and the other toward God. The first step we’ve got to make is a step toward our shared humanity. It’s to see oneself as a human being – who happens to be different – rather than as a person with a disease, or a person with a different skin color, or a person with a different sexual orientation. Our humanity is the source of our unity.

I shouldn’t have to say anything about the devastating consequences of a disability, do I? The effects are the same. As Michael Herzog was given a new spine this past week, he faces the unenviable prospect of getting a new knee not long after his back heals. There’s a lot that he’s been unable to do prior to these surgeries. One exclusion that he felt profoundly was his inability to walk the “stations of the cross” around town with us during Holy Week earlier this year. I’m reminded of a woman who was facing the same knee surgery and in almost constant pain, but she was able to get a grip on it by holding on to her dream of dancing again. To help her out, her daughter wrote her a poem, the first verse of which read like this:

Jesus did something a lot like that for the lepers in our story. When, with one voice, they called out to Jesus for mercy, he simply told them to go to the Temple to get certified as cured – to be judged clean in the eyes of the law. In other words, he commended them to act in the belief that they were already healthy and whole human beings. The same can be true of any social disease – whether it’s racism or homophobia. The first step must be toward our humanity.

The second step is toward God. It’s not a step that everybody makes though. In our story, according to Luke, ten were healed, but only one saw it as the immense gift that it was. It wasn’t just that he realized he was no longer an outsider; he was overwhelmed by a moment of spiritual insight: God had embraced him as a whole human being. Could we not do the same? All questions of disease and contagion aside, just as our passage from Deuteronomy calls for us to remember God’s gracious gifts in creation, in that moment the Samaritan leper remembered that he had been doubly blessed: he was no longer just a Samaritan and a leper, he was a human being.

So what did he do? He ran back to Jesus, threw himself at his feet and gave thanks. This is one way to measure a mature faith. The more that you see life as a gift from God, the more you can give thanks. The saints that we will remember with thanksgiving in our final hymn this Sunday,^⁷ were able to do just that.

Here on this Thanksgiving Sunday, then, we as a church should question whether or not the American image of the “good life” is in concert with the biblical challenge of the “gospel life” – the message of good news that’s meant, not just for the privileged few, but for everybody. We gather together, or there is no real gathering at all. Living into that truth we ought to begin to recognize the startling generosity of a Creator that has indiscriminately offered life and blessings to all of creation and to every single human being. That kind of generosity is the authentic source of any thanksgiving that we may claim to be Christian in our cherished and yet still troubled world. Most of us here will do just that. We will gather together with family or friends this coming Thursday to offer our heartfelt thanks to God – for each other, surely – but also to thank that rabbi from Nazareth who reached out to heal the sick and suffering, who embraced the outcast and preached good news to the poor, and who all of his life opened his arms to embrace everyone who gathered around him.

There’s no command here. In the end there’s just this: as we gather together at our Thanksgiving table the invitation is to let the Spirit transform our gathering into the kind of joy that it was meant to be – a joy that doesn’t claim that such blessings are meant only for us, we privileged few, that wholeness, health, well-being, even the blessings of life itself, are meant for all of God’s children.

3 In these traditional words the hymn has offered us this image:

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;

he chastens and hastens his will to make known.

The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.

Sing praises to his name; he forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,

ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine;

so from the beginning the fight we were winning;

thou, Lord was at our side, all glory be thine!

We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant,

and pray that thou still our defender wilt be.

Let thy congregation escape tribulation;

thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

4 The text of my sharing at that rally was this:

As religious leaders, those of us who were in opposition to Proposition 8 remain committed to promoting the well-being, the moral and spiritual integrity of all people in our community. Today, we’re called to re-join the public discussion about marriage equality. In spite of the recent election results, there are still strong civil liberties arguments for ending the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from the legal institution of marriage. Make no mistake: marriage equality is about more than gaining equal access to the legal protections and responsibilities of marriage. It’s about raising fundamental questions about justice and power, about our affirming intimate relationships between people – regardless of their gender; it’s about respect for the new and richly diverse definitions that we have for families.

My religious tradition celebrates that humans are created in and for relationship and that sexuality is God’s life-giving and life-fulfilling gift. And so I affirm the dignity and worth of all people and recognize sexual difference as a blessed part of what it means to be human. There can be no justification for discrimination solely on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. As an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, I believe that all people have the right to lead lives that express love and justice, mutuality and commitment, consent and pleasure, and that this includes but is never limited to civil and religious marriage. Marriage is about entering into a holy covenant and making a commitment with another person to share life’s joys and sorrows. Marriage is to be valued because it creates stable, committed relationships; it provides a means to share economic resources; it’s a source of nurture not only for the individual or for a couple, but for their children. Good marriages benefit the community and express the kind of religious values that should say that there is no difference in marriages between a man and a woman, two men, or two women. As our traditions affirm, where there is love, there is God in our midst.

Marriage has always been an evolving civil and religious institution. In the past, marriage was primarily about property and procreation whereas today the emphasis is on egalitarian partnership, companionship, and love. In the past, neither the state nor most religions recognized divorce and remarriage, interracial marriage, or the equality of the marriage partners. These understandings changed, and rightly so, in greater recognition of our shared humanity and the importance of moral and civil rights. Today, we’re called to embrace another change, this time the freedom of couples of the same gender to marry.

Along with many of my colleagues, I understand that the biblical call to justice and compassion (to love our neighbor as we do ourselves) provides the only mandate that we need for marriage equality. Even so, we can’t rely exclusively on scripture for understanding marriage today. There are biblical texts that encourage celibacy, forbid divorce, and require women to be subservient to their husbands – we don’t give them the authority that they once had. At the same time, there are also biblical models for blessed relationships that go beyond one man and one woman. In fact, scripture neither commends a single marriage model nor commands that we all should be married; but it does call that all relationships be based upon love and justice.

In our nation – in fact in the people gathered here this morning – families take many forms. All families should be given our support in building stable, empowering, and respectful relationships. Marriage equality is just one more way to strengthen families – it’s especially helpful and important for children raised by same-sex couples.

The United States is one of the most diverse religious countries in the world. No single religious voice can speak for all traditions on issues of sexuality and marriage; and certainly the government shouldn’t take sides on religious differences – as it appears it might in the case of Proposition 8. We in the religious community must have the right to discern who is eligible for marriage in our own tradition. In addition, we who are clergy should be free to preside over and bless marriages without state interference. Many religious traditions already perform marriages and unions for same-sex couples. As a representative of one of those traditions, I call on the state neither to recognize only certain religious marriages as legal, nor to penalize those who choose not to marry. The best way to protect our nation’s precious religious freedom is to respect the separation of church and state when it comes to equality under the law.

We need to promote good marriages based on responsibility, equity, and love, without any restrictions based on such things as the gender, the procreative potential or the sexual orientation of the partners. Good marriages are committed to the mutual care and fulfillment of both partners. Good marriages increase the capacity of the individuals to contribute to the well-being of the community. Good marriages assure that all children are wanted, loved, and nurtured. Good marriages are free of threats, violence, exploitation, and intimidation.

The faiths that many of us in the religious community affirm challenge us to speak and act for justice for all people – gay or straight – who want to express their love in the commitment of marriage. Some people of faith differ with us; others may be undecided. To each of them and to all of them, we reach out and seek to promote what’s best for the individuals and couples involved, for their families, for their children, and for the sake of society as a whole. Our commitment, finally, isn’t just for the legal rights of some people, but relational justice for all people.

7 This newer version of the hymn “For All the Saints” sings of a celebration of thanksgiving in this way:

For all the saints who’ve shone your love

in how they live and where they move,

for mindful women, caring men,

accept our gratitude again.

For all the saints who loved your name,

whose faith increased the Savior’s fame,

who sang your songs and shared your word,

accept our gratitude, good Lord.

For all the saints who named your will,

and showed the kingdom coming still

through selfless protest, prayer, and praise,

accept the gratitude we raise.

Bless all whose will or name or love

reflects the grace of heaven above.

Though unacclaimed by earthly powers,

your life through theirs has hallowed ours.

The First United Methodist Church of Napa, CANovember 23, 2008Thanksgiving SundayScripture Readings:

The First United Methodist Church of Napa, CA
November 23, 2008
Thanksgiving Sunday
Scripture Readings: