Scripture Readings:
Hebrew Scriptures – Joel 2: 21-271
21Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! 22Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield. 23O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for [God] has given the early rain for your vindication, [God] has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. 24The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. 25I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you. 26You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. 27You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
Psalter – Psalm 95: 1-72
1O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! 2Let us come into [God’s] presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to [God] with songs of praise! 3For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4In [God’s] hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are [God’s] also. 5The sea is [God’s], for [God] made it, and the dry land, which [God’s hands have formed. 6O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 7For [the Lord] is our God, and we are the people of [God’s] pasture, and the sheep of [God’s] hand. O that today you would listen to [God’s] voice!
Gospel Lesson – Matthew 6: 25-333
25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly [Creator] feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will [God] not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly [Creator] knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God and [God’s] righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
“Hold On to Whatever Gives You Life.”
Years ago I came across a wonderful little book with the intriguing title Sleeping with Bread.4 The title comes from people’s experiences of the aftermath of World War II when bombing raids left thousands of children orphaned and in danger of starvation. Some of the fortunate ones were rescued and taken to refugee camps where they were given food, shelter, and compassionate care. But these children had lost so much that they had trouble sleeping at night. They were afraid, you see, that they would wake up to find themselves homeless again and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them until, finally, somebody hit on the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding onto the bread these children could finally drift off to sleep in peace. It seems that throughout the night the bread reminded them, “Today I ate, and I will eat again tomorrow.”
The writers of this little book say that we all need some way of holding onto and being reminded of the things that give us life. We all need a way of making ourselves aware of the overflowing goodness of Creation that sustains us in every way throughout our lives. You and I need this awareness in order to nurture gratitude in our lives, because life without gratitude makes for a deeply impoverished, sad, and empty kind of life.
So we come to this day – this week – that calls us to give thanks; and yet there’s a real danger in setting just this one day aside for thanksgiving. The danger is that we may begin to compartmentalize our gratitude – only really caring about it or paying attention to it on the fourth Thursday of November each year. We need a sense of gratitude every single day, just as much as we need air, food, water, and shelter each day, as much as we need faith and hope and love every day.
At Thanksgiving the concreteness of our offerings shouldn’t be forgotten. We give thanks for the fruitfulness of the earth – the unchanging gifts of creation. While we may acknowledge this bounty, still we should be struck by the incongruity of vast amounts of waste and the inequity of government policies that can regularly send people into outer space, but that don’t feed the starving or house the homeless.
What’s more, an honest look at our national holiday this Thursday at least ought to recognize that a nation founded in freedom has meant freedom for some and oppression for others. So our Thanksgiving tables should encompass at the same time both gratitude for the new land that we inhabited and remorse for the genocide that was unleashed upon this country’s original inhabitants. That mythical table at which European and indigenous people sat down meant prosperity for some but death for others. So with each gift or thanksgiving that we’ve acknowledged this morning, we also ought to look closely at ourselves and our generosity toward others. Today, this week around tables filled with food, can we not also raise our hands to God before these symbols of our abundance, and say, “By these things we acknowledge who we are!”?
I would invite us all to take a second look around our Thanksgiving tables this Thursday and see yet another layer of belonging. The different foods on the table once grew deep within the earth or above lush fields of green. They moved to the warmth of the sun and sucked life right from the ground on which they stood or grew. They too struggled with drought and famine, growth and abundance, to produce fruit and vegetable, wheat and meat to enrich and nourish our lives. Even the humble turkey knew both the sky and the earth. It had eyes to see; it must’ve smelled the fragrances of the morning, heard and felt the life-giving rain. These staples of our feast have been offered so that you and I might continue to live. They too are part of Thanksgiving, in a sacred way part of the Creator’s gifts to us all. So, as we assemble today and gather with family again around the table on Thursday, we should know that we’re here not just to eat; we’re here to become more human. That transformation carries with it a consciousness of everything that surrounds us.
Most of you have probably heard of and can remember the life of Anne Frank. Imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II, she died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at fifteen years of age of typhus and deprivation; and yet she also wrote these words of thanksgiving:
I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God. Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy.5
As some of you know, I keep a candle burning most of the time in my office. I keep it burning not only as a way of remembering those people and situations that I want to hold in prayer, but as a way of lifting up a light of thanksgiving for all of those things that I name as holy in my life. I recommend a simple exercise for you – one that I use every day – that I learned from mentors of mine in Spiritual Direction. Take a few minutes near the end of the day to be quiet and reflect back on your day. A candle helps me focus; maybe going for walk would work for you, or simply to sit looking out a window on a part of creation that you find particularly comforting. At such a time, though, ask yourself these questions:6
For what am I most grateful? …least grateful?
When did I give and receive the most love? …the least love?
When did I feel most alive? …most drained of life?
When did I have the greatest sense of belonging? …the least sense?
When was I most free? …least free?
When was I most creative? …least creative?
When did I feel most connected? …least connected?
When did I feel most fully myself? …least myself?
When did I feel most whole? …most fragmented?
I was taught that in order for us to really be honest about life, it’s important to do both. It doesn’t help to deny how life really is for us. In fact, paying attention to our lives and holding onto those things that are good – that are life-giving – may be the most important thing we can do when we’re feeling burdened, in pain, sad, depressed or overwhelmed. Even a spiritual giant such as Albert Schweitzer wrote:
In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
In the end, though, it isn’t what we say about our blessings, but how we use them that becomes the true measure of our thanksgiving. As our eyes become open in new ways, as we learn how to nurture gratitude, we’ll begin to see all of life differently. Maybe the most important thing, though, is we’ll begin to see beyond the immediacy of our own lives to see that we live all of life in the presence of a nurturing and renewing power that some of us name as God. Gratitude, then, becomes something like a doorway into awe before a mysterious presence that has initiated, nurtured and maintained us from the foundation of the world and can fill our lives with grace and peace.
When we can come to see that we live our whole lives embraced in such a way, and by such a presence, it does something to us. It moves us to sing, to pray, to gather in a community of compassion, sharing and generosity like this one – and in the end it makes our lives beautiful. So, yes, we can acknowledge the truth of our fragmented and damaged world, but we can also reaffirm the conviction that our little family is part of that wider world. May we endure to live, not just survive. May we hold onto whatever gives us life, and thank the Creator of all things in the heavens and on the earth because it is good, always and everywhere, to give God thanks.
1 We might miss just how shocking this passage from Joel really is because its all-too-familiar eschatological language may dull our expectations. In fact, this passage comes at a pivotal point in Joel as it describes a time when the people are returning from exile and bondage; and so it describes a locust plague and drought that, supposedly, are God’s way of calling the people to repentance. I prefer, instead, to hear its closing line as a hope for our collective future.
2 This psalm is from a portion of the liturgy originally planned for the autumn festival at which God is revealed as both Creator and Lord of the universe. These first seven verses are like a call to worship preparing the congregation for their impending encounter with God. Those to whom much has been given, however, much yet will be required.
3 This portion of Matthew’s Gospel shows some surprising juxtapositions: the community addressed here is made up of peasants and laborers, people who have to struggle every single day to provide food, clothing and shelter for themselves and their families. The fact that Jesus is only speaking about having an unrealistic anxiety over these things doesn’t take away the shock of how his words must’ve been heard by these people. Even an example of the “birds of the air,” whose brief lives are an even more persistent search for food and defense against enemies, seems an odd analogy. As unbelievable as the Creator’s providence might seem to peasants or birds, Jesus still affirms that we ought to keep an attitude of gratitude toward our blessings – no matter what happens.
4 Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn, Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life (Mahwah, N.J., Paulist Press, 1995).
5 Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt am Maine, Germany on June 12, 1929. Her older sister, Margot was three years older than her. In 1933 Anne, Margot, her father (Otto Frank) and her mother (Edith Frank) moved to Amsterdam. On Anne Frank's thirteenth birthday she received a diary; she named it "Kitty" which she liked the best out of all her presents. She loved to write in her "Kitty."
By her thirteenth birthday the Nazis were taking over Amsterdam and imposing all sorts of arbitrary rules upon the Jews – and, as we’ve come to know, she was Jewish. She hated these rules. Anne had been attending a Montessori school, but because of the laws against Jews, she was forced to move to a Jewish Lyceum. Even there, though, she soon was able to adjust to her new surroundings. Then when World War II began in all of its terrible intensity, her father and some other clients with whom he worked created a hiding place in an annex next to their office. The family moved into that small hiding place.
One day in August 1944, however – a little after two years of hiding – the Frank family was found and put into a concentration camp. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at fifteen years of age of typhus; her sister, Margot, also died there of the same disease. Her mother died of starvation; her father was the only one out of that entire family who survived. Anne’s full name was Annelise Marie Frank. She never got married. She never had children of her own. She died too young.
Anne Frank is remembered in many ways, of course, and there have been books written about her, and plays and movies that purport to tell her story. The best insight into her character, however, is provided by her diary. While she was hiding she kept her diary simply because she wanted to be educated. It was her father, Otto, who saved the diary and two years after she died (in 1947) he published it unchanged.
In her all-too-short life Anne Frank was able to write short stories and some short fables; but she’s remembered most for that diary that has been published, now, in over 30 languages. Many children all over America read the "Diary of Anne Frank" in school, but I remember her story the most from a movie that was made about her life in 1959 – all of it based upon her diary.
6 An alternative is this full instruction-sheet that was given to me on the exercise:
The examen is traditionally done at the close of the day (but it could be at the end of your week) as a way of paying attention to the presence of God – the sacred – in your everyday experiences. The following questions may help you notice those “God-moments” (those movements of the sacred) as well as the experiences in which you feel more distant from God. In a very real sense this process is a way of entering into a state of heightened awareness of your life.
Read over this list at the end of each day (or week) and notice which one of the question sets particularly draws you in. Reflect on your day (or your week) in light of this one particular question set. If it’s something that you’re used to doing, try journaling or creating a work of art, but in some way record whatever it is that you’ve noticed through using this process. You may want to keep that record (journal or art work) to refer to at a later time.
On the last day (or week) – pick at least one each time – and ask yourself:
For what am I most grateful? …least grateful?
When did I give and receive the most love? …the least love?
When did I feel most alive? …most drained of life?
When did I have the greatest sense of belonging? …the least sense?
When was I most free? …least free?
When was I most creative? …least creative?
When did I feel most connected? …least connected?
When did I feel most fully myself? …least myself?
When did I feel most whole? …most fragmented?
In Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life, Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn note that the purpose of our lives is built into every cell of our bodies. This larger purpose (what they call our “sealed order” from God) is best noticed by looking closely at the little everyday things that draw us toward or lead us away from God. After paying attention to these movements over a period of some time, it may become possible to summarize the special purpose of your life in a single word or phrase that “names” who we are. Such naming also means we know who we are not and so we become freed from trying to “be all things to all people.”
After engaging in the practice of examen for some time, you might reflect on what you notice about these larger patterns in your life. What does your reflection suggest about your deepest calling or your larger purpose in life and in God?