Thanksgiving Sunday -October 12, 2003

The Message

Lectionary readings can be tricky directives when it comes to sermon preparation. It's Thanksgiving Sunday…a time to count our blessings and name them one by one. The point of thanksgiving is that we are empowered by our thankfulness to live more reflectively, more joyously and in that living, create a chain reaction of wonder that rubs off on others and through that connection affects change throughout the whole world.

Into that opportunity, the lections read in many churches around the world today speak about depression and the problem with wealth.

Well, isn’t that a downer!

If we live on the surface, that may be true…we may not see much hope in these readings…the scripture lessons for today may look disheartening …but, if we aspire to live a little deeper than the surface there are wonderful things in the lections today.

So in the face of these texts can I say I’m thankful? Yes, …I’m thankful to be a part of a body of people who strive to look beyond themselves when it comes to the needs of others and I’m thankful to be a part of a group of people who are prepared to look inwardly to embrace the indwelling Christ and embrace the kiss of faith that makes a difference in their lives.

So, Let’s look at Job for a moment. The guy’s in a miserable state!

I think most people have been there to one degree or another. He’s hurting all over the place and he’s ready to blame it on God.

What is wonderful here is that he’s at home enough with his relationship with God that he can actually do that. Think about it…it takes a good level of comfort to speak to God that way. The relationship he has with his creator is real, it’s guttural. He’s not locked into some distant and polite chatter with God. He’s wide open and dead honest. That’s wonderful!

Don’t misunderstand me, here, I’m not saying that his pain is of little consequence…the guy’s heart is bleeding all over the place. The pain is real, very real! The good news is that he’s not alone in his pain…his pain is lived in the presence of a God that loves him enough to allow him to vent…to whine…to spew his hurt without fear of some kind of omnipotent retribution.

There, for me, is the good news in the Job story…and it is the “good news” in our story too. So if the lectionary is to be hopeful today, it is in the fine point of Job’s pain, our pain and the promise of God's presence in that pain.

Thankfully, the genuineness of his relationship with God is a model for us too. When we are in relationship with people…really in relationship with people we can see their warts, their rough edges and they can see ours.

From time to time I bump up against people who believe that human relationships should only ever be polite and distant, collegial and unengaged. That gets old fast. Really fast.

To me it is like the sci-phi movies that depict persons whose minds have been altered and whose lives have been numbed and they just move through life with an un-accelerated  pulse and not much of anything else.

Now sometime, perhaps after an argument with a spouse, or a irritated exchange that results from the same things Job was going through, things like exhaustion, frustration, disappointment or sadness, at such times the idea of a bit of zombie living looks pretty good.

But thank God for relationships real enough to disagree, to vent.

And thank God for the opportunity to apologize and reconnect…it is what makes our lives real…it's what puts the human in humanity.

Real love, the kind of love that God empowers us to embrace, always means commitment, conflict, forgiveness and reconciliation. That is hardest and most important with those closest to us.

I don’t know about you but I always come away from a conversation in which I have had meaningful exchange—even a heated exchange—more reflective and engaged than the conversations that are filled with pleasantries and little substance.

If you are familiar with the Job story, you will know that if we were to jump ahead to the end of the story we find that Job comes out of his pain, his life takes an upturn…he finds himself with family and wealth etc, etc..

But here is where the real meat of the story of Job is…in the pain and suffering, in the frustration, the sadness, the desperation. The confusion.

A desperation that is not magically cancelled by God; but one that is lived completely within God's presence and within God's unending willingness to embrace our “particular place” at every moment in our life.

You know, It’s beautiful to see happy new parents celebrating the miracle of birth and falling in love with their child. In the best of circumstances, there is a purity in their joy that escapes description.

Soon enough, though, said child will fold his/her arms in militant defiance, and begin the work of identity formation and independence with a simple declaration: “NO!” From this point on, parenting becomes highly interesting. The love that was nurtured early on will ensure that even the most impassioned accusations (“You’re mean!” “I hate you!”) will roll off parental backs like water off a duck.

The child’s feelings are real and may reflect frustration, sadness, or tiredness; but a few harsh words from a cranky toddler will not affect the parent’s love.

In the same way, God’s love is big enough to bear even our grownup bitterness (which, incidentally, may also be due to the stress of frustration, sadness, tiredness or confusion).

In his despair, Job yearns to be swallowed up in darkness, but soon he will find out that even his deepest bitterness is not enough to keep God at bay.

 In his story is a very powerful thanksgiving message indeed. A story of the love we can know in the face of our pain.

It is interesting to link the Job story with the reading from Mark because, as I’ve mentioned, Job later becomes very prosperous, almost ridiculously so. And in the Job story it is very much used as an example of the face of God shining upon the life of Job.

So, we’re back to bad theology… the idea that good things happen to good people. And we all know that is not necessarily how it goes and nor is it true that bad things happen because people are bad.

Jesus cuts a different swath…Jesus maintains that wealth makes for some difficult spiritual choices. But, No comment on the accumulation of wealth itself.

Instead Jesus’ discourse speaks to the reality of what money will not buy.

Linda Shevlin picks up on the same theme when she says, Money will buy: A bed, but not sleep; Food, but not appetite; Books, but not knowledge; Medicine, but not health; Entertainment, but not happiness; A house, but not a home.

Christ has promised each of us that we will be rewarded a hundredfold for our faith and our devotion to his service. Does that mean, if I tithe, some day I will be rich, as some TV evangelists have suggested?

No.

It does mean that the rewards of following Christ far exceed the costs. It does mean that investing in persons lays up treasure that does satisfy instead of treasure that doesn’t.

Kathryn Hofley, The United Church of Canada planned giving co-ordinator for western Canada, tells a marvelous story of a sum of money given to the church through the planned giving program and how that gift touched an amazing amount of people as others received and also gave as a result of that original gift.

This is what Jesus is talking about…not personal wealth but shared wealth that keeps on touching and moving lives to places of gift and wonder.

In that sense, the gifts we give will be paying dividends long after all our material blessings have depreciated into dust.

Jesus was sharing eternal truths.

A person is born with hands clenched and dies with them wide open.

Entering life the person desires to grasp everything; leaving the world, all possessions have slipped away.”

The only treasure one can carry into eternity is the treasure that God gives. All else is gone when we die, if not before. Paraphrase of Charles R. Swindoll, quoting the Jewish Talmud, in Living Above the Level of Mediocrity

The rich young ruler could not see that the only rich that counts is rich toward God. The wonder of God is that “that particular richness” is experienced when we allow God to participate in our inadequacies, our pain, our joy, our thankfulness, our distraughtness and yes, our wealth and our poverty. Rich toward God is simply allowing God to engage all our living. What fully develops from that, only God can know.

The great test of our faith is whether we really believe in the promises of Christ. Christ has promised that anything we give to God will be returned a hundred fold.

Are we willing to take Christ at his word? Amen.