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Thanksgiving Day (U.S.A.), 25 November 2004 |
Eat the Right Food on Thanksgiving There is an old saying from Jewish sources that says: "Before a man eats and drinks he has two hearts; after he had eaten and drunk he has but one heart." In the Hebrew psychology of things, "heart" is the seat of intelligence. This adage implies that hunger that can have profound and disturbing effects on the mind and the thought process. Now I am sure that after you have eaten your Thanksgiving Feast today, you will be more intelligent, more clear in your thinking than ever before! No wonder our intelligence after a large dinner propels us to the easy chair and the nap! Nothing wiser than getting a nap in, on Thanksgiving Day, right? I am absolutely sure than the writer of that sage little saying was referring not to this day, but to the fact that if we do not eat, our judgment and our thinking is deeply effected. I hope that you have eaten something before this worship today, so that you can take this all in and not be thinking about turkey, stuffing, cranberries and pies of several kinds (and if that didn't divert you, nothing will). We have all been told for a long time that a good breakfast makes the rest of the day go well. That confirms what this Hebrew adage says. As we look then at the words recorded in this eighth chapter of John, we see that if we don't get fed properly, we will be eating that which not only doesn't satisfy but which can cause great confusion to our minds and satisfy our hearts with stuff for which there will be no thanksgiving. Today I do believe that many of us gather to give thanks to God for abundant blessings, mostly of the material kind. We have certainly gathered in the right place, for unless we give thanks to God, the giver of all we have, there is really no thanksgiving, but only a measuring up of what we have and hoping it all continues. If we are going to do some good thanksgiving today, I believe it should result from a good accounting of what we have been working for. Our Lord Jesus tells us clearly: "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life." On this Thanksgiving Day, we need to take an inventory of what we are working for, of what we are hoping for, of what fills our lives with joy, with peace, and with hope. The people who populate this section of God's Word had been marvelously fed by Jesus. Thousands of them. If this Jesus could do that once, he could do it again. Some of their primal needs would finally be met. Food to meet the body's needs would no longer be a daily grind. And for many of Jesus' time, having enough to eat was a real struggle. Starvation, that is, going without food for days was not uncommon in those days. Seasons of drought meant people on the low end of the economic scale would die of starvation, and it happened again and again in the land we call Israel today. Jesus was this marvelous answer and when he slipped away from them, they looked for him until they found him. Jesus sizes up the situation and know that they didn't want him; they had been fed until full and wanted that to happen as often as possible. I don't know how we would have reacted to having been filled with food as these people were. Food is taken for granted today. Shelves in our super markets never go empty, unless there is the threat of snow. Shopping is not done in small baskets, but in huge shopping cards filled to overflowing, with the excess on the shelf underneath the basket. This event of being fed is so foreign to us that you have to be terribly old to remember the soup kitchens and the bread lines of the Great Depression of the 30ties, or have some disease which prevents us from eating. But we are all looking for that trick, that scheme, that lottery which will provide us with a continual flow of food, clothing, drinks, housing, recreation, vacations, elaborate toys for all the persons in our homes, a variety of vehicles for transportation and recreation. I sometimes walk rather early in the day, a little before 6 AM. I walk to the main road in our subdivision. By 6 AM, the fumes from the autos carrying people to work is stifling. At 7 PM the lines of traffic returning to and through the area are as choking as it was early. Of course, there are those like myself who hope that all those workers are working hard and that their businesses are successful and produce bountiful profits, for my wife and I live off the taxes they pay (my Social Security payments ) and the profits they make (my IRA's, pension, and annuities). Work harder, folks, so I can rest easier on my down filled pillows and mattress with extra pillow top! We all call it a rat race. We all act like lemmings headed toward the sea. And about the only result of our "feasting" on all of that is, that we want more, more, more! Never satisfied, never at rest! Why? Is it because we are working for that which spoils? For that which "moth and rust corrupts and which passes away"? Yes, I know we are in this place of worship today to give thanks to God for being so good to us, but that does not mean that we have not been working for that which perishes. Today is inventory day, before we begin the new church year this Sunday. Now is the time to work for and eat that which Jesus recommends to us. I know many of us from time to time have made resolutions to cut down on work, spend more time with family, scale down the financial demands to accomplish this. Many of those resolutions will end early tomorrow morning when the rush begins to get the bargains that will make our Christmas a truly memorable one, and we flex our muscles getting the plastic out of our wallets again and again! Lord, help us we say. How can we have that which will once and for all satisfy our hunger and help us? What will be the right food so that we will be able to give thanksgiving to God? We have to do what God wants us to do. That is to believe in Jesus as God's messenger to us! To believe in Jesus is to trust that he is from God and he has come to feed the whole world with himself. He is the bread of life that has come and which never has left. He who comes to Jesus will get the right kind of heart and he who trust in Jesus will never be thirsty. Well, we have heard that so many times, but we seem to be plagued by the same insecurity about "food" as always. What does this thing about Jesus being bread mean? It has been spoken of many times. Sometimes we hear, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, of getting our heads and our "stuff" together. Doing God's work of trusting God, that he is on our side because of Jesus is radical stuff. You either believe it or you don't. You can't hedge your bets with"Well, if God doesn't come through, I will have my investments." You can't believe that you'll be satisfied, if you have a later model car and, at the same time, trust that Jesus is the beginning and the end of all that is important. You can't go home today and eat until you are stuffed, like the turkey was, and not have given part of what you are to those who are literally starving in our world today, either physically or spiritually or both. I wonder if I even can be thankful today when I think about the outcome of wars, the economic situation, gas prices and heating oil prices which are making many people live closer to the edge. Will we be thankful in all circumstances because we know God is in charge? Will we believe that "God who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will freely give us all things"? Some things are hard to swallow. I know some persons who cannot get down pills of any kind. But this Jesus is not a bitter pill. He is not an opiate to get us to cloud reality. Christ Jesus in us through Gospel and Sacrament shows us the depth of his concern for us. He confronted the mirage that our mistakes and sins create and shows us the real oasis of God's love by his dying on the cross. He wants to free us from the results of our feasts at the altar of passion, arrogance, self-indulgence and self-absorption. He broke that dark mirror of horror of death and God's judgment over behavior that we think about so little. In the process of destroying death, he was severely wounded and then died in that act of destruction. The lights went out that day, Then the sun rose on the third day of that gloom, and we can rest our hopes and our dreams on a God who gives life to the dead, and who gives peace to those at war with themselves and others, and who gives us bread to eat that gives life forever. That is the food that creates a thankful heart and mind in a world which believes that painting the good as bad and then denies the reality evil. So today welcome to the feast of Thanksgiving. Welcome to the table filled with the bread of life. Welcome to doing the great work of God every day in the new Church Year. Amen. Walter W. Harms, retired pastor
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