Thanksgiving
Eve, 2013
Deuteronomy
26:1-11
In January, I will take on two very important roles for two
very important girls: my brother and sister-in-law will have their first child,
finally making me an auntie, and my best friend’s daughter will be baptized,
finally making me a godmother. I take these roles very seriously, and so I am
always on the lookout for things I can buy my little girls, that will help them
to grow and develop and of course, to know how much auntie Johanna loves them.
One of my favorite things to buy for them is books. Our house growing up was
just full of books, and we always got to read a story before bedtime, not to
mention hear an assortment of stories from and about different members of our
extended family.
What kid doesn’t love stories? Heck, what adult doesn’t love stories? Stories have
always been a part of human existence, one of the oldest and most consistent
modes of expression. We use stories to entertain, to learn, to teach, to express
some truth about life. Jesus used lots of stories in his teaching, just as
people did for generations before, and have continued to do for generations
since. There is something about a story that just invites you in and makes
things become more real. In recent years, I have become fascinated with stories
and their many uses.
Perhaps it is this fascination that drew me to our reading
from Deuteronomy this evening. It is the
description of how and why one is to present first fruits to God. This time
reading it, I didn’t focus on the first fruits part like I normally do.
Instead, I was drawn toward the use of story in this passage. This reading
shows us at least two important uses of storytelling in our life and faith.
One,
which is especially appropriate for today, is that it shows how to use story in
our giving thanks. After presenting first fruits and offering praise to God, it
says, the presenter is to tell the story of the Israelite people. In short:
“Once we were slaves in Egypt, and we cried out to the Lord. God heard us. God
brought us out of that place, and God brought us into this wonderful place of
freedom and bounty.” In this story, you see, God is an indispensible character.
It is a story of moving from slavery into freedom, a story of God’s work in a
broken world, and so it is a story of thanksgiving. All of these things
happened, he says, and because of that, and how God responded to it, I am
grateful.
That’s not unlike what some of us do at our Thanksgiving
tables each year: we take the time to reflect on what has happened, how we got
to this point in life, and– either because of that or in spite of it – why we
are grateful. The Thanksgiving I spent on internship in Florida, I shared
Thanksgiving dinner with my supervisor and his family, and they did this in
sort of a cute way: each plate around the table started with only three
M&Ms on it. Before we could fill our plates with turkey and the trimmings,
we had to eat the M&Ms, but before we could eat the M&Ms, we had to say
something we were thankful for that year, one thing for each M&M. I
remember looking down at those M&Ms, waiting my turn, and thinking that if
I only got to say three things, I wanted them to be the very best things, the
things I was the most thankful for!
What ended up happening when my turn came around (and this won’t be a surprise
to anyone who knows me) was that I had put so much pressure on each M&M
that I had to tell a whole story for each one. “This M&M is for my family,
because this and this and this happened, and because this year we did that and
that and that.” There was so much thanks to give, it required a whole story to explain
it.
What stories would you tell, if you had some M&Ms? What
story of longing and prayer have you lived this year, and how has God turned
that prayer into an opportunity for gratitude around a table with family and
friends? How can your story, whether you have experienced it as a joy or a
challenge, become an expression of gratitude for the work that God has done in
the midst of it?
The other use of storytelling that we see in this excerpt
from Deuteronomy is as a way to remember who and whose we are, and in doing
this, a story can become a confession of faith. For the Israelites, this story
about being slaves in Egypt, and crying out for help, and then God answering
that prayer and leading them into a land of bounty and promise – that story defines the people of Israel. It is for
them the moment that defines God’s relationship with them: God is the mighty
one who listens to our cries and comes to save us. God is the powerful one who
breaks the bonds of slavery and leads us into freedom. God is the wondrous one
who provides for our needs.
So in recounting this story, it becomes not only an
identity-defining moment and an expression of gratitude, but also a confession
of faith, a chance to recount with thanksgiving who God is, and so who we are
because of it. I rather like the idea of the stories of our life serving as a
confession of faith. It has gotten me wondering, do I have one story in my life
that defines me, and defines my relationship with God, that could then serve as
a confession of my faith? Do you have such a story?
I did think of one, and I’ll share it with you. I spent a
year as a missionary in Slovakia. It was not an easy year for me from the very
get-go, for several reasons. I did my best to settle in, and was just starting
to feel like God might be doing something special with me in this place… when I
received the horrible news that a dear family friend had been tragically killed.
Just as I had begun to trust God in a new way and believe that God was using me
for something good, this reality totally deflated that trust. I did not have any
interest in this God, and in my sorrow, I shut the door. For a few days, while
I neglected God, I lived in constant fear – fear of the dark, of windows, of
the phone, of sleep. Without the consolation I had always felt in my faith, I
was completely lost, completely in darkness.
One day, I couldn’t take the fear anymore. I thought to
myself, “I don’t like what this God is doing, but if this is what life feels
like without him, I can’t do that either.” Trying to sort this all out, I took
off on a walk, aiming to climb to the top of one of the hills into which my
village was nestled. As I climbed higher and higher, my fears dissipated. My
burden was lifted. Life became bright again. Suddenly, I found I was singing,
full voice, from the top of that mountain. It was a transformative moment of
clarity and love, a moment in which I felt a profound communion with God.
 |
| The view of the village Vrbovce from the top of the hill on that day. |
As I
made my way back down the mountain, it was with a new heart. I still couldn’t
make sense of what had happened to our friend, but at least my trust in God had
been restored. I had simply let go of the need to understand, and been able to
cling instead to the promise of God-with-us, even and especially in the times
when life is difficult. If I couldn’t
bear the pain of that devastating news, I knew that God could.
Stories like this – you see, it is a confession of faith,
and it is a story of thanksgiving. It is a grateful expression of an experience
with God. We all have stories like this, whether you have called them that or
not – what are yours?
This practice of storytelling as thanksgiving and as
confession of faith – this is not something that was only done in Old Testament
times. The story told in Deuteronomy is a communal story, the story of a
people. We have one of those, too, a story that defines our communal Christian
life and faith, a story passed down for generations. It is a story of
God-with-us, a story of love, a story of breaking the chains of death and
letting life have the final word, a story of overcoming darkness with light. It
is a story we tell in our defined confessions of faith – the Apostles’ and
Nicene Creeds – and it is a story we tell at our Thanksgiving table, our eucharist table.
At the end of this evening’s reading from Deuteronomy, the
writer tells us that we should come together with others in the community and celebrate
what God has provided. And so we do: we come to this table – together – bringing all of our
individual stories and experiences of God’s grace. We sing praises, the first
fruits of our hearts. We tell again the story of a God who loves us, forgives
us, and will never leave us, of a man who gave up his life so that we might
never have to fear death. And we celebrate and feast together on the bread of
life. Thanks be to God! Amen.
** Communion is sometimes called "the Eucharist," which comes from the Greek word that means, "thanksgiving." That is why we call the opening section of the communion liturgy, "The Great Thanksgiving."
Here are some other pictures from the walk I took that day. Still some of my favorite pictures I've ever taken.
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