A Date with Thanksgiving 

Thanksgiving is a major theme in the Bible. It is like a symphony where a central theme weaves itself in and out of that which is being presented. The Psalmist wrote, “I will give thanks to thee with my whole heart.” Isaiah sang for it is a chapter of singing, “Give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name.” The Apostle Paul wrote the Ephesian church saying, “I do not cease to give thanks for you.” And perhaps the most challenging word about thanksgiving in all of the scripture is given to us in his letter to the Thessalonians, “Be thankful in all circumstances.”

Does that challenge you? “Be thankful in all circumstances for this is the will of God concerning you.” Have you ever thought about how our world has demonically changed crucial parts of our faith by making them calendar dates? Squares in a calendar. Christmas? Good Friday? Easter. And it can be thanksgiving, where thanksgiving has become a date on a calendar. I suggest for your consideration this morning that you change that. Instead of making Thanksgiving a date on a calendar, how about having a date with thanksgiving on a day-to-day basis?—to be thankful in all things.

In the last thanksgiving service I told the story about the bear and the atheist. Not all of you were there. So, I get to tell it again. It was about the atheist who was walking through the woods admiring all that had been created by accident. “What majestic and beautiful trees (he said to himself) have come into being by chance. And look at those powerful rivers and the brooks and listen to the music of the birds. It’s amazing what can come out of the creative energy of cosmic accidents.”

And as he was walking along the river he heard a rustling the bushes behind him and he turned around to see what the noise was. And low and behold it was a seven foot grisly bear. And the grisly bear took after him. Now, he ran very fast—fast as he could run. Looked over his shoulder the bear was gaining. He ran as fast as he possible could. The bear still kept gaining. And finally as he gave it one burst of energy, he fell. His heart was pounding.

At that moment when he looked up and saw the bear approaching he said, “Oh my God!” Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. The birds stopped singing. Even the river stopped flowing. A bright light shone upon the man and a voice from above saying, “You deny my existence for all of these years and teach others I don’t exist and you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?”

The atheist looked direction into the light and said, “It would be very hypocritical for me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian, but please could you make the bear a Christian?

Well the river started flowing and the birds started singing and the forest was alive again. And then the bear, dropped his head, folded his paws together, bowed his head and said, “Lord, for this food which I am about to receive I am truly thankful.”

It is a crude way of suggesting that thanksgiving is a part of the faith. An incident in the life our Lord spotlights this truth. And I ask you to turn, please, to Luke the 17^th chapter and the 11^th verse. “Now, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village 10 men who had leprosy, they stood at a distance.” They would by law of had to stand at a distance. “And they called out in a loud voice. ‘Jesus, master, have pity on us.” And when he saw them he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests and they went and they were cleansed. (As they went, they were cleansed.) One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice. And he threw himself at Jesus feet and thanked him. And Jesus asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return to give praise to God except for this foreigner?’ And then he said to them, ‘Rise and go for your faith has made you well.’” Which means well all over—not just physically.

As Jesus neared this village when lepers were forced to live apart from all others, they called out for help. Jesus saw them and said, ‘Go who yourself to the priest.’ That was the religious law, the religious process, the religious programs—they were to show themselves to the priests. They obeyed and the Word says, “As they went, they was Cleansed.”

How often it is that the first steps determine the outcome of what we are about. There’s a wonderful story in the Old Testament. The Hebrew nation, infant that it was, had finally, finally, finally come up to the edge of the Promised Land, between them and the Promised Land—Jordan River, at flood stage. Moses said to the priests, “Take the Arc of the Covenant, put it on your shoulders, walk across the river to the promise land.”

I’ve often put myself in the shoes of those guys. Keep in mind, your tired. You’ve been on a long, long journey. Finally, you’re there. And there is between you and the land of promise a surging over the banks river. And your leader has said, “Put it on you shoulders and walk to the river.” And amazingly they did. Step, another step, another step, nothing happened, no bridge was built. It wasn’t until the first two priests carrying that arc stepped into that water, that the waters parted. It is a huge symbolic story of what it means to step out in obedient faith when you’re trying to cease what you ought to be doing.

“And as they went, they were cleansed.” What if they had said? You know, “We’ve been through this policy of going through the priests before. Enough’s, enough—we’re not going.” There got to be some willingness to start over, to try again, to begin again, the way to keep growing, as you heard in a sermon not to long ago, is to keep starting. Now we’re at the heart of Luke’s story and you see there was one who returned. Let me ask you a question, do you think the other nine were unthankful, that they were ungrateful. No, I don’t think so. After all, Leprosy was an awful, awful (and still is) disease. And anyone who was cleansed would have just been absolutely ecstatic, but they were thankful for what had happened. What they left out was who did it. They were thankful for the healing, they overlooked the healer. They were thankful for the blessing, not the “blessor.” They gave thanks for the gift, paid no attention to the giver. Their bodies were cleansed, but not their hearts. Their lives were unchanged.

On a recent fall day that was Virginia spectacular. The leaves were changing—still on the trees—instead of my yard and yours. They were up their, their fall gorgeous colors. On a Wednesday night, right before the meal, I just chanced to explain, “Wasn’t this a gorgeous day?” And one of our African American members said, “Pastor, let us give thanks for the one who gave us this day.” She was precisely right. You see we are so attracted to the gift, we over look the giver. And it is our relationship with the giver that we find life and strength and overcoming and love.

Samuel Miller was a Baptist and dean of Harvard Divinity School for many, many years. In one of his lectures he told of being in Munich right before World War II. German culture was thriving and one night he went to the Bavarian National Opera work. They were having a special program with what he call, Miller called, the metaphysical clowns. These were mimes who did some talking. But they were kind of walking parables trying to point out some truths in their pantomime. And on the night in Germany the pantomime began on a stage that was bare and dark except for one little light right in the middle of it. And the clown entered the circle and began to search very diligently for something he had lost. After a time a police came up, “Have you lost something?” “Well, yes, the key to my house and if I don’t find it I can’t get in, I won’t be able to go home tonight.” And with that the policeman got down on his knees and joined the search. He found nothing. And finally he asked, “Are you sure you lost it here?” And the man replied, “Oh no, I lost it over there [pointing to a dark part of the stage]. “Well, then why on earth are you looking here?” “Because it’s dark there and the light’s over here.”

It is a profound portrayal of what so often happens in our lives. We look where it’s easy, diligently for something that doesn’t exist, simply because it’s where the world has focused our attention. We float with the moods of the day and of the era. Thanksgiving is one of those things. We tend to look at what’s obvious and we forget to be thankful to the one who created it all in the first place.

Now let me express to you thoughts about thanksgiving. This is a special day for me and my family. We are all together, all of us. All of us, first time since we’ve been in Richmond, all of us are here. And you have arranged for a reception to say, “Thank You.” You are an incredible people. It is one of the great days of my whole life and you need to know that.

Let me express our thanksgiving to you for staying true to the heritage that is yours as a church. You’ve been in existence since 1780. Let me run through the litany you’ve heard me use many times. You were a church before Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown. About three weeks ago they celebrated the 225^th anniversary of that surrender at Yorktown. And when I was reading the article I had to chuckle a little bit and say, “What’s so great about that, we were in existence before that all happened.”

You were a church before the constitution of the United States was written. You were a church before our nation was a nation. And you have sought to keep faithful to the Lord Christ for all of these decades. You have had the supreme gift of understanding you could make a difference in our world and you have. And because of that I believe you are what churches ought to be. Paul said of Jesus, “He loved the church and gave himself for it.” I’m with Paul, I love this church. Churches are not perfect, pastors are not perfect, members are not perfect. But in the midst of our flaws, God seems to handle that pretty well. There probably isn’t any flaw he hasn’t seen a jillion times before. But what he does is—he works through our faithfulness to bring about changes in the world that he loves. Thank you, thank you for being the church that you are—have been and will be.

We especially want to thank you for the little gestures of love that have come our way during the difficult times in our lives. I wonder how many times, in the 51 years of my ministry, I have heard somebody say, “I wonder what people do who don’t have a church family.” Now I say that to you, I wonder what people do who don’t have a church family. You have walked with us through celebrative times, like today and some very difficult times of sickness and loss. The unforgettable thing is how you cared for us and how you wrapped you arms around us and walked us through.

In our “Appointment with God” booklet this week Shawnee Hansen wrote the devotional thoughts. She wrote of watering some hanging plants on her porch. In so doing she inadvertently poured water on a little nest of baby birds. One was so startled it jumped right out of the nest, landed in the grass below, couldn’t fly yet and was just flopping back and forth on the grass—shaken and stunned. Shawnee got some clean garden gloves, carefully lifted that little bird and put it back in the nest. That night she wrote as she was going to sleep, she thought of all the times in our lives that God often working through someone else has reached down and picked up us when (like that little bird) all we could do was kind of flap our wings and flop around. That’s what you’ve done for us. At strategic times in our lives, we were like that little bird. And with the love and care that you have, you reached down and with the loving care of the father in heaven, you lifted us up and put us back in the nest where we could heal and get on with our lives. But you know in the scripture it says, “When the one who came back, returned, he fell down on his feet before Jesus.” And I guess that’s where I am this morning, not only saying thank you to you, but to the lord. Thank you Lord for bringing us together 23 years ago plus. This has been such a good fit between a pastor and the people. Thank you Lord for overlooking our faults and using us, in spite of our faults to bless the lives of so many countless people. Thank you Lord for bringing us together for we are so different. We are every age group—so many colors. Speak many different languages, at different economic brackets and educational brackets.

I told you before of a many by the name of John Gustafson, who on a Sunday like this walked down the isle. We talked to him about receiving the Lord, he did. He said, “I wanted to do this, but I didn’t think that anybody like me could do this.” And I assured him; God loved the whole world, loved him and loved people.

I baptized John in our baptistery. John was almost, not quite, a street person. He had very little education and he had no money. On a Sunday after that I look out on the pews. John always sat right over there. And the reason I can remember his name is because Dr. Cumbia rehearsed me so many times. I knew John but I couldn’t remember Gustafson. Sat right over there about where Elmer West is sitting today and on the other part of the pew, former governor and Mrs. Dalton and I thought to myself, “That’s what the church ought to be.” Where anybody can find a home and a family here. And this has happened and I give you thanks for letting the Lord Christ work within you. Thank you Lord for one more thing: You are not finished with us yet.