November 23,2006
(Thanksgiving Day)

Trust Me!

by The Rev. Bryan England, Deacon

Deuteronomy 8:1-3,6-10(17-20)  •  Psalm 65 or 65:9-14  •  James 1:17-18,21-27  •
Matthew 6:25-33
(From The Lectionary Page)

One of the nice things about being an occasional preacher, instead of a frequent preacher, is that you can store up sermons over the years and, if you move around sufficiently from parish to parish, drag them out of retirement when called upon to preach on any given occasion. However, when Dean Terry asked me to preach this Thanksgiving, I agreed before I realized that the Bible readings for today are the same as the readings for last Thanksgiving. There is no three-year lectionary cycle for special observances like Thanksgiving, so I’m forced to preach on texts that I preached upon only a year ago.

This lack of variation in the propers for today created a temptation to get up and deliver the same sermon I gave last year. But therein lies a two-pronged danger. The first danger is that you will realize I am rehashing a sermon I have already given, and recognize me for the lazy person I really am. The second danger is that no one will realize I am rehashing a sermon I have already given, and I will have to recognize myself as the truly boring person I really am.

However, since Dean Terry has said several times that he is still chuckling at a remark I made last year about the American Indians having a severely flawed immigration policy, I realized that someone was listening last year, and I was forced to look again at the readings assigned for today.

I was surprised when I did. For it seemed to me that the lesson from Matthew’s gospel was not so much a call for us to be thankful to God for what has been given to us as it was a call for us to trust God to provide what we need.

Trust is a strange concept in a world where we remove the sandals from our feet, not because we stand on holy ground, as did Moses, but because we stand in an airline terminal. It’s a little hard to be trusting of anyone or anything today.

It is hard to trust our national government considering the fiasco in Iraq, where more of our sons and daughters have died than died at the World Trade Center; with its inept response to Hurricane Katrina; and its apparent disregard for the liberties guaranteed to us by the constitution.

It is hard to trust our state and local officials, whose priorities seem to be skewed to making the wealthy wealthier, at the expense of the poor; who can find money to build downtown arenas, but not to shelter the homeless.

It is hard to trust the private sector which is fraught with examples of corporate fraud and scandal, price-gouging at the pump, cuts to employee benefits and retirement accounts, and plain old greed.

And the church? Even the place where we should feel the most trusting? The first thing I had to do when I became canonically resident in this diocese was undergo another background check, because we have to protect our children from those who would prey upon them, even in the House of God.

It’s tough to be trusting in this world. At times our world seems bad enough to make one leery of trusting even God, who seems absent, or blind to our plight. I’m often reminded of the passage from Mark when the disciples are caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, and they awaken Jesus and admonish him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Yet trust is precisely what Christ is calling upon us to do. Jesus told the assembled throng on the mount to not worry about the necessities of life, what they will eat or drink, or what they will wear. “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

But there is the key. Jesus was not telling them to sit back and relax, that God would provide their every need without effort on their part. He was telling them that in the kingdom of God, no one hungers, no one is homeless. “Strive first for the kingdom of God,” he said. To put it another way, work to bring about the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness. Righteousness is something one does, not something one is. This is a call to action. Christ is calling us to bring about the kingdom of God on this earth, and all other things will follow as a result of it.

Think of it. A world without hunger, a world where everyone receives the medical attention they need to sustain life, a world where justice and peace prevail, and all are treated with the dignity given to them by their creator. In such a world, would our sons and daughters have to sacrifice their lives in a land far away to protect us from someone else’s sons and daughters?

Our efforts to bring about the kingdom of God on this earth are our response to the free gift of God’s grace. They are our way of expressing our thanksgiving for bounty that God has bestowed upon us, and upon those we love.

Katherine, our presiding bishop, and our church, have been very vocal in support for the United Nation’s Millennial Development Goals as one way to help in bringing about the kingdom of God, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve universal primary education; to promote gender equality and empower women; to reduce child mortality; to improve maternal health, to combat HIV/AIDS; malaria and other diseases; to ensure environmental sustainability; and to develop a global partnership for development.

One of the most rewarding experiences I have had in the last year is becoming a disaster assistance technician with the American Red Cross and seeing what a little bit of effort, what a little generosity, can do to change people’s lives. While national catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina get most of the attention, most of the disasters to which the Red Cross responds are residential fires. In the last year I have responded to about twenty-five of them. From my experience most of the families living in these homes have little to begin with, and often they lose literally everything they have. Through the generosity of people who have donated from the abundance God has given them, we have been able to provide food, shelter and clothing to those families, and to watch the tears come to their eyes when we tell them they don’t have to worry about where they will sleep, or how they will eat. The writer of James identified the source of that generosity when he wrote, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above.” This morning’s Kansas City Star has a two page spread on opportunities to volunteer to make the world a better place, including with Episcopal Community Services.

Last year, I asked you what you were thankful for on that Thanksgiving Day. I wonder what you are thankful for this year?

Last year I thanked God for every additional day Linda and I have together. We have had an additional 364 since, and I thank God for most of them. Linda thanks God for a majority of them, I think.

I am thankful there are less candles burning at the crossing this year, although there are still far too many. But there is hope. I talked the other day to a pastor in Philadelphia who is organizing teams of inner-city clergy to go to homes that have suffered from community violence and mitigate their pain, and to attempt to head off future violence, and I wonder why we aren’t doing that here. And in the last year 19 members of the cathedral came forward to establish a chapter of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship to work for reconciliation in our neighborhoods, in our nation, and in our world.

I am thankful for the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, but you’ll have to look that one up for yourselves to find out why.

But mostly, I am thankful for the gift of God’s grace, which is so bountifully present in this place, and for my presence in this community of faith, which is not afraid to work to become the City of God, in the Kingdom of God.

Shalom, Salaam, and Happy Thanksgiving.