Give Thanks

(Scriptures: Isaiah 65:17-25, 2 Corinthians 9:6-12
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:1-19)

This morning I’m doing something I think I only did once before at Emanuel, two years ago or so around this time of the year – to lift up the Biblical concept of stewardship. Generally when pastors mention stewardship, the folks in the pews roll their eyes and sigh and mutter to themselves, “it’s the money sermon.” In fact, I’d invite you to look at the Calendar of Prayer from the national UCC – there’s a quiz on stewardship that’s actually pretty funny. But this morning, I invite us to look at the Biblical concept of stewardship in a broader sense, in terms of being thankful for all that God has given us, and considering how we make use of what God has given us.

Our hymns this morning link the themes of harvest and thanksgiving. It may seem a tad bit early to think of Thanksgiving Day, but it’ll be here before we know it. Next Sunday we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday in the church year. And the Sunday after that – the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend – is also the first Sunday in Advent. So as we consider one church year ending and another beginning, Christ as King and Christ coming in the form of a little babe, it seems appropriate to pause for a moment to give thanks for God’s blessings over the past year. I don’t know whether Emanuel Church once had a tradition of celebrating Harvest Home, but years ago it was a widespread tradition in the country church where I grew up, and in many of the surrounding churches. The altar guild would arrange at the front of the church a cornucopia of pumpkins and gourds and potatoes and yams and corn and wheat and all manner of other fruits and vegetables and grain representing the harvest from the surrounding farms. And we’d sing the hymn we sang this morning – “Come, ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest home.” I remember how the sopranos used to wail away on the descant on the last verse, nearly drowning out the rest of the congregation. Whether it had been a good harvest or a poor one, we were grateful to God for giving us food to get through the coming harsh winter months. And there was also a theme of – at least symbolically, through the display of the altar guild – bringing a portion of the harvest into church and dedicating it to God.

Here in Bridesburg we’re far removed from the rural surroundings of my childhood – the closest I come these days is the occasional roadside stand or farmer’s market – but I think we can all point to ways in which God has blessed us. In today’s economy, if we have a job, even one we may not always be in love with, we can give thanks for the opportunity to earn a living. Our members have a variety of family configurations, but whatever our families look like, or whether we count our circle of friends as a “family of choice” to compensate for estrangement from family of origin, we can give thanks to God for putting people in our lives who care for us and love us. And if nothing else, each one of us is given the same 24 hours each day – 24 hours over which we are stewards each and every day of our lives. We can spend those 24 hours working, or worshipping, or loving, or hating, or helping or abusing those around us, or sitting on the sofa and eating chocolate-covered cherries, or sleeping, or any combination of the above. And for the gift of time, for the gift of another day of life, we can all give thanks.

In the time of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness and the entry into the promised land, God commanded that a tithe – one tenth – of everything be given to the Lord. For example, Leviticus 27:32 “all tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd’s staff, shall be holy to the Lord.” Of course, then as now, while it’s more blessed to give, it’s a whole lot easier to keep, and so prophets through the ages lifted up the importance of giving to the work of God. Haggai, from whose writings we read last week, chastised those who returned from exile in Babylon for being eager to rebuild their own homes, while the site of the Temple in Jerusalem lay in ruins. He told them that the drought and poor harvests they experienced were God’s response to their neglect of the Lord’s house, and that prosperity would return when the people made rebuilding the Temple their top priority. The prophet Malachi sounds a similar note of warning: “Will a man rob God?” Malachi writes. He goes on: “But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.” Earlier in his writings, Malachi reproached the people for bringing lame or maimed animals to sacrifice, even animals that had died – road kill, we’d say – rather than the best of their flocks. (Many TV preachers have enriched themselves by twisting and misusing Haggai’s and Malachi’s words, but that doesn’t make their words any less true.)

The New Testament isn’t as specific, but it still underscores the need for giving. Our reading from 2 Corinthians 9 was Paul’s writings, in the context of taking up a collection from the Gentile churches to help the struggling Christian church in Jerusalem. He frames it in terms of sowing and reaping – those who sow sparingly will reap sparingly; those who sow bountifully will reap bountifully. He’s very careful not to try to guilt trip the believers into giving, but rather to encourage them to give in joy. Which again leads back to why churches use the word “stewardship” – it’s a recognition that we are not owners, but rather stewards or managers, of what we have – that our time, talent, and treasure - are not our own, but rather gifts on loan to us from a gracious God – gifts that we are to manage wisely, to use wisely to help others, not to hoard all to ourselves or squander recklessly. Our giving is to be part of the fabric of our whole lives, lives of love for God and neighbor – and Jesus famously chastised those who were careful to tithe one tenth of every little vegetable in their garden on the Sabbath, while oppressing and bullying everyone around them the other six days of the week. And, of course, in our Gospel reading for this morning we have Jesus’ words about the poor widow who gave more than everyone else, for everyone else gave out of their abundance – gave God what was left over – while the widow gave all she had. She knew that all she had, little as it was, was a gift from God, and she trusted God enough to be willing to return that gift to God to help others.

Our reading from 2 Thessalonians and latter part of our reading from Luke’s gospel point to something that may affect our giving, for good or for ill. Both have to do with anticipation of the final coming of the Reign of God. In 2 Thessalonians, some of the believers mistakenly believe that God’s reign had already come, that they were already in Paradise – and in Paradise, there’s no need to work. They could just hang out and take it easy. And apparently some of them were running around in a misguided way, trying to convince others to do the same. Paul pulls them up short, telling them to get back to work, to get back to living lives that contributed to the good of those around them. Again, Paul’s words have been misused: Paul did not say, “if a man or woman cannot work, neither shall they eat” or “if a man or woman cannot find work, neither shall they eat.” He wasn’t referring to those who by reason of disability or misfortune could not work, but only to those who were perfectly able of body and mind, but would not work, who refused to work. These are the people he calls to be good stewards of the gifts God gave them, to return to working and contributing to the greater good.

Meanwhile, in Luke’s gospel, the disciples are admiring the beauty of the temple – to which the poor widow had just contributed – when Jesus pull them up short by telling them that the time would soon be coming when it would all be gone, not one stone left upon another. The disciples, understandably shaken, ask Jesus when this would be. Jesus begins his response by telling them not to be led astray by those who falsely claim to be the Messiah and falsely claim that “the end is near.” He tells them of coming wars and insurrections, nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, of great earthquakes and strange things in the sky. But at the same time, he tells them, “do not be terrified.” He tells them of the cost of discipleship, the potential for betrayal by family and friends, of arrest. But at the same time, Jesus tells them to use these trials as an opportunity to witness to the faith. What others intend for evil, Jesus urges them to use for good, for the sake of the gospel. He closes by saying, “by your endurance you will gain your souls.” Again, the message from Jesus is not to panic, not to run after every religious crank and pious fraud who promises salvation and a short-cut to paradise – but rather to endure, to keep on keeping on, to keep on being faithful stewards of the time, talent, and treasure that God has given us.

Politicians during the last election cycle, as during every election cycle, told us all sorts of things about what they supposedly stand for: God, country, freedom, mother, apple pie, Chevrolet, whatever. We’ll soon find out what they really stand for after they take office and begin making decisions about how our city, our state, our national government spend our tax dollars. For example, it’s easy to for a politician to say that he or she supports the troops and cares about veterans’ issues, but if he or she is content to send underpaid soldiers into battle with shoddy, cut-rate equipment and to let VA hospitals fall into disrepair and other veterans services go begging, we may have cause to question that politician’s sincerity, no matter how many stickers and magnets saying “support our troops” are on the politician’s car. But the same holds true for us: we can tell ourselves, and those around us, all sorts of things about what matters to us. But as Jesus told his listeners: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Your household budget, and mine, tell a lot about what really matters to us. Your calendar, and my calendar, tell a lot about what really matters to us. As Christians, we say that Jesus is Lord, not just of Sunday mornings between 10 a.m. and noon, but of our lives – all of our lives, including what we do on Sunday afternoon and evening and on the other six days of the week. If Jesus gets first dibs on our paycheck and top billing on our calendar, our budgets and our calendars and our lives will reflect that. If we’re content to give Jesus table scraps – what’s left of our time and money after we’ve done everything else we wanted to do, our lives will reflect that as well.

I began this morning by referring to the holiday rapidly coming up, Thanksgiving. While our national Thanksgiving holiday comes only once a year, we can give thanks to God every day by being faithful stewards of what God has given us. To borrow the title of a sermon a few years ago from the pastor of our neighboring Bridesburg Presbyterian church, faithful stewardship is not only thanksgiving, but thanks-living – living a life of thanks to God.

Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. May we at Emanuel Church share in God’s abundance, and may we share that abundance with our neighbors here in Bridesburg. Amen.

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Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org