October 10, 2021 – Harvest Thanksgiving

(20th Sunday after Pentecost)

Let us pray.  Gracious and loving God, we give you thanks for your presence in this time and place and within each one of us gathered here and those gathered in their homes. Help us now to open our minds, our hearts, and our whole lives, to receive the gift of your living Word for us this day; and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

“Thank you.” Two simple words.  “Thank you.”  Thank you for being present today in this building and through your screen in your home.  Thank you for those who decorated the church building to prepare for worship.  Thank you to the one who produced the worship booklet.  Thank you to those who chose and prepared and rehearsed the music for today.  Thank you for those who greeted you when we arrived this morning.  Thank you to those who read, and those who wrote and those who will lead in the prayers today, and assist in worship.  And these expressions of gratitude are just within the worship of the Church.  What about all of the other areas and relationships in our lives where we could be saying ‘thank you’?

“Thank you.”  Two simple words.  Where did those words begin for you?  Was it when you were a toddler, and maybe auntie or uncle came to visit and gave you a new toy when they came; and as soon as your little hand reaches out to grasp it, a parental voice engages you, “And what do you say?”  Prior instruction kicks in, in your head, and you almost automatically respond “Thank you.”; to which your gifter responds “You are welcome.”  And Mom and Dad smile approvingly.  At this toddler age you’re simply learning what’s expected of you to fit in approvingly to your ever-expanding world.  But as you mature, and you become both a giver and a receiver, you become conscious of the subtle, profound transformations that can take place in those exchanges.  As the giver, to receive a sincere ‘thank you’ is to receive a gift in return.  Your gesture has been received warmly and the respect and love in your relationship, even if only in a minor way, has been affirmed.  As the recipient, when you respond ‘thank you’ you are consciously acknowledging that you have been appreciated, cared for, lifted up - and your mind and your heart have entered into a space of gratitude.

Well today, we are being invited, challenged, maybe even exhorted to give thanks to God.  In the First Reading from the Book of Deuteronomy – it is set in the context of the nation of Israel at the end of the Exodus from Egypt – getting final instructions before entering the Promised Land.  But in fact, the passage as it appears in Deuteronomy, is really a portion of a sermon by that author – applicable also to succeeding generations for many centuries after the Exodus.  The people of God are exhorted, centuries later, to “bless the Lord your God” and to “take care that you do not forget the Lord your God.”  Now we, as Christians, do that in a profound and demonstrative way at every Sunday Eucharist.  The word ‘eucharist’ is a borrowed word from the Greek, and it means to ‘give thanks’.  The long prayer after the Offertory that’s said at the altar with the bread and wine is called The Great Thanksgiving, in which we give thanks for the saving and life-giving gift of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And we don’t just say the words.  We consume that consecrated bread and wine to receive Jesus afresh into our lives.

But today’s celebration of Harvest Thanksgiving is even bigger and broader.  We are to be giving thanks for our lives – for every aspect of them.  As the write of Deuteronomy admonished the ancient People of God, “But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.”  But I wonder how conscious we really are of those many blessings and ‘thank yous’ in our lives right now?  Often, when we come to a special annual service of the Church, like today, I think what happens instead is that we remember, and we even give thanks for, our previous experiences of this occasion.  So they bring back memories of previous Harvest Thanksgiving services, and how lovely those services make feel! 

I fall into that space very easily.  Our Opening Hymn, “Come, ye thankful people come” – especially the last half of each of the verses – the last four lines – the music of the bass line is wonderful!  There are two strong descending scales, followed by a lovely harmonic progression, and then a little syncopated rhythm with the sopranos!  Now, I’m not thinking all of those thoughts as I’m singing the words, but I am ‘consuming’ that music like a delicious piece of pumpkin pie!  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  I can be thankful for the music.  But this day must be much more than just indulging in wholesome liturgy.  What did we say earlier about saying “Thank you?”  It moves one into a space – a state – of gratitude.  And that’s where we need to be.  The Collect Prayer that we prayed, “Give us grateful hearts for all your goodness.” - we need to take the time and space to bring to mind all of the care and love that God has provided for us, and sustains us with, in every area of our lives.

Now, that reflection is not meant to be a kind of ‘critical review’ of our life – how we fare.  It’s not a kind of, “Well I can thank God for my health but due to Covid my husband was laid off.”; or “I’m grateful that I could buy this new car this year, but my grandchild is struggling in school.”  It’s not that kind of reflection.  It begins with the underlying conviction that God loves you and me – that God is not some kind of disinterested, objective judge of human behaviour.  God is not objective!  God is eternally subjective – to our favour!  And it is that profound, all-pervasive reality that moves us into a state of gratitude – for our life, with all of its challenges; for our families and friends; gratitude for the people who love us; for our community and our country – as imperfect as it is sometimes; for this congregation and its diversity, even if it sometimes frustrates us.

From that place and that foundation of gratitude – grateful hearts – we can, as our Collect Prayer says, we can “with steadfast wills” use God’s bounty well.  And not only the bounty of creation and material things, as important as those are, but everything we’ve been blessed with – our abilities, our gifts, our passions, our relationships – the people who love and support us, this community of All Saints, and the opportunities we have to share in its ministry and mission.

So when we sing those great hymns, like we will at the end of the service – another good one – “Now Thank We All Our God”, enjoy the expansive music, recall and delight in the many wonderful times you’ve sung it before, but most importantly let it not be an end in our worship, but a means to an end – a means to a stance and an attitude of gratitude - to God, and to our God-given lives.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.