Matthew 6:25–33

Sermon

Thank you. Two simple and common words. Thank you. Words that express genuine thankfulness, or words that can be said in such a way to imply ungratefulness. Thank you. We say thank you for the little things in life, a door held open, a chair pulled out and reaching a high shelf. And we also say thank you for the big things. Thank you is offered for the little things and the big things, and everything in between. We may throw out a thank you to a waiter even though our food is cold and late. We may mumble thank you to cashier at Canadian Tire for the overpriced tool we just purchased. A sarcastic …thanks… may even convey our dissatisfaction with what someone else has done for us or to us. And yet, “thanks” is still the word that we must use to show are appreciation when it is sincere. A thank you must still be able to convey our deep appreciation for something, if not more important our deep appreciation for someone.

And still we appoint a special day a special in order to give thanks. We gather with family, with the people we are most grateful for, and we celebrate. And here in communities like this, where the land is so important and so close to our well being, where milk comes from cows and not grocery stores, where making bread starts with growing it in the ground instead of buying it at Safeway.  Here in this community, Thanksgiving is about gratefulness for the very tangible harvest of each year.

Hosea Frank writes about gratefulness and thanks: “The actual feeling of gratitude can be hard to come by. Like most emotions, you can't just conjure it up when you're given a pair of lime-green wool socks. In these cases your sincerity doesn't need to be measured by whether or not your words match the appreciation that you feel. Instead your sincerity can be measured by your honest desire to make the other person feel good, feel appreciated. These sorts of thank you's are a gift. A special sacrificial gift, since a thank you doesn't expect a thank you in return”.

Hosea Frank continues to write about thanks, “And then there's the rare kind. The kind of thank you that begins with an overwhelming sense of humility. A sense that you're vulnerable. A sense of appreciation for things outside of your control. Whether this feeling's focused on a loved one, a stranger, or some sense of the unknown, realize it's fleeting and it's worth acting upon. That sort of thank you is a graceful bow to life.”

  I encountered one of those graceful bows to life in the form of a small boy I met at camp one summer. His name was Kurt, but unlike most kids who come to camp Kurt had Downe’s Syndrome. There were not many kids with Downe’s who came to camp before and I didn’t know what to do with Kurt. But without asking me if I was ready to find out what it meant to be a part of his life, he grabbed my big hand in his little hand that had five double jointed fingers. He could barely wrap his hand around one of my fingers, but it was enough for him to whisk me away into his world of carefree excitement.

The way it worked between Kurt and I was that because I could not understand a word he said, the other seven year olds who somehow understood perfectly had to translate,   Because I was little three feet taller than he was, I had to crouch just to talk to him. And even though he was a pain to get changed for swimming or to keep clean during lunch, Kurt and I became inseparable. In fact, Kurt became the only kid, of hundreds that I saw at camp, that I wanted hang out with as soon as I woke up in the morning. He was the only kid that I never grew tired of spending time with. He was the only kid that I was sad to see go at the end of the week and that I still miss nearly 10 years later.

(Pause)

Today we give thanks because of the graceful bow to us given in Christ Jesus. We give thanks because we have been bowed to by a God who offers himself to all people. By a God who offers himself in the most surprising places. In thankfulness shared around a family fest, in grace seen in a small and special boy, in love shown in the Christ who brings God close to us. Close enough to see and touch. We give thanks because it is truly all we can do, because the gift we have been given in Christ, requires nothing of us. God’s love is given freely and without cost. Today we will see God use simplest of tools, water, bread, wine and the Word, to show us again, this amazing love.

Today Bennett Michael will be baptized. Bennett will be given forgiveness, life and salvation, just as we all have been given. On a day when Bennett has done nothing to earn or deserve this love, on this day when his parents, his grandparents, and in fact none of us, have done anything to earn God’s love, it will be freely given. God will name and claim Bennett as a beloved child of God. This is God’s gift made in water and the Word. This gift is no pair of lime green wool socks. This is a gift for which we can truly give thanks.

Yet once Bennett Michael is baptized God gives us another gift, His own Body and Blood. Of all the thanksgiving dinners that will be eaten this weekend, this simple meal of bread and wine, is the greatest of gifts. It is the gift of God’s very self, to each one of us, and to all of us at once as a community. It is the Body of Christ for the Body of Christ. When we share this gift, we share each other, we become one. In this thanksgiving meal, God gracefully bows to us again, and invites us once again into the community of the Trinity, into the family of God. This gift is no pair of lime green wool socks. This is a gift for which we can truly give thanks.

(Pause)

At the end of my  time with Kurt, it was Kurt’s mother whose thankfulness was the most surprising. She said that Kurt, who could sometimes be a violent and unhappy kid, was the happiest he had ever been in his young life of 7 years, and that he talked about camp from the moment he was picked up in the afternoon until when he returned the next morning. She thanked me for all I had done with and for him… It was a thank you that I couldn’t believe or understand because… She said thank you to me for maybe the 5 best days of my life. Thank you to me for spending time with a kid that I will remember forever. Thank you to me for the gift of being able to spend time with her son, her son who had been so clearly a divine gift of God in Christ. Kurt’s mother had gracefully bowed to me, when I had done nothing to deserve it, when it was Kurt who was the blessing. The only thing I could respond was a stuttered and mumbled “thank you” in return.

(Pause)

Thanksgiving, the day that we set aside each year to give thanks can feel as if its not enough. We count our thank yous, and we probably think we owe God. We probably feel that we owe many more for God’s grace that finds us in the most surprising of places. We know that we never have enough moments of vulnerability to see the graceful bow to life that we are given, and there are too many lime green wool socks in the way that keep us from seeing. And even still, while we cannot give enough thanks, God does not count our thank yous, but instead continues giving. God gives us these gifts of water, of bread and wine, of the Word of God. So come, taste and see God’s grace given to us.

Amen.