Paul N. Walker Thanksgiving 2015 Christ Church Mt 6:25 Thank You, Adele?

Paul N. Walker Thanksgiving 2015 Christ Church Mt 6:25 “Thank You, Adele?”

Thanksgiving Day! I’m so glad that you have come to give thanks to God on this day of giving thanks. Many people have plenty else to do, since Thanksgiving has become a day of gathering and eating and drinking. Planning what to eat and drink, shopping for what to eat and drink, inviting and counting the number of people who will come together to eat and drink, setting the silver and the china with which and on which people will eat and drink, and of course cooking and baking and frying and roasting and chilling and mixing all the food and wine that people will eat and drink. That doesn’t even include cleaning up all the food and drink that are leftover.

That’s why I love the wisdom of the lectionary choices for Thanksgiving. None other than Jesus himself says to us, “Do not worry about…what you will you eat and drink….” Ha! That on a day above all days that most of us worry about, or at least fuss over what we will eat and drink. I was very worried about having northern neck oysters to eat today. That’s why I put my order in for 3 dozen of them. Currently they are on ice in the trunk of my mother’s car in the Christ Church parking lot, purchased and hand delivered by my mother from Irvington, ready to be shucked and eaten later today. Now I don’t have to worry.

The other main worry at Thanksgiving - the time to gather with family and friends – is the inevitable fissures that are found in every family. There are fissures imposed by death. I was with a woman yesterday who is facing the first Thanksgiving without her husband in over 70 years. Saying “we had a good life together” only goes so far in ameliorated the pain of his absence at the head of the table.

Fissures exist in every family – divorce or alienation or guarded distance. If blood is thicker than water, as the old saying goes, then I would say that the wounds imposed by blood are deeper than those imposed by water. But, this is not new news – it is something everyone deals with, often accentuated by the holiday focus on family togetherness.

There was a very funny skit last Saturday on Saturday Night Live. A family is gathered around the Thanksgiving Table and they immediately start arguing about everything: ISIS, the presidential campaigns, transgendered people – you name it. The current events of the day just serve to accentuate the differences between the people sitting around the table. Tempers flare, accusations fly, all is on the verge of ruin. This family is in desperate need of something to unify them.

Then a little girl turns on the new Adele song – “Hello”. You know it because it is ubiquitous: “Hello From The Other Side.” It has something like 60 million streams in its first week of release. All the sudden the erstwhile arguing family is united in singing “Hello From the Other Side” with all the passion of Adele herself. They hold hands, look deeply into each other’s eyes. When the little girl turns the music off, they immediately start arguing about Ben Carson. Pop on the music again, and all is harmony and love. The skit ends with the little girl looking into the camera ands saying with a little grin, “Thank You, Adele.”

What is so good about that skit is that it captures the universality of the fissures we feel. But it also speaks to the universal need to be brought together by something, somebody outside of ourselves. As good as Adele is, her power to unite may not, in fact, be universal. We need something, or somebody else.

That Somebody Else, of course, turns out to be the very One who tells us not to worry about our lives, what we will eat and what we will drink and what we will wear. Jesus tells us this Thanksgiving that worry is the opposite of gratitude. Worry is trying to manage the future, isn’t it? Trying to play out and control events according to our version of how they should go.

Gratitude is just the opposite. Gratitude is receiving with thanks the present circumstances of the moment. Worry tries to provide for itself – usually with bad results. Gratitude recognizes that God provides for us. “Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”

Of course, life being what life is, and human beings being who we are, we all tend to worry more than express gratitude. Even on a day set apart to give thanks. But that doesn’t stop God from showering His good gifts upon us this day and everyday. If anything can shut bickering mouths and unify divided hearts, it is the power of his undeserved grace. And maybe today of all days we may be able to recognize that everyone around the table is an equal recipient of His lavish love.

And maybe, at the end of the skit – whatever your day’s skit may hold – when all has been eaten and drunk and packed away in the fridge, you may look to your Heavenly Father and say with a little grin, “Thank you, Lord.”

Amen.