A Great Thanksgiving

November 25, 2007

Christ the King Sunday
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46
The Reverend Cathy S. Gilliard

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I had a great Thanksgiving this year! I hope you did too. Nothing special in particular, no unusual bells or whistles. Nothing out of the ordinary. But Thursday morning, before heading out to our Thanksgiving feast, I got to thinking about how much I have to give thanks for. Perhaps you had a moment like that. How blessed we are. I started thinking about how far I’ve come. How much I’ve learned and grown. The mistakes I’ve made and how I have been able to overcome them despite myself. Decisions and choices made. Dreams - some unfulfilled, but dreams worthy of dreaming just the same.

Family. Friends. Good work that matters and great colleagues. Life. Health. Freedom. A place to call home. Peace of mind. Clarity of thought. I had a good time and emerged overwhelmed. It occurred to me that I should not wait for Thanksgiving Day once a year. If we think about it, we could say that every day is a day of thanksgiving, isn’t it? Not in some overly simplified or romanticized way but in a way that allows us to live differently, better, more open and alive to things around us. Somehow I always seem to manage to get caught up in the living and doing of days and I don’t stop nearly enough to think much about it. So I made myself a Thanksgiving resolution: at least once a week - Thursdays seem like a good day - I’m hoping to find some short amount of time to be intentional and deliberate about – well, giving thanks. Remembering, assessing, naming: lest I forget or take for granted, or assume too much brilliance on my part, God’s abundant presence in my life. And all the unexpected ways and places where God shows up in people and circumstances to provide little miracles, manna and sustenance for my journey.

So, we’ll see; but at least I want to work at it and add this discipline to my agenda.

As I was in a mood of thanksgiving, my mind drifted to thoughts of Janet Evans and Veronica Balc who passed away only a few weeks ago. Several of us commented how we missed them at our Thanksgiving Feast. I think these two women gifted us in a special way, at least they did for me.

They were so quiet among us that it might have been easy to miss them. As a young woman Veronica left Romania and walked across Europe with her husband to escape the communist regime. She landed in America and went on to become a professional singer and had a career and led a life of learning and adventure, meeting people and loving them however she could.

Janet was born with rheumatoid arthritis and was orphaned at age 11. A physically challenged woman of mixed race, she went on to educate herself and served the church as a missionary in Peru for 35 years. Each of these women claimed this church as their home and family. They understood the impact of that statement in ways that I had to learn.

By all accounts, at varying times each of them might have easily been considered among the “least of these" that Jesus refers to in our gospel today. The least of these: these women in their eighties. No husbands, no children. Any remaining relatives lived some distance away. Each had lived as a stranger in a country foreign to them. Though they had worked hard, in their latter years they would have been considered poor by some standards. Society would have marginalized them because they were old, weak, vulnerable, and alone.

But in the church they were not the "least of these" at all. They were among the greatest of us! Worthy of love and care and the best we could provide.

It seems that at times all of us are perhaps the “least of these" and at other times, we are all the “greatest of these," and our greatness is found in a circle of friends bound together in community – a gathering of pilgrims – sometimes weary and needy, yearning for companionship on a tough journey.

We see the connection to which Jesus links himself to us and us to one another. And the sort of transformation that is possible when we have the courage to live it out. Jesus says "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

These phrases describe the most vulnerable of times: hungry and thirsty; a stranger; naked; sick; in prison. They speak to our most basic human needs. But they also push us just a little bit further because Jesus also says, “when you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” What if the “least of these” were members of our very own family? What if the hungry person was my son? Or the child without any clothing was my grandchild? Or the stranger who is shut out was my sister? Or the sick person in the nursing home was my mother? How would I respond? How far would I go? Because in truth, that is exactly who they are.

There was a woman in my former church who was the epitome of “dynamic hospitality.” She took it upon herself to greet every visitor. She was warm and friendly and bursting with enthusiasm. When people joined the church she would immediately invite them to her home or take them out for a meal. Hers was the place where people gathered for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. One day I asked her what fueled her passion. She reported that her daughter had once worked as a reporter for CNN and as such she traveled all over the country and around the world. The daughter would tell her how lonely it was to go from city to city not knowing anyone and never staying long enough to form authentic relationships. She knew was it was like to be alone, to need a friend, to struggle to find community. The mother decided that although she could not travel with her daughter she could claim others as her own.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes about an African word called ubuntu. He says that ubuntu speaks of the fact that we are interdependent on our fellow human beings. “I am human because I belong. A person with ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole.” [1]

“If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies, are bound up in one another’s, that we can be free only together, that we can survive only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family, God’s family.”[2]

More and more I am finding the courage to embrace this idea in ways that I had not imagined. The cataracts of spiritual blindness are being removed from my eyes and what I had hoped all along is being confirmed: all humans are the same before God. No lines of division separate us. I’m thinking I’ll add that to my Thanksgiving list. Thanks be to God.

Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. We mark the end of the Christian year. From Easter to now we have been seeing examples of Christ’s kingdom played out. Today he reigns as King over all things. But he does not only come as king – he also comes as participant. And he puts the kingdom in our hands and invites us to participate along with him.

Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. We will look to see the child born in Bethlehem. Thanksgiving; the Reign of Christ; Advent.

It seems to be the best possible way to proceed: giving thanks for what we have and who we are. Participating in kingdom work by asking ourselves what will happen to those who have so much less. And looking forward to the One who keeps coming to all people everywhere.

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[1] Bishop Desmond Tutu, God Has A Dream, Doubleday, p. 26.
[2] Ibid., pps. 23-24.

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