November 18, 2001
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Thank We All Our God (Introducing
the Caring Ministry Team and Recognizing our Care Givers) Thanksgiving Sunday Like many of you, I am looking forward to this Thanksgiving season of gathering with friends, talking to family and sitting at a table laden with food and beverages, while remembering all of those people and things for which I am grateful. It will be wonderful. Except, I imagine on this weekend before Thanksgiving and for the rest of the holiday season, Americans will be a bit more reflective and perhaps a bit more prayerful as we count our blessings. We can this day and in the days ahead thank our God for the hope that is in us. How can you talk about hope? The nation is at war, the economy is a bit wobbly, we are afraid and tense, everything is different world now. We hear repeatedly that since September 11, 2001 everything has changed, nothing is the way it used to be. We are told to get back to normal, and most of us have, but what is normal has changed. We do not look at airplanes the same way, we have become wary of opening the mail, wary of people who come from the Middle Eastern Asia, wary of anyone who is different. All of this new normalcy puts us at odds with our image of our selves as an open and welcoming society. It strikes a blow against our social understanding of ourselves, and at our religious understanding of ourselves. So many of people find themselves struggling to answer this question, if we believe that God has made all the world in God’s own image, what are we to make of the people of whom we are afraid? We do what fair minded people have always done, we make our judgments about individuals, not groups. And as we discern what it means to be a person of faith and fairness in these days, I would suggest that even in this difficult time, we can thank our God for all that we have, and for all that we are. I was struck by the truth of the quote in Friday’s paper. George Reed, pastor of Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church here in town, said the following: “I remind myself and the congregation that if you have a house to live in, if you have something that will transport you that you own, and your diet varies from day to day, you’re one of the wealthy people of the earth (Columbus Dispatch, November 16, 2001, p. G1). When we are thankful to God, we can affirm the joy and gratitude of that wonderful hymn that says: “Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One, give thanks, because he’s given Jesus Christ, his Son. And now let the weak say ‘I am strong’, let the poor say ‘I am rich’ because of what the Lord has done for us. Give thanks.” (Chalice Hymnal, “Give Thanks”, #528) We are called to give thanks in these times, because it is in good times and especially in those hard times that we need God most and feel God’s presence most intimately. Other people have faced other hard times. Some of you have lived through them. Our biblical foreparents knew, as do many of you, that the best way to get through hard times is to maintain faith in God. In another difficult time, a time like this time, when evil acts seem to set the agenda for the world, that Habakkuk 3.17-19 declares an amazing faith in God: “Though the fig tree
does not blossom, You may have seen Rick Lowrey’s article in the current issue of The Disciple magazine. Titled, “Giving Thanks In A Time Of Trouble”, Rick says that “thanksgiving is an act of will, a leap of faith in a time of distress. Praise grows out of lament and repentance. Thanksgiving is more hope for the future than gratitude for the present." (The Disciple, November 2001, p.24) With all that is on our minds and in our heart, for what are we thankful today? Like Paul I want us to be grateful for our memories. Paul’s memories of the Philippians led him to pray, not out of anger, not out of regret, not out of a vague sense of duty to pray. His prayers of full of memory induced thanksgiving and joy. You have seen on the news the smiling images of Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, the two young women held with eight others in an Afghan prison for three months. They have talked about being sustained during their imprisonment by their memories of their families, and by their own prayers and the prayers of people for them. On this Thanksgiving I am grateful for those who hold me in their memories and prayers and whom I hold in mine. They are parents and Sunday school leaders, camp counselors and youth sponsors, each one of them helped me to form a faith for myself. There were school teachers who taught me to read and write and tell time, and seminary professors who helped me to learn to think critically and to think in real time about real issues and about time eternal. I am thankful for every church experience and life experience that has shaped who I am, I hold all of those experiences and people dear. I am thankful for prayer this day, for those conversations with God that help us to manage and maintain our lives. I am grateful to Paul for providing a model of thanksgiving for his partners in ministry. We are partners here and I am thankful for our partnership. Like all close partnerships it is not always easy, there are down times, and hard times. But like all committed partnerships, we know that we are in it for the long haul, and we are united by our baptism and by our membership. We are here, to mourn and to rejoice, we are here when people arrive and when people of necessity depart, we are here when ministries change, some will cease, and when new ones emerge. We are all in this church together, and together we are called to believe that the one who started this ministry will complete it. Be clear, the ministry of this congregation was not begun by any one pastor or lay leader, it was begun by God and given to us as a sacred trust. We are trustees of this church that has been lovingly passed down to us, and we will pass it on to the next generation of trustees. Let’s praise God for every opportunity we have and every prayerful action we take to pass on a church that is as strong and healthy as we can by the grace of God make it. I thank God for you and for this church daily and I hope you do the same. I want us to pray with joy for who we are and for who we can be with thanksgiving for friendships formed, for compassion received and for opportunities to share in the compassion of God. There is a new ministry emerging here at Broad Street Christian Church, and I want to invite members of that ministry to come now and share the good news of our caring ministries with us. Presentation introducing caring ministries Our ministries of care for families and for each other deserve honor, our prayers and our support. And because we know our ministry extends beyond the doors of our homes or worship place out to community and the world, they can become the springboard to move us into ministries beyond those we are now doing. Then we become witnesses of the good news of Jesus Christ wherever we are. With hope for the future God holds for us, with gratitude for our ministries of care, with thanksgiving to God for all that God has done for us, this thanksgiving season, let’s thank God for every opportunity to participate in ministries of care. Pray constantly with joy for the harvest of compassion available to us now and in the days to come. God has promised to bless us as we do. And the promises of God can be trusted, absolutely. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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