SO MANY LEAVES Psalm 100 Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Nov. 20 th, 2016 Fall is such a wonderful time of year! Leaves turn vibrant colors and harvests are gathered. We have had such an unbelievable autumn this year with many days of temperatures more like summer than fall. And of course, on Friday we had our first snowfall that we absolutely knew was coming at some point and we were just almost holding our breath for its arrival. And now Thanksgiving Day is just around the corner and we are thinking about family get-togethers and a big meal!!! Actually, in recent years, people have begun to call Thanksgiving by another name, Turkey Day. This seems a little peculiar in a way. On other holidays like Columbus Day, George Washington s Birthday, and Memorial Day, we pay our respects to those we are remembering, but on Turkey Day we kill and eat them, kinda like the cannibals in the olden times in the South Pacific having a people day. There s a reason--a disturbing reason for the name change. When people sit down before the great feast on Thanksgiving Day, they still sense that they ought to bow their heads and give thanks. Yet people today would rather forget God. They would like to ignore the feeling on Thanksgiving that God deserves their gratitude. So, they are trying to discard the name Thanksgiving and to forsake the traditions on this holiday which kept God at the center. In this wonderful chapter of Deuteronomy we are reminded of this center where we belong as we approach another Thanksgiving Day. The text speaks to us of the forms for the presentation of the abundance of a good harvest. The verses suggest that only those who are in communion with the giver can 1
present the gift with a clean heart. It was the custom at the time of the telling of this story that each year, a basket containing firstfruits of the soil was to be brought to the central sanctuary and presented to God. The Bible tells us that first fruits for the people described in Deuteronomy were crops such as barley, grapes, wheat, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. The people were to take a basket of these first fruits to the place where they worshiped and present them to the priest. In today s world, for some of us who are here today, our firstfruits do not come from crops we have labored over. Our firstfruits are not what we gather up and put in a basket and bring to church to be offered to God. Usually, we get a paycheck and deposit that check in the bank and that check represents our firstfruits, and the checking or savings account is our basket. The Hebrew people s offering to God was done as an act of faith and commitment. When making this presentation to God, the one presenting the gift was to engage in a spoken confession of her or his faith. This confession rehear- sed the mighty acts of God in the deliverance from Egypt and the occupation of Canaan. In our world today, Thanksgiving is a time when we, through a variety of ways, give thanks for all the bounty that we are so lucky to have and then to share. At least, that is what we are supposed to be doing. In reality, however, Thanksgiving has become for many just another day off, with the added presence of family and of course, football. The Biblical principle of offering God a portion of our good bounty is not exactly on the mind of most people who gather at Thanksgiving tables. The biblical model is one in which the people of God re- member how fortunate they are to be out of captivity in Egypt. They, therefore, 2
act out of a genuine faith stance that shouts, Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! Our Thanksgiving to God is an action that is commanded by God. God commands the people to bring the offering of firstfruits. It is important to take notice that by this command the people are require to do something physical. They are required to not only harvest the firstfruits, they are required to pick up the crops, put them in a basket and take them to the temple. They become a part of the offering. But thankfulness is not just something we do, or a gift we bring. Thankfulness is a part of the quality of the life we live. Thankfulness should be a part of our living. Thanksgiving, therefore, is an attitude which acknowledges that God is in absolute control of our lives. Only with that recognition can we approach God with thankful hearts. The giving of the firstfruits was a way for the people to say, Thank you to God, and to acknowledge that without God, they would have nothing. For those of you who garden or farm, there should be a special attraction to these verses. There is great joy to those folks who wait patiently for spring and then till the soil and plant the seeds. You watch and water and weed and hope that those tiny seeds will become something special. If you are lucky, in a short while small shoots begin to break the surface of the soil and the anticipation of the harvest begins. There is great satisfaction in reaping that harvest and partaking of its bounty. It is commonplace for people to think that the first Thanksgiving was when the Pilgrims, who survived that first winter in Plymouth, gathered together and shared what little they had as a way of thanking God for surviving that first winter. But our text from Deuteronomy says otherwise. For the Hebrew people, giving thanks to God was much more personal that it is for most of us. We do not think 3
of ourselves, for the most part, as people who have been delivered from slavery into freedom. A question to ponder this Thanksgiving Day is whether or not twenty-firstcentury people can think of Thanksgiving as deliverance. The truth is that for the overwhelming majority of people Thanksgiving is a day when we list the many things we have to be thankful for, but not to list those things which we have been set free from. When we acknowledge that our firstfruits are probably a pay check, the question becomes, how does that check become firstfruits. Now there may be some murmuring that here comes another plea for money. The church is always looking for money. Well, sort of. We have just finished our stewardship campaign for Transformed Living pledges for the church year ahead. You have made pledges of your prayers, your presence, your gifts, and your service for 2017 here at your church, Pine Bluffs United Methodist Church. Thankful hearts come to us as we ponder and appreciate those things in our lives that give us a sense of security and hope. But most people do not think about their good health, or financial well being, or clothes on their backs, and a roof over their head as firstfruits. Indeed, it could be said that some folks actually think they are owed those things from God, simply because well, because! When we stop and prayerfully recognize that everything we have in life, those things we have been delivered from, and those things we put into our bank account come from God, one of two results come forward. We either feel like we are actually the reason for those things in life we consider good, or we don t want to admit that God is the giver because we do not want to owe anything to God or to anyone else! 4
Many people don t want to say, Thank you, because to say, Thank you, says, I am dependent on you. And, sadly most of us, even if we don t want to admit it, are self-centered enough that we do not want to be seen as depending on anyone or anything. The truth is that saying, Thank you, or better yet, to admit that gratitude is a good thing, is an action that has its roots in grace. When we are truly grateful, we become very aware that we are totally dependent on God and upon one another. When we are really grateful, we recognize that God has give us firstfruits whether we deserve them or not! Thanksgiving, on our part, in our time, should reflect the knowledge that we have already received from God far more that we can ever offer in return. When you take inventory of your life, you will discover that God has done much gardening in your life. You will come to understand that God been patient tending to the needs of your life. You will come to understand and appreciate that God has fashioned you and has provided for all your needs. You will come to accept that those needs may not always be met in a way that you would have met them, but you will come to know they are indeed met. In returning to our text, it is clear that the Israelites were finally taking possession of the land that God had promised to them. They worked hard to get their crops planted, establishing community, and in doing so, planted their lives as well as their crops. They were laying the foundation for a new life of freedom in this foreign land. One can only imagine how busy those days must have been for them as they went about building new lives. One can imagine that they probably worked long hours every day, and did so with a smile on their face. They might have been tempted to think that they now had it made. They must have thought along those lines, to do otherwise would be contrary to 5
human behavior. The crops are the best we have ever seen. Life is good; we can now live on our own. But, it appears that they did not get too full of themselves, at least not at this point in their early history. I mean, how many times have we been tempted to rearrange our priorities to reflect a more selfish attitude? When things are going great, it is easy to slip into the self-deception of self-pride. And an added problem is that when it is good, we want more, we get greedy. Yes, they had been commanded to do so, but how often has that command been ignored by humankind?!?!?! On this Thanksgiving Day let us begin to move into an understanding that we are always to give God our best effort in all things we do. When you think of the firstfruit scenario keep this in mind. The firstfruit was the best and the biggest. It is often from that fruit that the best seed is removed and replanted for the next year. So what does it say when we give our firstfruit to God? It says, We trust God with the best. Someone once said, Give God your best, expect God s best. That is a good notion to keep in mind. It would be a tragedy if we neglected the many blessings God has so graciously entrusted to our care. We need on this special day to ask ourselves how it will be with us when God takes stock of our lives. Will we be able to look into God s radiance and say that we have used the firstfruits of our lives in a way that glorifies God? We will be able to say, Yes, we have used those gracious gifts wisely when we acknowledge God s grace in our lives. No matter how hard you have worked, no matter how deeply you are committed to providing for yourself and those around you; no matter how dedicated you are to making a positive difference for people along the way, the fact still 6
remains: There is nothing that you own. There is nothing that you have by your own efforts alone. It is like the seed that was planted and became a part of the harvest of first fruits. The farmer works hard to prepare the soil and all the rest, but no matter how hard the farmer works, it is not the farmer that gives that seed life, it is our God who created the farmer and the seed who gives both life. My sisters and brothers in Christ, we are a people who have been blessed. as you look around the world today, look with eyes of thankfulness. Let us see our Blessings and not be jealous, or selfish, or self-centered. Let us, this Thanksgiving Day, be a grateful people, a people that are thankful for our dependency on God, and his loving response to us. So much to be thankful for this day, and so many leaves in your hands. I would invite you now to take a few moments to think about what you are thankful for or from. Search your hearts and minds as God s grateful people. When you have decided on one or two or three things among your many blessings, write them down on your leaf. During the last hymn I ask that you come up to the lovely tree that Joleen has created for us and pin your leaf of Thanksgiving on the tree. As you leave it there on the altar, know that God sees your gratitude and blesses you as you move into the days and weeks ahead. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!! 7