Sermons at St. John's Presbyterian Church

Giving Thanks

Transcribed from the sermon preached November 20, 2010

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 John 6:24-35

The Rev. Robert Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota) is missioner for Native ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. He tells of the first thanksgiving:

When the Pilgrims touched Plymouth Rock in 1620 and made it to shore, they found a deserted village, which they eventually appropriated for themselves and named Plymouth Colony. The village had been named Patuxet and was the formal home of people who were a branch of the Wampanoags. The majority of these people had died from smallpox in 1618. The village was a ghost town.

The Pilgrims were helped out by Squanto (or Tisquantum), a Wampanoag and a former inhabitant of Patuxet. Squanto spoke English. He had learned this language over a period of several years, following his capture by English traders and sale into slavery in Europe. He had made it back home, a heroic nine-year journey, only to find his people pretty much wiped out.

After teaching the Pilgrims basic survival and agricultural techniques, the Wampanoags and Pilgrims kept peaceful relations for well over fifty years.”

It has been estimated that there are 7 million illegal immigrants in the US today. Native Americans would likely put that figure somewhere around 240 million. Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago. At any given time, there is about 2-3% of the human population on the move. Humans have always been on the search for home and blessing. In the Deuteronomist liturgical mythology, the wandering Armenian Jacob (the son of Isaac, the son of Sarah and Abraham) immigrated to Egypt. When his descendants became populous the Egyptians grew tired of these immigrants and enslaved them. Liberated by God, the Israelites fled Egypt and into Palestine. In time, they took the land over and by David’s time became prosperous Israel. Now back from exile in Babylon, the Deuteronomist wanted to make sure the Israelites didn’t forget whom to thank. The blessing of each harvest was to be a reminder of all of the blessings the people of Israel had experienced by the grace of God.

Most immigration is driven by the same essential desires and needs: resources, security and perceived opportunity. As both Spiritual and literal descendants of immigrants, at a time when it has become popular to demonize “illegal immigrants” this Thanksgiving is a good time to give thanks for the land we call home, to repent of our sins, to acknowledge the destruction of native people and the devastating exploitation which threatens the planet under our care, and renew our calling to be bread from heaven: to work for peace and justice among all peoples, and be good stewards of God’s Earth.

“According to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, it will be increas­ingly difficult to easily categorize the displaced by separate causes.¹² Environmental degrada­tion, for example, is now often seen to be a factor contributing to both involuntary and voluntary population movements. But environmental problems are often closely intertwined with socioeconomic conditions (poverty, inequality of land ownership, etc.), resource disputes, and poor governance.” (Renner, Michael. Environment a Growing Driver in Displacement of People. Worldwatch Institute, Sept 17 2008)

A significant omission in the debate over immigration is the fact our ability to purchase and consume many goods at cheap prices depends in large part on production, environmental and labor standards in poor countries which we would consider unacceptable or illegal for our own communities and nation. When we have backed regimes which brutally suppress calls for land and labor reform, when we subsidize our farmers who can then, under the guise of “free trade” undercut the prices of small farmers in Mexico, when large commercial cattle ranchers seeking to profit on American hunger for beef, deforest and appropriate land held for generations by indigenous communities, it should be no surprise that folks down there decide to escape to a land with more opportunity.

A fence today won’t stop the poor and oppressed from seeking freedom and opportunity any more than the ocean stopped pilgrims or the Red Sea stopped the Israelites. A real solution to immigration locally and globally is to equalize economic opportunities, reduce relative poverty and increase access and sustainable use of resources.

This is no quick fix, no immediate sign or wonder bread. We will have to hunger for the bread of heaven to sustain us for such a vision.

I suppose it is typical of we humans to want immediate signs of improvement, signs we are in the chosen group, that the providence of God is working in our favor. So part of the American myth is that God blessed the Israelite and European immigrants with this promised land and damned the heathen natives, and all the death by disease and success in wars over land was proof. And now it is the temptation of the group that traces its spiritual roots back to earlier immigrant myths to feel unique and especially blessed, and ironically feel we can therefore cut off new outside intruders.

We only have five loaves and two fish; we couldn’t possibly feed those others. In the story of the feeding of the five thousand just before this morning’s passage in John, the twelve disciples, representing the twelve tribes of Israel are there, and there is a whole bunch more too. But with five barely loaves and two fish, everyone is able to eat their fill, and there food left over. After everyone is full, Jesus says, gather up the leftovers, we don’t want it to waste.

Now this is interesting, because while Jesus is extravagant in giving, he is conservative in waste. When I did catering in college, we would often throw extravagant parties, where a few would be given much, much more than they could possibly consume, and then we would wind up throwing out large amounts of expensive food. Jesus is advocating just the opposite, share broad and wide, until each has had their fill, but be conservative with waste.

When our vision of the blessed life is to consume in excess, then even when we have enough we feel it is not enough, and we envy those with more. And even when we have in abundance, we may keep it rather than share, because we seek to prove God has blessed us big time. Then by proving with the abundance of our excess stuff that we are blessed by God, we then feel justified in excluding others who seemingly are excluded from the blessing of God.

The people who tracked Jesus across the lake after the big feeding were looking for a Moses like sign, when in the wilderness God sent manna from heaven. They ask Jesus to perform a work like that, which ironically he already has. But Jesus reminds the people that God provided, not Moses. The blessing comes from heaven not from us or our national superstars. Jesus is not a self made man performing signs and wonders for his own popularity. In fact, he says, he himself is a gift from heaven, bread of life. As we partake, as we are fed with the bread of life, we also become loaves.

Think about that a moment. Think for a moment of yourself as a loaf of bread sent, by the grace of God, from heaven. God is going to pass you around. Your very purpose is to feed others who hunger and thirst for love. Our gifts, our unique flavor, grows from a seed in the earth and the grace of God through Christ, and is refined and cooked by God until ready to feed the world. Who we are has everything to do with those who and that which comes before.

Also in this vision painted by John’s Gospel, through Christ, our stuff is not ours; we are God’s. So we are blessed and chosen, but not just for show, not simply so we can set ourselves apart to feel proud and say we are blessed and chosen, but so that we can be food.

We are to be what God says of Abraham and Sarah, a blessing to the nations. We are to be a nation not for ourselves, but a nation for the world. Wally and Sarah Kim came from Korea ten years ago and discovered that Americans couldn’t pronounce their Korean names. Sarah says that she picked her name after Sarah in the Bible, because she and Abraham left their homeland and were blessed by God and promised a new home. A great biblical story lives on. A great American story lives on.

We are all Sarah and Abraham and Jacob, immigrants blessed with a new homeland, and called by God to be a blessing, bread from heaven for a hungry world. Thank God for Squanto, Native Americans, and the land, and all those who have come before who have shared abundantly, yet conserved and preserved so that we too can find home and bread, so that we too can be a blessing from God and food to a hungry world.
⁴Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ⁸Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ⁹Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.