Scripture Lesson
From the Book of Ezekial, Chapter 34:
11 For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 16I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
From the Book of Psalms, Chapter 100:
1Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.
3Know that the Lord is God.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, bless his name.
5For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures for ever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
"On Thanksgiving"
A
Sermon Preached by
Mr. Steven Aucella
at
the First
Congregational Church of Stoughton
United
Church of Christ
Every year, my wife Jody, my daughter Kate, and I celebrate Thanksgiving by driving to Jody’s cousin’s house in Sleepy Hollow, New York. We do an overnight with them and have a lot of fun, and then drive back some time Friday. This year, we’re adding a little side-trip to Reading first, to visit with my parents for the first time in a long time. All this bombing around made me wonder why we do it in the first place. So I cracked open the history books to find out. Also, a friend plays Miles Standish down at Plimoth Plantation.
Native Americans have lived in New England for more than 13,000 years. About 2,000 years ago – around the time of Jesus’ birth – the Wampanoag tribe began planting corn here. They lived across southeastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod.
Fast-forward to 1617, when a congregation of English Separatists living in Leiden, Holland, worried about the effect of Dutch culture on their children, their own lack of a country to call home, and discouraged by a poor economy, voted to emigrate to the New World. They were granted two patents to settle on the northern part of the company’s jurisdiction in Virginia.
In 1620, a tiny ship called the Speedwell brought them to Southampton, England, where they met a second group with a slightly bigger ship called the Mayflower. The Mayflower was leaky but the Speedwell was worse, and she turned back. Eventually, the Mayflower set sail for Virginia from Plymouth, England on September 16, with about 102 passengers, more or less. [HOW MANY IN THE SANCTUARY TODAY?]
Those are the basic facts. Here is where faith comes in: A small group of people, few of them sailors, at least one of them pregnant, headed out into the Atlantic Ocean at absolutely the wrong time of year for the sole purpose of worshipping God without fear of persecution. In November, they landed at Provincetown. In late December, they found and occupied an abandoned native village called Patuxet, which they naturally renamed New Plymouth.
In that first year, nearly half the congregation died, but at the same time, there was new life. In the autumn of 1621, the English began a three-day harvest celebration. The Pokanoket and Wampanoag tribes took part, and donated five deer.
Edward Winslow, a Pilgrim and future governor, wrote of the celebration to the people back home, “Although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
Ezekiel shepherd imagery echoes throughout the Bible, for example, in Psalm 23: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Jesus is frequently portrayed as a shepherd in the Gospels. Edward Winslow wrote of that first Thanksgiving that “we are so far from want.” What does it mean “to want”? The Wampanoags wanted peace and to be left alone. The Pilgrims wanted religious freedom. Edward Winslow wanted to recruit new colonists to help the plantation grow. People today want social justice and affordable, healthy food, to name a few.
We are under the direct care of God. If we sit quietly and open our hearts and minds and listen carefully, we can feel God’s presence among us. We “shall not want” because God is always here with us as protector and guide. The flock is cared for.
Yet in this time of celebration for a good harvest, many of us do want. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again until it’s not true, but these are trying times. Not all of us have enough to eat even in times of plenty. Some will never be quite warm enough during the coming long winter months. We all seem to know someone who is broken-hearted or downtrodden. There are those who want for simple human contact and a touch of love. The world is not perfect and neither are we. Sometimes the flaws are glaring and sometimes we overlook them completely. But we know from the book of Genesis that on the sixth day, God pronounced the world to be “very good”. What do we do with an imperfect but good world in which millions of people are left wanting?
What if we helped out God and also took on the role of shepherd? How would we do it? I bet we’d support the local food pantry, wouldn’t we? We could give assistance to the Evelyn House, a shelter for women and children. We could support the Neighbors in Need program. We’d help Habitat for Humanity build houses. Indeed we do all of these things as part of our mission and outreach to the community. That’s God in action through us as God’s disciples. Can you feel God’s presence in all of this? We’re not simply delivering a meal to a shelter or collecting cans of soup for the food pantry or giving a friend a ride to a doctor’s appointment – we’re tending God’s flock. That’s what shepherds do. God will seek the lost and bring back the strayed; we can help them with their wants even while we help each other.
A “thanksgiving” is an expression of gratitude, usually toward God. It was God who made us, and we are God’s children. Our human identity begins and ends with God. The central instruction in Psalm 100 is to know that the LORD is God.
The psalm also teaches us that we are not our own. To live is to praise God; to praise God is to live. In a world where unbridled power can lead to destruction, where greed is confused with economic growth, and where the stewardship of the earth is overrun by progress, this psalm reminds us that our lives must be rooted in thanks and praise to God.
Mine certainly is. Your beloved student minister wouldn’t be here if it were not for the LORD God, my wife Jody, and medical science, in that order. God formed my inward parts and knit me together in my mother’s womb, and I praise God for that, but I also inherited my father’s genes, the ones programmed to clog coronary arteries.
About twenty years ago, Jody made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: “Stop smoking or you’ll lose me.” Had I chosen poorly, I would have lost her and my life.
I now carry seven stents in my heart to clear two or three blocked arteries. Medication helps keep them clear. It was kind of close, especially the first time. But God is not done with me for here I am. I am still being formed, so I care for my heart and God cares for me. As Winston Churchill once said, “Never, ever, give up.”
The Pilgrims took a leap of faith when they left everything they knew to achieve religious freedom. They risked their lives crossing the Atlantic only to get here in the dead of winter without adequate food or shelter. They lived with God as their shepherd, and amidst their trials and tribulations, they experienced God’s bounty, which we celebrate this week.
Having missed Virginia by a wide margin, the group realized they had a unique opportunity before them, and they made the most of it. William Bradford wrote in his history of Plymouth Plantation the following:
All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted ye dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible. For though their were many of them likely, yet they were not cartaine; it might be sundrie of ye things feared might never befale; others by providente care & ye use of good means, might in a great measure be prevented; and all of them, through ye help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne, or overcome.
With God as our shepherd, all things are possible. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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