Psalm
136: “Give
thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever.”
If I
had been sharp enough or quick enough we would have recited Psalm
136 this morning with its repetitious conclusion for each of its
26 verses, “…for his mercy endures forever.” And
that’s what I want to give thanks for today. I want you to give
thanks for God’s endurance, God’s mercy, God’s love.
To begin
with the people of Israel had every reason to doubt God’s
endurance. In our first lesson today we hear Moses promising that God
will deliver them into a wonderful land: a land flowing with milk and
honey, a land of pomegranates (I always loved that because my Grandmother
Prevost had pomegranates on her Thanksgiving table, so it’s an
evocative image for me), fig trees, vines, olive trees. Can’t
you just picture yourself in your condo just above the Sea of Galilee
nestled into an orchard watching the fishermen bringing in your dinner
for the grill?
But
Moses was up against a certain cynicism of the Israelites at that
point because they had left their slavery in Egypt only to be confronted
by the harsh desert where they wandered for forty years. They were
tired. They were grumpy. They were thirsty. They were hungry. They
wondered if God had in fact abandoned them. But Moses who had seen
God in a burning bush that could not be extinguished knew that God’s
mercy endures forever, that whatever conditions, God would provide
for those God loved.
Yet
in point of fact, when the Israelites arrived in the Promised Land
there were no condos being given away or even for sale by the Sea
of Galilee. There were inhabitants who didn’t want them there.
They had to fight their way in, and Palestine has remained a contentious
place even to this day where to proclaim that God’s mercy endures
forever is a statement of faith, a leap of faith given the history
of the Jews as an outcast people, as a people who have known suffering,
as a people who in their own right have endured.
What
kind of place was America when the English, in particular, came to
settle? Those who came to Jamestown in 1607 thought it was not so
much a land flowing with milk and honey but with gold. Jamestown
preceded the pilgrims by twenty years or so, and those settlers quickly
found out this was a place not at the end of the rainbow but rather
a graveyard—death
at the hands of the Indians, death from disease and malnutrition—no
Garden of Eden however they might have envisioned a promised land with
gold at their fingertips.
Of course we know well the story of the Pilgrims who anticipated
a promised land where they could worship their particular brand of
austere Calvinism which had been persecuted in their native England.
Perry Miller has written a classic book about the Puritan state and
Puritan society begun here under the title, Errand into the Wilderness.
Miller reminds us that it was a high-minded effort, but by the second
generation the second-guessers had come to doubt the wisdom of being
uprooted and replanted in a hostile environment. (Kind of like the
children of Israel in their wilderness confronted by their hostile
promised land.)
Ultimately,
of course, this country did become a kind of “Promised
Land” of amazing natural resources, of a unique form of government
which in fact reversed the Pilgrims’ notion of a state church
by providing for the separation of church and state, by providing for
any and all religious expressions and the freedom to worship thereof.
The history of our country has certainly included a pervasive notion
that God has blessed us, some would say to the point of hubris—even
idolatry—confusing God for Country, or Country for God. I believe
we can continue to say what the Psalmist said, “Give thanks to
the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever,” while
understanding how it is we might test God’s patience from time
to time.
The
early Church certainly had a notion that the endurance of God’s
mercy was to be found in a new covenant God had made with his people,
a new promised land in the person and ministry and fellowship of Jesus.
The writer to the Hebrew attests to that endurance when he describes
Jesus as “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” In fact,
John’s gospel attests to the endurance of God through the Word
made flesh, that Word which was Christ and which existed with God in
the beginning of all Creation and would be the fulfillment of God’s
love at the end of all things. The endurance of God’s love was
to be found in the community of those who were in communion with Jesus,
that which we call the Church and is something of what Jesus had in
mind when he said to Peter, “You are a rock, and on this rock
I will build my church , and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against
it.” It is the sentiment of one of our favorite hymns,
The
Church’s
one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is
his new creation by water and the word:
From heaven he came and sought
her
to be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her
and for
her life he died.
And this final verse which establishes the character of the Promised
Land of Eternity,
Yet she on earth hath union with God,
the Three in One,
And mystic
sweet communion
with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
on high
may dwell with thee.
One
wonders, however, how the Church has fared over these last 2,000
years as the eternal, undivided body of Christ. It has been observed
that with the legality of Christianity established by Constantine
in 300 AD it’s all been downhill. Power and influence became the
hallmarks of the Church, imperialism and national interests were wedded
to the Church or rather, visa versa. Doctrinal issues have separated
us one from another in the Orthodox–Catholic schism of 1000 AD,
in the Reformation 500 years later, in the proliferation of independent
churches today, even, with very little connection to credal or liturgical
roots.
In the
Anglican Communion we are under the same pressure to hold together
or to split apart and how we define being One in Jesus Christ. How
are we to give thanks for the endurance of God’s love experienced
in the life of the Church which we continue to say is the body of Christ,
when we continue to wound the source of our unity by our divisions?
Growing
up, I was always challenged to wonder as well as to appreciate the
incredible diversity of the Church and the culture that surrounded
me. I was not yet old enough to appreciate the suspicion and fractious
character of this diversity but felt somehow that we were all one.
There was my Episcopal church, a wonderful old Anglo-Catholic parish
not two blocks from an even older colonial Episcopal church, but
very “low
church,” my parents sniffed. But we were also equally surrounded
by Roman Catholic churches, Presbyterian churches, Baptist churches,
and among all of them particular ethnic congregations within the same
denomination. Jewish synagogues were also the norm in this unbelievably
rich tapestry of which I was a part. Perhaps I was beginning to learn
that the endurance of God’s mercy and God’s love might
be found not just in a form of conformity in which I felt comfortable
but in the very diversity that was all around me, coming to appreciate
what Paul understood in his spread of the Gospel to the Gentiles and
in describing the Body of Christ has having many members, all bringing
their unique gifts, a rich variety of gifts for the wellbeing of the
whole.
I also
remember Thanksgiving Day in my church growing up which was the one
day every year when we joined together with another Episcopal church
for the service that we’re participating in this morning.
They were a black congregation of equally passionate Anglo-Catholic
Episcopalians, but because of their presence provided a dimension for
Thanksgiving I remember with clarity and with gratitude. The incense,
chanting, vestments, and full congregation were never more focused
and heartfelt, it seemed to me.
This
year, for this Thanksgiving, the endurance of God’s mercy
and God’s love are evident to me in the face of a divided Anglicanism
throughout the world, in the face of a world struggling to define what
the word “neighbor” means, how it is we come to recognize
brothers and sisters in cultures very different from our own, but brothers
and sisters from whom we can learn and with whom we can grow. I find
the endurance of God’s love and God’s mercy in the presence
of my wife and my children, in their love for me and in my love for
them, I find it in your presence this morning, with or without family
so that we can be a family gathered around a table to which all are
welcome which is the most enduring sign of God’s love and mercy
we can ever imagine. For this Thanksgiving table represents the goodness
of God’s provision from the earliest instinct of humankind in
recognizing God’s hand in the sustenance provided by this world
that God has created, in the identification of Jesus with that which
is offered on this table, bread and wine which is then transformed
to be the sharing of Christ’s self for all who would gather around
this table, and how it is that we become one body and one spirit in
this meal, this Eucharist, this Thanksgiving.
Do I
deserve all this? Have I been so good and so faithful or so lucky
to be a part of this meal with all of you and to anticipate the next
table I’ll be blessed to enjoy? Do I bring perfection and
a loving spirit and a rigorous list of good works with me as if to
say this is my due: I’ve worked hard and this is my reward?
No,
not finally. This moment is thousands of years in the making. It
has existed in the mind of God from the beginning of time, and if
all we have ever received from the hand of God is this moment of
sharing with one another and God’s enduring sharing of God’s
self with us, it would be enough. Amen.
