Thanksgiving Day Sermon by Tristan Holmberg In 2011, I received the wonderful opportunity to travel to Kenya with a group of college students as a part of our our diocesan Kansas2Kenya program. When we arrived in Kenya we had several meetings with some of the organizations involved with our project, especially a meeting with the priest and senior warden of All Saints Anglican Church in Maai Mahiu and a meeting with people involved with Habitat for Humanity in Kenya. In our meeting with the priest and senior warden, we learned about the situation in Kenya. We learned about the brutal colonization by the British that ended a half century ago and the presence of tribes in the government and societal structure. We learned that this complicated situation between various tribes had led to post-election violence in 2007. We learned that one effect of this violence was a large amount of peoples losing many things including their homes. We learned that near Maai Mahiu there is an internally displaced peoples camp where many of the people who were displaced by the post-election violence in 2007 were still living in the tents provided as a shelter. On our first day of work, we experienced this situation with our own senses. The sight, the feel, and the sounds. In our week of work alongside and with the local community and the Anglican church in Kenya, we had the joy of building two houses and digging the foundation for a third house. This process was unlike any service work I’d ever done before because we had the joy of doing it with a very large team consisting of a half dozen Kansas college students, two Kansas priests, our wonderful bishop, a half dozen Kenyan college students, members of the local Anglican parish, the local Anglican priest, Habitat for Humanity in Kenya, members of the local community in this internally displaced peoples camp, and several local builders who were great instructors. Many people took many parts in this process, and the end result went far beyond a sturdy stone and concrete physical structure. It was truly transformative to have so many people involved in this work of literally building the Kingdom of God on Earth. We were there for two Sundays to begin and end our week of work and both Sundays we had the joy of joining the local Anglican parish for worship. The second Sunday we joined a congregation of this parish that was near the IDP camp. During the service, the woman whose house we had begun by digging the foundation told us her story. She told us the story of being driven out of her home in 2007 with her children and being totally unsure of how she would care for her children and how she would provide them a place to sleep. She told us that, despite this difficulty, she had faith that God would take care of her. She concluded by thanking God that God had provided a house for her. Our Gospel reading for today reminds me of this story. In the reading, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. In this reading, he is somewhere between Samaria and Galilee entering a village which not named in this reading. He encounters ten lepers who call out to him from a distance saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” This group seems to be following the law in the Book of Leviticus regarding those with skin diseases, part of which states, “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be dishevelled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” It is easy to view the distance required by the law through a modern lens and assume that this is some sort of medical quarantine but it is not. This law in Leviticus is based on the idea that those with skin diseases are ritually impure. The Bible is a record of God’s people and the laws in Leviticus reflect God’s people and their understanding of the world at the time. Jesus responds by saying, “Go, show yourself to the priests.” This follows the law in Leviticus, which includes the ritual purification to be used for those with skin diseases. In this law regarding ritual purification one of the options, the option for those who cannot afford very much. This option is a sin offering and a burnt offering. The major theory behind why bad things happen in the Jewish Scriptures is unrighteousness and disobedience to God. In Job, after all of Job’s cattle and all of Job’s children die, Job’s friends come to console and comfort him. To quote Bildad’s statement in the eighth chapter, “If your children sinned against him, he delivered them into the power of their transgression.” Again, the Bible is a record of God’s people, and this statement and idea may seem very bizarre to us. Hopefully it does. Our understanding of the world is different today. Mother Dawn and Father John’s answering machines and email inboxes probably doesn’t contain messages like, “Umm, hey, Mother Dawn, I kinda yelled at the mail person, and now I have just a real nasty cough. Could I come in sometime so you can ritually purify me so I can rejoin our community?” Again, probably not, but that was the understanding of the time, as shown in the cry of the lepers for mercy from our Master. The reading continues by saying that along the way, they were made clean. The reading is unclear how they were made clean, it does not say that they reached the priest nor it does not say that Jesus healed them. The reading does say that of the ten lepers who were made clean one returned to Jesus, praising God and and falling at the feet of Jesus to thank Jesus. Jesus then asks where the other nine and why only the stranger, the Samaritan, returns to give glory to God. The reading concludes with Jesus saying, “Get up and go on your way, your faith has made you well.” In this reading Jesus shows two pairs of contrasts. He brings up the Jewish society’s rejection of the Samaritans and other foreigners or strangers and does so to highlight the faith of the Samaritan, as he does on several other occasions, such as his encounter with the Canaanite woman who sought healing for her daughter. He also contrasts the nine who happened to be made clean and the one who happened to be made clean and returned to give thanks to Jesus. To this one he says, “Your faith has made you well.” In this phrase he tells the one and us that faith has caused a transformation of this person. They were made well. At the font we find a fount of a similar, indescribable, innumerable transformation. In the sacrament of baptism we join in Christ’s victory over sin and death in the Resurrection. In the sacrament of baptism we find a new life in which we are are called to transform the world and build the kingdom of God “on Earth as it is in Heaven.” In this journey we are aided by the scriptures, the sacraments, the Church, and the examples of the saints, especially Saint Mary the Virgin and Saint James of Jerusalem. This journey, this Christian life, is marked by many unique characteristics. We have spoken of many of these recently in this season after Pentecost here at Saint James. For example, this Sunday Father John spoke about faith and trust. As another example, Saint James of Jerusalem is also known as Saint James the Just because a major part of his Christian life was living a just life. Today, we are discussing giving and thanksgiving. In the reading from Deuteronomy we are reminded that all things come from our Creator. It states, Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. We are called in our Christian life to give thanks. Giving thanks and being aware of Gods abundant blessings is important in Christian life. We are called to be like the thankful Samaritan and like the Samaritan we find transformation in our Christian life. We have much to be thankful for. We have been given life from the Father our Creator. We have been given salvation from Jesus our Savior. And we have been unfailingly and constantly aided by our Sustainer the Holy Spirit. We have been gathered in this place and have formed a wonderful community here at Saint James. We have been given the sacraments to spiritually wash, feed, call, reconcile, heal, and unite us. We have been given the stories of Gods people in the scriptures and the saints. We have been given many wonderful people to join us in our common Christian life so that although we go out as sheep among wolves we are never alone. We have been called to many ministries which build the Kingdom of God on Earth, and have been aided in these ministries by the Holy Spirit, just as an angel of the Lord did for Saint Phillip the Deacon in his ministry to the Ethiopian. May we always give thanks to God and to each other for all of the many gifts and blessings we have received and are receiving. As part of thanksgiving, we are called to give. Our Master has heard our cries for mercy and the intercession of our Savior and has made us clean and forgiven our debts. May we always remember that we are Christians, members of the Kingdom, people of Heaven, beloved children of God, and may we always remember to give bountifully because, in the words of Saint Paul, God loves a cheerful giver. God loves a cheerful giver. I struggled with this phrase because for awhile it seemed to me that Saint Paul was suggesting that God has a love that is conditional and that is obviously not true, we are all God’s beloved children, as shown in the Resurrection. Eventually, I realized that Saint Paul is urging us to give bountifully and, by doing that as part of our Christian life, BE Christ TO and IN the world and transform the world with the unconditional, unfathomable, indescribable love of God as Christ did and is doing in the Gospels and as the Head of the Church, the Body of Christ. So may we join in the tradition of the thankful Samaritan and the thankful Kenyan woman and give thanks and give. AMEN. Thanksgiving Day Deuteronomy 8:7-18 Psalm 65 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Luke 17:11-19
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 00:34:28 +0000
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