OUR GREAT THANKSGIVING

“Happy harvest day! This has always been my favorite holiday in Ukraine.” This is how June Johnson, a missionary nurse in Ukraine that our church supports, began her latest update. She went on to say that Harvest day is a Sunday set aside each fall for giving thanks to God. For their church it is a 3-hour service with lunch for 200 served afterwards. Ukraine, as a nation, began a national yearly celebration of giving thanks to God in November of 2015. Over 100,000 people gathered in Kiev’s main square to thank God for the year’s harvest and for Ukraine.

                June went on to comment on what giving thanks meant to her. She said: “Many years ago, a sister in Christ, impressed upon me the importance of keeping a grateful heart. Important because it keeps things like worry, fear, and complaining on a short leash. Important because it gives other things like joy, trust and obedience lots of room to run. And, important because it keeps me remembering – remembering who God is, what he has done, what he will do in the end, and remembering all that he has given me.”

                Aaron pointed out in this week’s newsletter that “to give thanks” is from the Greek word “eucharisteo”. The Lord’s Supper has been called the Eucharist from the earliest days of the church because Jesus used that word at the Last Supper. Matthew 26:26 says, And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and give it to the disciples and said, “take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, “Drink from it all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

                The Lord’s Supper is our great thanksgiving. It is an act of thanksgiving, but more than that it cultivates thanksgiving – an attitude of gratitude. It reminds us that we have a choice. We can gripe and complain, or we can rejoice and give thanks. It’s true – life is not always good, it is unfair, painful, and sometimes really hard. But when we learn to maintain an attitude of thankfulness, we can look at all that life offers and put a great big Y-E-S! over it.  

I agree with the person who said: “In the end, when we die, maybe we’ll be judged not by what we accomplished during our lifetimes – the jobs we held, the music or the books we wrote, or other accomplishments – but by how thankful we were to have lived. Somehow, as I grow older that seems important to me. I don’t want to die as one who wasn’t grateful, who didn’t appreciate everything while he had it.” (John Killinger,”The Healing Power of Grattitude,” 30GoodMinutes.org).

                Let us join together now in a Great Thanksgiving of commuion and our offering of grateful giving.

THANKFUL -- ON SUCH A DAY AS THIS

                After all night in the ER I had surgery on Thanksgiving morning. Late that night I reviewed the day and asked myself, is there anything I can be thankful for on such a day as this? Immediately I thought of my wife and daughter, my brother, the neighbors, and of course our church family that I knew would provide great support.

Then, it occurred to me that this experience drove me to thanksgiving for the fundamentals of living. For example, I couldn’t eat the thanksgiving noon meal because it was too soon after surgery,  but that night when I lifted the lid on the tray I was struck by the beautiful sight of green, orange, white, and brown foods, and then savored the taste and texture of the food. It brought me joy. I remembered that C S Lewis had said that such moments of joy, or bliss, or ecstasy, whether it’s the food we eat, a striking sunset, or a thrilling symphony, our senses give us moments of joy that are pointers to God, the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17).

                Then I remembered the primary gift that I had received that day. A powerful, deadly enemy had captured my body and there was nothing that I could do to get rid of it. I could not repent of my illness, or confess it, and remove it. I needed help, not from just anyone, but from someone capable of dealing with this enemy. And I gave thanks for a highly skilled surgeon and his team.

                As I continued to reflect on my experience, some of our study of Romans in the Senior Group came to mind. Paul spent the first three chapters of Romans pounding home the fact that we have all been captured by a powerful enemy, an enemy he calls sin, that intends death for us, and we have no way of dealing with it. We have been captured and we cannot repent of our captivity and by this escape. We need help. Realizing this, Paul cried out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And the answer came, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:24).

                God sent the Great Physician who did what no one else could do. Paul put it this way: “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6, 8).

                For this reason, the Lord’s Supper, which reminds us of this, has traditionally been called, “The Great Thanksgiving.” God has given us life through the gift of his one and only son and at this table, now, we can say “Thank You.”

THE WOUNDED HEALER

                Last Sunday night, following the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio where 31were killed and many more injured, Sixty Minutes replayed an earlier story about a couple whose daughter was killed in the Colorado Theater shooting several years ago. This couple who understood what it meant to lose a loved one that way began going to the site of mass shootings and offering their understanding, compassion and support to those whose loved ones had been killed. Often, it is those who have suffered who can help the most because they know how others feel. They become what Henri Nouen called, “wounded healers.”

                Also, fresh in my mind was a story I had just read which also makes clear how “wounded healers” can provide what we really need.  The story was told by Helmut Thielicke, a German theologian and pastor, who preached in the Stuttgart Cathedral during the Second World War. The Allies made Stuttgart a major target and bombed it mercilessly and repeatedly. The Cathedral was destroyed and then his home was destroyed. He went to a village nearby that had not been bombed hoping to find a house for his family. There he had a peculiar experience. As he walked through the village, he remembered how he had tried in his mind to escape the sight of bombed out ruins and suffering people by imagining that he lived in a quiet village, where neighbors sat on their porches, greeting passers-by with warmth and friendliness.  By this he hoped to find peace in his heart. But as he walked through the village, he did not find peace. Instead, the idyllic scene was tormenting rather than tranquilizing. He said, “it drove me back to the ruined city and the people whose faces were still marked by the runes of terror. There I felt at home. They understood what I had gone through because they had suffered it themselves. There is nothing more comforting than to have people who understand one.”* They were his wounded healers.

                In our struggles, when we are tested and fail, when we are in a war, as Paul says in Ephesians, “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of his age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness,” we too have a “wounded healer.” He is our commander in chief, but he does not sit in a heavenly office sending out commands and comforting messages. He is in the trenches with us. Hebrews 2:18 says, “Because he himself was tested by what he suffered he is able to help those who are being tested.” He knows what it is like.

The prophet Isaiah described our wounded healer this way: “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed” (Isa 53:4-5).

                In the upper room Jesus pointed to himself as our wounded healer when the took the bread and blessed it and broke it and said, “this is my body, given for you.” And also, the cup, saying, “This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.”

  

 *Thielicke, Helmut. Christ and the Meaning of Life. New York: Harper and Rowe, 1962, 16-17.

A FRAGRANT OFFERING

                Mahatma Gandhi once said to a Christian missionary: “Let us think of the bulk of your people … Do they spread the perfume of their lives? That to me is the sole criterion. All I want them to do is live Christian lives, not to annotate them.”* When I read this I thought Gandhi may have been acquainted with Paul’s statement in 2 Cor 2:14, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance from knowing him.”

                There is something very attractive about some aromas. I can remember when the Franz bread bakery was located about where Matt Knight arena is today. The delicious smell of freshly baked bread spreading throughout the University district attracted many students who would buy warm bread and take it back to their dorms for late night parties. Also, I remember reading about a church that wanted to have a special communion service. Early on a Sunday morning a few people came to the kitchen, which was located near the sanctuary, like ours is. They proceeded to bake bread and timed it so that the wonderful aroma of fresh bread permeated the sanctuary when church began.

                Gandhi spoke about the “perfume of Christian lives,” and Paul wrote about Christians spreading the “fragrance from knowing Christ.” It’s a beautiful metaphor of how evangelism can be done in a pleasing and attractive way. But what, exactly, is this “fragrance,” this “aroma” that Christians carry into the world? Can it be defined more precisely?

                Paul does this for us in his only other use of the metaphor. It is found in Ephesians 5:2 where he says, Live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The fragrance of a loving, self-giving, sacrificial offering made by Jesus Christ is our model.

                Its been said that Christians should live like Christ, look like Christ, love like Christ, and serve like Christ. All of that is true, and all of it can be summarized by simply saying, “Christians should smell like Christ.” Have we put on Christ so that we smell like him or do we spread a moldy, rotting, decidedly offensive aroma by our lives?

                Nothing attracts us to the table more than the smell of fresh baked warm bread, and nothing attracts others to Christ more than the aroma of a loving, sacrificial, Christ-like life. The Lord’s Supper, this communion, reminds us of his fragrant offering and invites us to drench our lives in the perfume of his life.

*M. J. Gandhi, The Message of Jesus Christ, ed. Anand T. Hingorani (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhaven, 1986), 44.

"ABBA -- FATHER"

                On this Father’s Day I am thankful that Jesus chose to teach his disciples to God as Father, and by doing so honored fatherhood. The Jewish people ordinarily did not pray to God as father. In the psalms, the Jewish prayer and hymn book, God is addressed as “Lord,” “Yahweh,” “my Rock,” or some other metaphor, but never as “Father.” In the psalms and in the OT generally God speaks of the king as his son and of the Jewish people as his children, but individual Jews did not pray to God as Father.

                This changes with Jesus. In Matthew Jesus began his teaching ministry with the Sermon on the Mount when he taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father in heaven …” He modeled that approach throughout his ministry, until at the end, on the cross, he twice addressed God as Father, “Father, forgive them …,” and “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

                Why did Jesus choose to have his disciples pray to God as Father? Perhaps doing so recognizes something about the mystery and power of God. To a child a father is this tall, strong, even fearsome person that he or she does not fully understand. A father in the Jewish social structure had extraordinary status and power. His word was final. It was to be obeyed without question.

                But the use of “Father” by Jesus goes far beyond that. The word he used in Aramaic was “Abba” – a word implying intimacy and closeness. Some have likened it to our terms of “Papa,” or “Daddy.” In addition to respect for this fearsome, mysterious and powerful God, he wants his disciples to have an intimate, loving relationship with God. As Paul says in Romans 8:15, “You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’”

                As I have read, prayed and studied the psalms, one fact stands out. To be sure, God is seen as powerful, mysterious, fearsome, and one who demands obedience, but this is balanced by two other terms. Over and over the Psalms speak of God’s “steadfast love,” and his “faithfulness.” His steadfast love and faithfulness can be summarized in the one word, “commitment.” As our heavenly Father, God is so committed to us that he will do whatever it takes, pay any price, to save us and make us his own.

                As we take communion this morning, may we see not only the sacrifice of Jesus, but the commitment of God – a commitment so strong that he gave his only begotten son so that we might become his adopted sons and daughters and thus be able to call him “Abba, Father.”

                 

A COMMON MEAL

                Most of my days are quite common, in the sense that I do the same things day after day. But special days come along, like today, Mother’s Day. Yesterday I decided to revive an old tradition, so I went to the florist and bought a few baby roses. It used to be that everyone wore roses, or some other flower, in honor of their mother, red if she was still living and white if she was not. When my mother was living, Mother’s Day was special because it brought her family together. My sisters from Sweet Home and Lebanon, my brother from here in Eugene, and even my brother from Seattle when he could, would come with their spouses to honor our mother. Those days are gone for our family, but the memories linger on and make today a special day. Also, it remains a special day to Frances and me as our kids get in touch through gifts and telephone calls.

                 The great majority of my days, however, are not special, they are common, ordinary days. And my meals each day are not exotic, gourmet meals. They are just plain, ordinary, common meals. With this in mind, David Steele gave us this poetic insight about the Lord’s Supper in his poem, Communion:

  

This table now is simply spread 

With little loaves of common bread …

Not pumpernickel, corn, or rye 

To spark the taste or please the eye …

Just bread … It’s sold in any store. 

I’ve had it many times before.

I am accustomed, when a guest, 

To being rather more impressed.

I might expect a gracious host 

To brown the bread and make some toast,

Or see his table was arrayed 

With butter, jam, and marmalade.

Danish pastries filled with jam, 

Some scrambled eggs with lots of ham.

This would impress me more. Instead, 

The Lord shares common, daily bread.

I’ll eat this bread; but I will find 

Its taste won’t linger in my mind.

This bread is easy to dismiss. 

I've had ten thousand bites like this.

This bread, I think, in many ways 

Reminds me of my common days.

Some days are vivid in design, 

Resembling an exotic wine …

Days of joy and days of sorrow. 

(One may well arrive tomorrow.)

But nearly all the days I’ve led 

Are more like this plain, common bread;

Like, say, last 19^th of September. 

(A day I simply can’t remember.)

It’s gone … slipped from my memory 

Just as this bread is bound to be.

At this table I shall praise 

The God who gives me common days.

And I shall live these days with pride, 

Knowing God moves by my side.

For at this table God has said: 

“I share with you this daily bread”

And by this Word we all are fed.*

*David Steele, God must have a sense of humor. He made Aardvarks and Orangutans … and Me. Illuminations Press, 1983.

"INTO YOUR HAND"

For some time now I have often thought about death. Not in a morbid, depressing sense but with the realization that death is a greater reality to me than ever before. Both Frances and I have lost our parents and all but one of our 9 brothers and sisters. Also, we have outlived many long-time friends. And, of course, these old bodies of ours ‘ain’t what they used to be.’

At night I have a routine of reading for a while and then, after turning off the light, I often pray a couple of poems. One of them you know quite well. It begins, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want …”, and continues, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” The other is a modern poem by Jane Kenyon titled, “Let Evening Come,” (Jane Kenyon Collected Poems, St Paul, Graywolf Press, 2005)

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down. Let the shed

go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to air in the lung

Let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

Thinking about this, it occurred to me that Jesus had a poem on his mind in the hour of his death. The poem is Psalm 31. It begins, “In you, O Lord, do I take refuge.” It goes on to say, “You take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge.” And then comes the line he quoted as he hung on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” With his dedication to the will of his father and his knowledge of the psalms, He must have prayed this same prayer many times throughout his life.

In doing so, he has given us a model for both living and dying. This is a prayer that all of us can say. Whether young or old, weak or strong, sick or healthy – in any and all circumstances – his prayer can be our prayer.

A few hours before going to the cross Jesus said to his disciples, “this bread is my body,” and “this cup is my blood … do this in remembrance of me.” What better way is there to remember him than to make his prayer our prayer. As we take communion today, we too can pray with him, “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.”

AT THE RIGHT TIME

                Time is an intriguing topic. We make up sayings about it, like: “Time flies when you’re having fun.” That may be, but it seems to me, and many others like me, that it should say: “time flies as you get older.” Prince Charles of England agrees. He said recently, “Anyone of my age knows that days pass at a far greater speed than when they were young” (Reader’s Digest, March 2019).

                I am speaking of chronological time, the relentless passing of minutes, days, hours and years. The Greeks called this kind of time Kronos, and we get the word “chronology” from it.  Kronos time is measured in units like minutes and hours, days and years. It is quantitative and linear.

                But those clever Greeks knew that time has more than one aspect, so they had several words for it. One of those, used several times in the Bible, was Kairos. Kronos time is informed by the passing of minutes, but Kairos time is informed by the emergence of meaning. It is qualitative and carries significance. An event happens at a particular time, but it may have such great meaning that a “moment” in time becomes “momentous,” and lives on.

                Jesus knew that a “momentous” time was coming in his life. He referred to it and used both Kairos and Kronos in one sentence. It is found in John 7:6, at a point in his ministry when many Jews were going to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. His brothers were going and urged him to go along but he refused, knowing that Jewish authorities in Jerusalem were looking for a chance to kill him. He responded to his brothers by saying, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.” Jesus knew that the time to die was not right yet. Paul reflected on this when he said in Romans 5:6,8, “While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly,” and he adds, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” His death was one of those momentous events referred to with the word Kairos.

                Such events do not just happen and then sink out of sight in the flowing stream of time. They live on. They stay with us. They change our world and our lives. Sadly, the most significant lasting moments in history often contain something tragic. Remember what FDR said about Dec 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor day: he called it, “a date which will live in infamy”. And it has. In our own lifetime, 9/11/2001 is another day that will live on. It too, changed our lives.

                The Christ event was such a day. It was an event of powerful meaning that has reached through time and shapes our lives even today. Like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 the time of Christ changed our world. But there is one big difference. The tragedy of his death, unlike Pearl Harbor and 9/11 did not lead to war but to redemption. It resulted in forgiveness and salvation for multitudes of people ever since. Jesus knew it would and said so in the upper room when he said: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins.” And, “this bread is my body, given for you.”

OUR HOST: THE GOOD SHEPHERD

                Let’s think about Jesus and the Lord’s supper as seen in the 23^rd Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

                Who is this shepherd? Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). He exemplified the good shepherd of the psalm one day when thousands followed him to a lonely place near the Sea of Galilee. Mark says that when Jesus saw them, he was moved with compassion because “they were sheep without a shepherd.” Like the psalmist’s shepherd, he had them recline on green grass. Then he fed them. In his description, Mark uses the same four Eucharistic verbs that he used to describe the last supper. Jesus “took” the bread, “blessed it,” and “broke” it, and “gave it” to them. Thus, they were nourished for their journey.

                The psalm goes on:

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil. For you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

                Jesus, the good shepherd, often ate in the presence of his enemies. When he dined with Simon the Pharisee, with Zacheus the tax collector, and with others, his critics watched. But some were more than critics. Some wanted him dead.

                The Lord knows full well that today we must make our journey through the dangers of dark valleys and through the wilderness of this world in the presence of many enemies. Paul names them in Ephesians 6. He   calls them “the spiritual hosts of wickedness.” But our shepherd-host defies them. He prepares a table before us and invites us to share in the meal that commemorates Him and His victory over those very enemies.

                And so we partake of the broken bread, his body, and of the cup, his blood shed for us, and then we leave, firm in the assurance of the psalm’s closing words:

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

1/27/2019