Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 9, 2022 – Thanksgiving Weekend
Scripture Reading: Philippians 4:4-9
[Note: Last Wednesday, I tested positive for Covid-19, so I wasn’t able to be in-person at church today. Session (the committee that oversees the spiritual life of the congregation) stepped in and implemented the plan we made 2 years ago, so that Session members led worship at each church using the service that I had prepared. I modified my reflection into a letter from me to the church, so that my words wouldn’t sound too strange coming from someone else’s voice.]
Dear Church,
Happy Thanksgiving!
I was thinking this week, that this is my fifth Thanksgiving at Two Rivers, and our third Thanksgiving in the season of Covid-tide. I looked back in my computer to see what I preached about 3 Thanksgivings ago, back in 2019, and discovered that we had read the same passage from Philippians that we heard today. And when I read through that sermon from 3 years ago, I also realized that my message 3 years ago was the same message that I am hearing in these verses this year; but I am feeling them in a much deeper way than I did back in 2019.
The Apostle Paul is writing this letter to the Philippians – to the church in the city of Philippi – from prison. We don’t know exactly when or where in his life this was, but we do know that Paul was thrown into jail several times for sharing the message of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. This is a counter-cultural message that undermines authority and tends to make the people in charge feel uncomfortable – for if Jesus Christ has authority over our lives, and if this same Jesus has the ability to overturn even death, then what does it say about the human leaders in the world?
Anyways, preaching about Jesus frequently landed Paul in prison, and from one of his stays in prison, he writes a short letter – at least short by Paul’s standards – he writes a short letter to the church in Philippi, a church that he had founded in his travels throughout the Mediterranean. It is possible that he is writing this from his final imprisonment in Rome – an imprisonment that ended with Paul’s execution.
Paul’s freedom is restricted. His physical comfort is affected. His very life is in peril. And yet he can still write the beautiful words that we heard this morning. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice!” “Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” And he offers them a beautiful blessing: “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
How could Paul, in prison, write such beautiful words of peace and hope and comfort and joy?
When I think back on the past three years, I think about everything that has changed since that last time I wrote about this passage.
We are 2 ½ years into a global pandemic, with the World Health Organization reporting over 6.5 Million confirmed deaths from Covid-19 and over 600 Million confirmed cases.
The pandemic has revealed the depths of systemic racism in our society.
Unmarked burials have been revealed on the grounds of former Residential Schools across this country, and we have been forced to contend with our colonial history as a country and as a church.
Families have been separated.
The health care system is under increasing strain with each month that passes.
Students have been impacted in ways that likely won’t be fully known for decades.
Workers in every field are dealing with stress and burnout like never before.
And don’t even get me started on the “Supply Chain Issues!”
And this weekend we come to Thanksgiving. How can we possibly be expected to be thankful in a time like this? What do we possibly have to be thankful for, when the world seems to be falling to pieces around us?
And then I turn to Paul’s words to the Philippians. Like I said, they hit me on a much deeper level than they did 3 years ago.
As I write these words, I am sitting at home, cat on my lap, because I tested positive for Covid this week.
I had to cancel a house guest who was planning to visit from Ontario this weekend.
I am not able to be with all of you today, to celebrate Thanksgiving with you.
There have been many times in the past 2 ½ years that I have been teetering close to burnout.
I, along with all of us in this church, have lost some very dear friends in the past 3 years.
This is a very challenging time for us to be living through; and even though I’m not in jail the way that Paul was, I think that maybe this year I have a bit of a deeper understanding of just how profound his words to the Philippians are.
It’s one thing to rejoice and give thanks and be filled with peace when life is good and everything is sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. It’s another matter entirely to rejoice and give thanks and be filled with peace when life keeps throwing us challenge after challenge after challenge.
So where does all of that leave us, this Thanksgiving of 2022?
3 years ago, I concluded that giving thanks was a choice – an active choice that we make. I am going to choose to give thanks rather than letting myself fall into despair.
Today, I still think that we are all given a choice to be thankful or not. But I think that maybe thankfulness is a gift given to us by the Holy Spirit. By ourselves, when life is difficult, it is hard – maybe even impossible – to give thanks. But the Holy Spirit, working in us, allows us to choose thankfulness even when the obstacles seem impossible to overcome.
This weekend, I give thanks for vaccines and for a good immune system.
I give thanks for all of the offers of help that flooded into my phone and inbox and Facebook when I let people know that I had Covid.
I give thanks for my cats who are quite content to sit on my lap this week as I rest my eyes and blow my nose.
I give thanks for the changing colours of the leaves outside my window that I saw when I slowed down enough to notice them.
I give thanks for the smell of the dead leaves on the ground, and I give thanks that Covid hasn’t taken away my ability to smell them.
I give thanks for the Divine Love that is always surrounding me, holding me close, even when I am tempted to collapse inward and feel sorry for myself.
And I give thanks for all of you, dear church. I give thanks for your ministry of loving the world; and I pray that the Holy Spirit fills your heart with the gift of thanksgiving, today and every day.
I love you all, and I can’t wait to see you again.
And may God bless you, and those you love, today and always.
Rev. Kate.
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