“Giving Thanks for What Will Be”

November 19, 2023 – 6:00pm

Portneuf Valley Interfaith Annual Thanksgiving Service

Pastor Mike

In the scriptures of the Christian New Testament, there is a famous passage near the end of the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus teaches his disciples about something called the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord was code for a future moment when God, appearing in the fulness of God’s glory and power, would settle accounts with the world – establishing justice, rewarding faithfulness, vanquishing evil, and making peace. Jesus did not invent this idea. As a Jew from Nazareth, he inherited hope in a final judgment from his own people. Hope is the key word. The Day of the Lord as Jesus preached it was not something to anxiously look for. No one, not even he, knows the day or the hour when it will arrive. Instead, the Day of the Lord is a promise to live and labor under. By releasing knowledge and control over the future into God’s hands, we can focus on our present task: serving with integrity, endurance, and joy.

 Even so, I have to say – Christians, and American Christians in particular, have taken the Day of the Lord in some pretty whacky, even harmful directions. Think of secret bunkers filled with food and ammunition for outlasting Armageddon. Think of Television and YouTube prophets who will reveal to you the secret signs of the times, for a fee. Think of moral crusaders who take God’s judgement into their own hands, either through the hot violence of weapons or the cold violence of public policy. And, of course, there are always those who look to their wealth or their power as confirmation that they are secure against the future. These are not attitudes or postures that nourish hope at all! They only magnify anxiety, pride, anger, or ignorance. They are very far from what Jesus had to say about how people should live in light of that coming Day.

 In Matthew 25, Jesus says this about the end: “the nations will be gathered before [God], and [God] will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt. 25:32). To the blessed group, God will say, “Come…inherit the kingdom…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me in, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (25:34-46). But to the cursed group, God will say, “Depart from me…for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me” (25:41-43)

 In the teaching, the blessed and the cursed are both surprised by how God has judged them. They didn’t know beforehand how things would shake out, on which side of the line they’d be gathered. God used a rubric that they were not expecting. In their surprise, all of them ask, “When?! When was it that we did or did not do these things for you?” To which God replies, “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (25:40).

 So what it comes down to, in the end, is compassionate service, real solidarity with those who suffer, whose basic needs for nourishment and belonging are not yet met. This standard does not divide one religion from the next, as if we are in competition with one another, but establishes the common ground and purpose for our fellowship. Where this standard does cut is right down the middle of all our faiths, separating those who serve even when the glory of their work is hidden from them, from those who don’t serve, perhaps because they’re waiting for the world to prove itself worthy of their attention and resources. But it is we who would dare name God in our diverse ways who must be proven worthy of God’s world.

 How do we give thanks for what will be? How can we say Thank You for what we do not yet know or have not yet received? Especially when present humanity is so broken, with fresh cracks forming every day.

We say Thank You for our shared call to serve the least.

 We say Thank You for our shared journey, this ongoing companionship and collaboration as servants.

 We say Thank You for our shared gift of compassion, which we, as spiritually alive human beings, are uniquely entrusted with practicing and passing on.

 It is because the call and journey and gifts of our future are shared that we can turn toward what will be with hope and say: Thank You.

        Amen.