Hearts, Hands, and Voices

Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
November 20, 2005 (Thanksgiving Sunday)
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Ephesians 1:15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

Ezekiel 34 11 ¶ For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12 As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
20 ¶ Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, 22 I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.
23 ¶ I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken.

Ephesians 1 15 ¶ I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Matthew 25 31 ¶ “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 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, 36 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.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 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.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

I. BEGINNING

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Without a doubt, it is my favorite American holiday. Fourth of July is probably in second place, but due to the oppressive humidity here in July in Washington, it’s a distant second.

What’s great about Thanksgiving, of course, is that it is a holiday that can be celebrated in the home, by people of all faiths, races, backgrounds. And of course, the food is really good, too.

But what makes Thanksgiving unique among the holidays celebrated in this country, it is about gratitude, thankfulness. It is about pausing in thanks for the blessings given. That not only makes it unique among American holidays, it makes it unique among American activities.

As a people, we’re not always the best at giving thanks. We often have a sense of entitlement. We spend a lot of time wondering when we’re going to get what’s due us, rather than being grateful for the things we’ve already received.

And so, Thanksgiving is perhaps the best of our holidays, because it takes us back to the values that marked those who were the first among us: gratitude for the bounty of the earth, for the harvest that allowed them to stay alive, and for the good gifts of God. It refocuses our attention on giving thanks, one of the important things. Perhaps the important thing.

II. THE TEXT

In the Old Testament reading for tonight, we hear the words of the Prophet Ezekiel relaying a message from God to his people in exile, words of comfort and of promise:

For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12 As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

This is a vision of God as the shepherd of his people, a vision the New Testament picks up when Jesus describes himself as the “Good Shepherd” who lays his life down for the sheep.

It is an image that speaks to us not only as we reflect upon Israel’s return from exile to the Promised Land, but to the vindication of our hopes. God is the one who seeks the lost, brings back the strayed, binds up the injured and strengthens the week. Who feeds his people with justice.

III. GIVING THANKS

This God we proclaim. We proclaim that this God has acted decisively in history to demonstrate her abiding love for us once and for all by sending his son to us, to live our life, die our death, and be raised to our resurrection. This God will not let us go. This God seeks us out when we’re lost—and we are so often lost. Brings us back when we’ve strayed—and we have so often strayed. This God has done amazing things in our lives and continues to do amazing things, all the while, seeking us out and reaching out to us out of love.

I have said it before that our lives as Christians are defined by grace, and the response to grace. And our response to grace is first and foremost thanksgiving. But how do you give thanks to God? I don’t think Hallmark makes a card that could encompass that kind of gratitude.

One of my other favorite things about Thanksgiving that I failed to mention before is the music. We don’t always think of Thanksgiving when we think of holiday music: Christmas pretty much has that market cornered. And yet, Thanksgiving has some of the best music. We Gather Together, Come Ye Thankful People Come, Let All Things Now Living (my favorite), and last, but in no way least, Now Thank We All Our God.

The first verse of that hymn reads: “Now thank we all our God/ with heart, and hands, and voices/ Who wond’rous things hath done/ in whom this world rejoices.” I have reflected on those words and I think the phrase “heart, hands, and voices” goes far beyond simply achieving a rhyme with “in whom this world rejoices.” I believe that simple lyric presents a model for us as to how we give thanks.

IV. HEARTS

First we give thanks with our heart.

Now, there’s a lot of confusing talk about the heart. We often talk about the heart as the seat of unbridled emotion: my head says ‘X’ but my heart tells me ‘Y’. In the Biblical worldview, the heart was the seat of reason. Emotions were in the gut. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter for our purposes, we give thanks with our heart, which means with our reason and our emotion.

That is, the first step in our thankfulness of God is in internalizing the grace of God. In response to the grace God has shown us, we seek to become children of grace, letting grace pervade our innermost self. So that in our thoughts, and in our feelings, grace is what defines them. We should not plan a course of action, without considering grace. Not form a thought without a recognition of grace. Not open our mouths to speak without our words being informed by the grace we have received.

This is what is meant by giving thanks with our heart—the turning ourselves over to the love we have been given and allowing that love to shape us in our very being.

V. HANDS

Second, we give thanks with our hands.

Now, in this community we talk a lot about this mode of thanksgiving. We are an active community when it comes to living out our faith. Our social justice ministry has made and delivered sandwiches for the homeless, helped out at a local school, planted trees in the Chesapeake watershed, volunteered at a women’s shelter, written letters to soldiers in Iraq, and organizes an annual Alternative Spring Break trip to the Cherokee Nation. This is giving thanks with our hands.

For we do not do these good works in order to achieve salvation, but we do them because we have already been given salvation by the free grace of God. All our acts of piety and mercy, what Wesleyans would call our ‘sanctification’ is a growth in holiness that is the response to grace—the giving thanks for the work of God for us through Christ.

Much like giving thanks with our hearts, giving thanks with our hands ensures that grace and the response to grace pervades our whole being. There is not a molecule of our being untouched by God’s grace. Not one aspect of our lives that cannot participate in thanksgiving and response.

This is how we make sense of the passage we read earlier from Matthew. It is a famous passage in which Christ describes for us the judgment of the world by the Son of Man, who will separate the righteous from the unrighteous, saying to the righteous:

“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, 36 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.’ 37

When the righteous ask when it was that they did these things, the King will answer, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Likewise, those who are unrighteous are condemned for having failed to do these things to the ‘least of these’.

At this point, Protestants who are paying attention, will usually ask: “But isn’t that works-righteousness? I thought we didn’t have to do anything to earn our salvation, like Paul says.” And then begin all the ‘Paul-invented-Christianity’ conspiracy theories and so on.
But what is usually missing from such an analysis is the fact that in the Gospel of Matthew, all the parables and the sayings of Jesuspresume grace. Especially the ‘hard sayings’. The laborers who work only one hour who are paid the same as those who have worked all day, the prodigal son and his elder brother—in all those parables where we’re inclined to think that someone is being done an injustice, it is because we have lost sight of the fact that in Jesus’ eyes, everyone is a recipient of grace, not just those who need the most help. Strong Christians, mature in faith, have received grace, no less than the repentant sinner who comes into the church after a lifetime of sin.

Jesus, in telling the story of the righteous and the unrighteous is presuming that all have received grace. Their righteousness or unrighteousness is based on their response to grace. On their failure to live out their thanksgiving in their heart and their hands.
In a way, you might say that anyone who had failed to give thanks for the grace received could only have done so because they never really accepted that grace in the first place. If they had, they would have responded in thanksgiving; if they had truly appreciated and accepted for themselves the free gift of God. And so in a way, the condemnation of the unrighteous is really the recognition of those who had never really taken that grace into themselves, and who, on some level, condemned themselves. A movie some years ago posited the idea that the people who are in hell are in hell because they choose to be. That is, they are unable to accept the free grace of God, and they put themselves in a place apart from God.

Giving thanks with our hands is a way we demonstrate our acceptance of the grace that God has given us.

VI. VOICES

Thirdly, we give thanks with our voices.

We have been given a tremendous gift: life, and then eternal life, without cost. How can we keep silent, having been given such a gift? We ought to be shouting from the rooftops. Singing with all our might.

Well, the singing part we do alright on. There’s a great line in the play Our Town where the choir director tells his choir not to sing so loud. “Leave the loud singing to the Methodists,” he says. “You couldn’t out-sing them if you tried.” So, we’re good at that. But are we good at lifting up our voices in Thanksgiving in other ways?

Now, last week I preached a sermon on sex, but it will be this week that I mention a dirty word in the minds of some: evangelism.

Many of us have this idea that evangelism is beating someone over the head with your religious beliefs until they convert to your point of view. And sadly, we have seen that model of evangelism all too often.

But at the heart of the word evangelism is the word euangelion, which is the Greek word for gospel, it means “good news.” Evangelism is sharing the good news. Telling the story of what God has done for us. What God has done for each of us. It is not aimed at getting the maximum number of converts, but at what Bishop Schol would call ‘faithful sharing’: passing along to others the things that we are grateful for.

We are reluctant to reach out to others for fear of coming off as overbearing, and that’s not a bad inclination. But we would be mistaken to think that that precludes us from sharing something we feel blessed by and are grateful for.

Can we honestly say that on this very campus there aren’t people who are hurting and in pain? Who are feeling cut off and unloved? Who feel inadequate and incapable of making a difference? Is there any reason we should be reluctant to share with them how God has moved in our lives? Is there any reason we should be embarrassed to say, “There is cause for hope, because God is faithful—and has been faithful to me”?

Can we honestly say that on this very campus there aren’t people who are lonely, and in need of a community that will surround them in love and accept them for who they are? People who are longing to know that they are loved and accepted? Is there any reason not to share stories of what a wonderful community this is? A community that accepts people for who they are and seeks to be in ministry with all people? That builds a fellowship of love, in which friendships flourish and people can rely on one another. That would certainly be good news to a great many people.

And what a simple way to be thankful to the God who has blessed us with this love and grace, by letting other people know. This isn’t about us racking up a count of ‘souls saved’—it is about sharing the good news we have received and the blessings that have come with it.

VII. END

In a few moments, we’re going to adjourn here and head downstairs for our Thanksgiving meal. It is always a festive time, for a festive holiday. We always like to remember to give thanks to Rev. and Mrs. Omholt, our Lutheran Chaplain and his wife, who so graciously provide this meal for the community. (That’s simple courtesy). And we remember, too, to give thanks to God for what we have so graciously received (that’s simple Christianity). This Thanksgiving, we have the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to giving thanks to the one who has given us everything, the one