{"id":1276,"date":"2015-11-22T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-11-22T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1276"},"modified":"2019-10-08T11:45:19","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T15:45:19","slug":"a-thanksgiving-prayer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2015\/11\/22\/a-thanksgiving-prayer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Thanksgiving Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew 6:25-33<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the sermon only<\/a><\/p>\n

World Walk<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

One of our contemporary journalists has decided to leave behind his usual round of assignments, and to walk around the world.<\/p>\n

We remember <\/span>Travels with Charlie<\/span><\/i>, John Steinbeck\u2019s drive across America with his pet dog. \u00a0You may remember a similar, more post-modern drive across the outback of America by William Least Heat Moon, <\/span>Blue Highways. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>Another such volume a few years ago was <\/span>A Walk Across America, <\/span><\/i>by Peter Jenkins.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this fellow, Paul Salopek, is walking around the world. \u00a0He has been at it for a couple of years already.<\/span><\/p>\n

The television camera and crew caught up with him in Eastern Europe. \u00a0He has been through four pairs of shoes. \u00a0He carries very little in his backpack: \u00a0a change of clothes and a computer. \u00a0He has some traveling buddies, part guide, part protector, part friend. \u00a0He asks people in various towns to let him stay with them. \u00a0And they do. \u00a0Then he interviews them, doing a video interview once a month.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing he said really struck me. \u00a0<\/span>The world is a very hospitable place. \u00a0With only a few exceptions, this world is a very hospitable place. \u00a0People receive, welcome and offer you hospitality. \u00a0The world is hospitable. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>Paul Salopek began walking I believe in January of 2013. \u00a0His irenic voice has a faint but real resonance, Thanksgiving 2015, as we are immersed in reports of violence around the globe. \u00a0This Sunday each year we remember to be thankful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being Mindful<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Are we mindful of sources of gratitude?<\/p>\n

We are not always as thoughtful as we could be, not as mindful as we should be\u2026<\/p>\n

Then let us be thoughtful this Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

Let us be mindful of the goodness of God, as sung in the 126<\/span>th<\/span> Psalm\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us be thoughtful this Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

Let us be mindful of the blessings of God, as sung in the beatitudes\u2026<\/p>\n

Let us be thoughtful this Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

Let us be mindful of friendship, as was our friend Max Coots\u2026<\/p>\n

“Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are….<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For generous friends with hearts and smiles as bright as their blossoms;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For feisty friends as tart as apples;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we’ve had them;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the other, plain as potatoes and as good for you;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels Sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem Artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through the winter;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For all these we give thanks.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

by Reverend Max Coots<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The Good Earth<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Our lessons from ancient Scripture surround us with thanksgiving. \u00a0The prophet Joel attributes directly to the Lord, in a way we might not in our time, both the weal and woe of natural cycles. \u00a0Yet his spirit of thanksgiving could not be more evident, as he acclaims gratitude for the good that is given, in pasture and tree and vineyard. \u00a0Even those of us dwelling mostly in an urban setting can from this autumn\u2014warm, mostly; dry, mostly; pleasant, mostly\u2014receive such a sense of blessing and so a sense of gratitude. \u00a0Our psalm, very directly, also recalls a dreamlike time of plenitude. \u00a0Seed-time gives way to harvest, as tears give way to shouts and joy. The long months of hidden growth, of change and development under the earth, are a firm reminder to those who use this psalm that the future will look different from the past, and from the present. \u00a0Every autumn, every harvest season, we are offered such a reminder. \u00a0Our epistle lesson in 1 Timothy turns from nature to history, from harvest to governance. \u00a0As elsewhere in the New Testament, we find here an unsurprising thanksgiving for order. \u00a0In a prayer recently, we heard the petition that we might serve God \u2018with a quiet mind\u2019. \u00a0Not all order is godly, especially when purchased with the counterfeit currency of oppression and injustice. \u00a0But Timothy has a point, too. \u00a0A quiet and peaceable life itself requires order, and when we have such, we are right to give thanks. \u00a0\u00a0Especially in the later New Testament writings there is preserved for us a mature recognition of the value in things done \u2018decently and in order\u2019. \u00a0But it is our Gospel, today, that shines most clearly with gratitude, a beatitudinal thanksgiving prayer itself. \u00a0<\/span>Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given unto you.<\/span><\/i> The body. \u00a0Birds of the air. Lilies of the field. \u00a0Reminders of what Marilyn Robinson might call \u2018the givenness of things\u2019. \u00a0Friday night our Inner Strength Gospel choir, fed earlier by the loving care of Marsh Chapel members Cecilia, Sandra, Jerry, Carolyn, Victoria, and Melvena, gave a compelling witness, in the heart of a week of turmoil, to thanksgiving, grateful praise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us be mindful of the good earth, of the fruits of harvest, of the fruits of years of labor and love, as one (Carol Zahm) remembered in the figure of her friend:<\/span><\/p>\n

Sitting by my window\u2014looking out at the field<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

This chair has been such a comfort for so many years<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Rocking\u2014rocking<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

All the children were comforted in this chair<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

All grown and gone now<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Babies\u2014growing year after year<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018Til they could go to the field to help<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The fields\u2014so green in the spring<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Then the plough broke it up into beautiful brown earth<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Worked over and over<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Until the seeds had a wonderful bed in which to grow<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Week after week growing<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And then harvest.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We all went to the field for the harvest.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Sunrise to sunset<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Day after day<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Finished at last<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Ready for winter<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Now looking across the field at beautiful virgin snow<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Like watching a baby sleep. \u00a0So peaceful.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Happy for the quiet.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Anxious for the awakening <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Start again<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Sitting by my window<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Rocking Rocking<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The Age of Violence<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Her rocking, the rhythm of her remembrance, along the brown earth, seems a world away from our world today.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have been this past week through a very dark patch. \u00a0\u00a0The torrent of images from Paris, and elsewhere, threatens so to inundate as to overwhelm, and then to drown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under the aspect of thanksgiving, let us pause for a moment to collect our thoughts, to gird ourselves in faithful cautions.<\/span><\/p>\n

We will want to be careful to remember that individual choices, to kill say, or to heal, say, are real, they matter, and they count, in the long run. \u00a0Some one chose to kill in Paris. \u00a0The bombs were not set by systems, or structures, but by men and women of flesh and bone.<\/p>\n

We will want to be clear that for all the structural, systemic and acculturated sources of violence\u2014how potent they are\u2014it is nonetheless an irretrievable, and irremediable, individual choice, to take another\u2019s life, and to take another\u2019s innocent life.<\/p>\n

We will want to be somber and sober to remember that God gives the human being a rooted, daily freedom, but does not then suddenly intervene to erase that freedom, however perversely, however violently, however despicably that freedom is used.<\/p>\n

We will want to stand up, sit up, and take notice that liberty is only of any value within the constraints of security to enjoy it; and that security is only of any value as a basis for the enjoyment of liberty itself.<\/p>\n

As people of faith we cannot in sloth afford to be na\u00efve, refusing the dominical wisdom of serpents to hide underneath a false innocence of doves, when facing hatred, religious terrorism, and nihilistic venom. \u00a0\u00a0Protection for the lamb requires resistance to the wolf, before either determines to lie down with the other.<\/p>\n

We do not want to pray, preach, sing or proffer a kind of cheap grace that speaks lightly of forgiveness for the murderer, the terrorist, the sadistic extremist. \u00a0The utter realism of the Bible, on the one hand, and our brutal experience across many centuries, on the other hand, forbid it. \u00a0Those of us who heard the explosions on Boylston Street in 2013 empathize in a particular way with Paris 2015.<\/p>\n

In helping one another, and our children, as one friend has said, we can at least remind them that \u2018they are safe, and it is OK to feel sad about what has happened to others\u2019, and we can continue to support and protect our neighbors and friends of all manner of different traditions, religious and secular alike. \u00a0With a soulful abandon, with a Parisian panache, going forward, we can go forward as a \u2018flaneur\u2019 of old, to saunter, to wander, to stroll, to make our own the streets and boulevards of life.<\/p>\n

Howard Thurman Gives Thanks<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

So let us be mindful this Thanksgiving, as was Howard Thurman, who was a hundred years head of his time fifty years ago. \u00a0His poem:<\/p>\n

Today, I make my Sacrament of Thanksgiving.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I begin with the simple things of my days:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Fresh air to breathe,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Cool water to drink,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The taste of food,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The protection of houses and clothes,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The comforts of home.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day!<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s arms,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The strength of my father<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The playmates of my childhood,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The wonderful stories brought to me from the lives<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Of many who talked of days gone by when fairies<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And giants and all kinds of magic held sway;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The tears I have shed, the tears I have seen;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Eye with its reminder that life is good.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I finger one by one the messages of hope that awaited me at the crossroads:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The smile of approval from those who held in their hands the reins of my security;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The tightening of the grip in a simple handshake when I<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Feared the step before me in darkness;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The whisper in my heart when the temptation was fiercest<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And the claims of appetite were not to be denied;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The crucial word said, the simple sentence from an open<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Page when my decision hung in the balance.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I pass before me the main springs of my heritage:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The fruits of labors of countless generations who lived before me,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Without whom my own life would have no meaning;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The seers who saw visions and dreamed dreams;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The prophets who sensed a truth greater than the mind could grasp<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And whose words would only find fulfillment<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In the years which they would never see;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The workers whose sweat has watered the trees,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The leaves of which are for the healing of the nations;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Whose courage made paths into new worlds and far off places;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The saviors whose blood was shed with a recklessness that only a dream<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Could inspire and God could command.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For all this I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I linger over the meaning of my own life and the commitment<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

To which I give the loyalty of my heart and mind:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The little purposes in which I have shared my loves,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

My desires, my gifts;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The restlessness which bottoms all I do with its stark insistence<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

That I have never done my best, I have never dared<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

To reach for the highest;<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The big hope that never quite deserts me, that I and my kind<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Will study war no more, that love and tenderness and all the<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

inner graces of Almighty affection will cover the life of the<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

children of God as the waters cover the sea.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

All these and more than mind can think and heart can feel,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I make as my sacrament of Thanksgiving to Thee,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Our Father, in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/a><\/p>\n

For more information about Marsh Chapel at Boston University,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For information about donating to the Chapel,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to the full service Matthew 6:25-33 Click here to listen to the sermon only World Walk One of our contemporary journalists has decided to leave behind his usual round of assignments, and to walk around the world. We remember Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck\u2019s drive across America with his pet dog. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1278,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions\/1278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}