Homily – Thanksgiving Eve – Trinity church, Asbury Park 11-26-03

 

 

 

Anthony de Mello tells this tale:

 

The Zen master Ryokan lived a very simple life in a little hut at the foot of the mountain.  One night, when the master was away, a thief broke into the hut only to discover that there was nothing to steal.

Ryokan returned and caught the burglar. “You have put yourself to much trouble to visit me,” he said.

“You must not go away empty-handed. Please take my clothes and blanket as a gift.”

The thief, quite bewildered, took the clothes and slunk off.

Ryokan sat down naked and watched the moon. “Poor fellow,” he thought to himself, “I wish I could give him the gorgeous moonlight.”

 

We gather to celebrate Thanksgiving again – to pause for a moment and reflect on what we have – how we’re blessed - the abundance that we experience.  And our abundance, we know is not only the things we have – the food we have – but also the people we have – the relationships we experience. We gather this night to express our Thanksgiving.

 

And indeed in this season people – realizing their abundance – and because we are essentially a good people – give out of our plenty. At the Center in Asbury Park this week we gave out nearly 300 food baskets and turkeys. And I know that here at Trinity tons of food was distributed – and Mercy Center as well.  At the food bank in Red Bank – yes there are poor people in Red Bank too – and at St. Mark’s in Sea Girt – yes there is need in this area also – food was distributed so that someone else’s day may be more full – not only with the food they eat but also with the realization of the fact that there are others who reach out beyond their own boundaries to share.

 

And so it is a blessed time – and from our bounty we do attempt to touch the lives of others. 

 

But in fact we need, you and I, to use this season of giving – this season of Gratitude to investigate a bit what gratitude means to us.  Indeed gratitude is not just an action – giving food or money or whatever – gratitude is really at its root a spiritual practice – it has been called a state of mind and a way of life – not just a moment.  But Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat – spiritual writers and reflectors say they prefer to think of thankfulness or gratitude as a grammar –an underlying structure that helps us construct and make sense out of our lives.  And – since grammar always has rules – the rules of this grammar of thankfulness covers all our activities. This grammar when we pay attention to it reveals a system of relationships linking us to the divine and to every other part of the Creation.

Gratitude – Thankfulness – has a lot more to it than Turkey dinner!

 

One teacher of this way of gratitude is Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk. Steindl-Rast tells us that the spiritual practice of gratefulness is an inner gesture that gives meaning to our lives because it helps us to receive life as a gift. And so he sees everything as a gift – the sight of a rainbow – a narrow escape from death – the chance encounter with an angel.

 

I had a wonderful experience last Sunday night.  All weekend – as I ran around and did too many things – the “you need gas light” on my car was alerting me. I kept saying I’ll get it on my next encounter with a gas station. Finally at about 9pm on Sunday night as I’m driving down rout 35 heading home the car stalled.  I got it started again with the firm resolve to head right for the gas station – no detours. But at the next intersection, in the middle of the intersection, it stalls again – not to be started. And so I realize there is no choice but to get out and hold on to the steering wheel and push – and I headed into a parking lot. The car was moving rather smoothly but I did wonder what would happen as I attempted to get up the incline into the parking lot. But as I was pushing I was realizing that it was sailing right along – what strength I seemed to have – I was really amazed. Until I looked behind me and at the back of the car was a young guy in a red jacket pushing and smiling. Where did he come from?  And then when we got the car in place there was another guy in a car – and they announced in English that was a little difficult to decipher, that they just felt like being my angels that night. And of course they drove me to get gas and all of that and I really thought that I was glad to have run out of gas!  I won’t really plan on it again but for the moment it was so grace filled and such a reminder of how blessed I am – and how good people are. And these moments – or the simple experience of the sunset is a reminder that life is a gift.

 

Another teacher about gratitude is a psychologist Timothy Miller.  He tells us that a problem we generally have is breaking the habit of looking enviously at what others have and taking for granted what is already ours. But Miller tells us that in the world’s religions – in the spirituality that is resting there there are some principles that help us with the posture of thankfulness and gratitude.

 

One principle is that of our connectiveness – our belonging to one another. Richard Broderick is a writer who has a wonderful little journal –his “Leather Tramp Journal” about his 12 day trek in the Adirondack Mountains and the spiritual awakening that happened to him there. And one jolt for him came from a spider web he came upon when he was resting by his trailside.  The connectiveness of each strand of this web – the intricacy of it reminded him that nothing exists alone or in isolation from other forms of life. Whatever happens to one life-form causes a shimmer throughout the entire web of life. Every person and thing on this earth and in the whole universe form one precious web of existence. John Muir wrote: “When we single one thing out we realize that it is connected to everything else. “To pluck a flower is to trouble a star.”  People studying microphysics tell us that in the body of each one of us there are about half a billion carbon atoms, which were part of the organism of persons living two thousand years ago, for example Jesus Christ.  The atoms in my fingernails may have blown in from the coast of California eight months ago - and, even more, that we earth creatures are all made up of recycled matter that is 15 billion years old! Nature produces no disposable trash; everything is recycled again and again.

 

Our relationship to all other communities of life-forms is mutual, and we share in and shape each other’s destiney. We don’t live in two separate worlds, one human the other non-human. We don’t live in a separate universe from those who are different from us – those “other” people who speak different, live different –have different values and concerns.

And when I realize this connectiveness – my belonging to the other and the other’s belonging to me I can better give thanks – be grateful – for what the other give me and shares with me and how the other nourishes me.

I think that most of the angels in our lives come unannounced and surprise us in the night – and we hardly recognize them.

 

As Jesus walked and talked with others he seemed always to recognize this connectiveness – the fact that he belonged to them as they to he. He didn’t question that they were female – or sick or sinner or stranger. They were part of that web – He nourished them indeed – by loaves and fish – but they nourished him as well – he couldn’t separate himself from them.

 

And so this feast reminds us that even as we gather with those who are the closest to us – there are others with us as well – other angels will fill our thanksgiving table.

 

And the other thing that our religious traditions – indeed the wide gamut of traditions teach us is that when we have a spirit of compassion we are in a better posture to realize thankfulness.

The practice of compassion increases our capacity to care. It reinforces charity, empathy, and sympathy. It is, it has been said, a very good exercise for your heart muscle.

If we are to cultivate compassion we must acknowledge the true nature of suffering in our world, in the society about us.  We bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear.  And then we open ourselves to it. Our empathy – our feeling is a bridge to others.  And when we actually understand how it feels to suffer – in ourselves and in others- we are compelled to live in a way that creates as little harm as possible.

We are bridged and connected.  Ram Dass, the spiritualist and author tells us that when we are compassionate we are naturally on the road of listening and we become servants of the others. And this posture of service is connected to thankfulness – we serve because we realize that we can – that we can heal – that we can make others more whole. We would lessen the suffering.

 

And so we celebrate in thanksgiving – for the blessings we have – for the opportunities we have. And indeed we know that more than ever we need to foster those elements of gratitude – our connectiveness with others and our compassion.

 

I have been amazed in these past months how much attention has been paid to the realization – not a new reality but a recent realization – of the need to look at the disparity in our midst between we who have so much and those who have increasingly less. In Spring Lake a month ago there was a forum of church people that looked at the lack of housing for those who are poor – and not even just the desperately poor. In Lakewood there was a conference called an Anti-Poverty conference looking at the realities of people not in other place but here in Monmouth County.  And then last week there was a Pastor’s forum on affordable housing sponsored by Love Inc.  And while there has also been given attention to the reality of the problem in the press, by and large the attention has been focused by the faith communities – by people who know the Gospel of Jesus Christ – who know of God’s love for all. And coming from the great traditions of  our faith journey’s that tell us of our connectiveness and belonging to one another there is the imperative to act and to work to proclaim the word.

 

Franklyn Roosevelt in his second inaugural address in 1937 spoke to a nation still reeling form the Depression.  He said “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Perhaps he used as the inspiration for this text the Gospel of Matthew that what we do for the least of our sisters and brothers we do for the Christ.

 

We are challenged by our times – we who live in Asbury Park are challenged by this time.  We see growth and beauty emerge – and for that we can give great thanks. But we realize that that in the midst of that growth and beauty – in the web that is part of it all there are those with whoever are connected that can be lost – and forgotten – and disenfranched further.  It is our realization – as a result of who we are as people of faith – it is our compassion that we have been taught by our tradition not only as people of faith but as good human beings – that sees in this web that surrounds us not just those we would choose to see but indeed all the others and especially the least of our brothers and sisters.

 

We gather as people of thanks – for what do we give thanks.

 

Jewish tradition tells us that we should say one hundred blessings each day for the good we have and experience.  When we try it, we discover that it’s quite difficult to find one hundred things each day for which to be thankful.  So difficult, in fact, that we spend most of our time looking.

 

We then have a new posture – we look for blessings where before we saw none.

 

As we give thanks around our table tomorrow let us remember that we are not alone – our god places with us – and around us all gods’ creatures large and small – rich and poor – to be our angels – to be our links to salvation – Let us give thanks for all of them.