Sunday 11/25/12 RWJ/Pottersville UMC
Sermon: “Did you remember to give thanks?”
Scripture Lesson: Revelation
1:4b-8
Gospel Lesson: John
18:33-37
Good morning
brothers and sisters! I greet you in the name our risen Lord and savior Jesus
Christ! I hope and pray that you have all had a blessed week and I am happy to
be worshiping with you here this morning!
How was
everyone’s week? Did you have a good Thanksgiving? Melissa and I were blessed
to have our first Thanksgiving at the church parsonage in Johnsburg this past
Thursday. It was a really blessed day. Melissa of course did most of the
cooking, but I did what husbands are useful for. I picked up and moved heavy
objects, grabbed things she couldn’t reach, helped here and there with what she
needed help with, and otherwise did my best to stay away out of her way. Once
the rest of the women of the family arrived, the men seemed to cluster in the
living room of parsonage watching television, on high alert, if one of the women
should ask us to do something. We waited with our car keys like Kentucky Derby
horses at the racing gate, on high alert if we should be asked to go to the
store to get some creamer of something else that was needed for the dinner.
Growing up I
remember my mother toiling on Thanksgiving to cook a good turkey, and to make
things just so. I remember how good the food was, and how appreciative I was.
This thanksgiving was different though, because I got to honor my parents. I also
got to honor our guest Rev. David Schlansker, and Melissa got to honor her
parents and grandmother, by us hosting Thanksgiving. At the table before we
ate, I asked my step-dad as the patriarch of the family, to pray for us. He
said, “but this is your place Paul, and you are the head of this household” I
then said, “but you are the head of this family, so can you pray?” He did this,
and then we all went around the table and took turns giving thanks for what we
were grateful for.
This was well
received, and we had a lot of fun. I suppose in times like this though, it
dawned upon me yet again that I am now the pastor of two churches up here. I
thought for a moment, “I don’t deserve any of this.” “I don’t deserve to have
the right to pastor the two churches I do, and minister to the fine folks I
minister to. I certainly also don’t deserve to be able to stay in the beautiful
church parsonage that my wife and I are staying in. I then thought who am I as
a young person to think I can be a pastor.” These thoughts were not ones that
made me feel insecure, rather in the moment were more just thoughts that made
me feel undeserving.” I remember thinking and praying to God though, and
realizing that none of us deserve what we have. None of deserve salvation in
Jesus Christ, but here we are. In that moment, I realized that God had called
me, and that Amazing Grace “save a wretch like a me. That I once was lost, and
now am found. Was blind, but now I see.”
I don’t know
about you, but at my Thanksgiving table there was a lot of food. The joy and
the gratefulness I felt was overwhelming. I ask you this morning though, “Did
you remember to give thanks?” For many of us we could most likely just come to expect
a feast on Thanksgiving, but if we had no feast? Were we thankful for that
which God gave us and continues to give us? Was I the only one who had a moment
on Thanksgiving, where I said, “I don’t deserve any of this?” Or did you have
such a moment to?
In the
scripture reading from the book of Revelation this morning, it said “Grace to
you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.” The book of
Revelation bears witness to the truth of Christ, His faithfulness, and the
reality that we have much to give thanks for. The scripture from Revelation
goes on to speak of Jesus as, “To him who loves us and freed us from our sins
by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving God and Father, to
him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” We have much to be thankful
for. “Did you remember to give thanks” during you Thanksgiving? Revelation then
speaks of Jesus’ return, by saying “Look! He is coming with the clouds; every
eye will see him, and even those who pierced him; and on his account all the
tribes of the earth will wail.” According to the book of Revelation, Jesus will
proclaim on this day, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is
and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” While we have gifts and talents,
all good things come from the Lord. I ask you then “Did you remember to give
thanks” during Thanksgiving this past Thursday?
In the Gospel
of John reading this morning, Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the King of
the Jews?” As Pilate continued to question Jesus, he said “My kingdom is not
from this world.” Jesus then said, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens
to my voice.” Jesus was about to die for our sins, our iniquities, our
failings, and would do so with love and joy. “Did you remember to give thanks”
this past Thanksgiving?
I would like
to close this morning with a story. Here is how the story goes, On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak
Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at
Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert,
you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken
with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid
of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully
and slowly, is an unforgettable sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically,
until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the
floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other
foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his
chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play. By now, the audience is used
to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his
chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs.
They wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just
as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You
could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no
mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. People
who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would
have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way
off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this
one." But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes then
signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from
where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such
purity as they had never before. Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible
to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know
that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him
modulating, changing, and recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it
sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they
had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the
room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of
applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming
and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he
had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet
us, and then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone,
"You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music
you can still make with what you have left." What a powerful line that is.
Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four
strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with
only three strings. So he makes music with three strings, and the music he made
that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more
memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.
For many of us in recent years, we
have more of sense of insecurity with our economy, some of us have lost jobs,
and some of us have lost more. Are we truly thankful to God for what we do have
though? “Did we remember to give thanks” on thanksgiving this past Thursday?
Did we realize that whatever our circumstances that God loves us and wants us to
still make music with what we have left? For Jesus gave his very life, so that those
who know Him, will never know death. He bled to make us beautiful, and by his
whip stripes we are healed. So I ask you again, “Did you remember to give
thanks?” on Thanksgiving this year. Praise God and Amen.
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