Thursday, Sunday, Gratitude, Grace

“Thursday, Sunday, Gratitude, Grace”

Should I write about Thanksgiving or Advent?  We are in that small niche where either is appropriate, I guess.  Or maybe both. 

Tomorrow a nation rich in diversity and burdened with struggles will honor its tradition and give thanks.  How will you do that?  Traditions within the tradition take as many forms as there are households, after all.  But however you might choose to mark the day, I’m daring to assume that most of you reading this preacher’s column will indeed participate, one way or another, in Thanksgiving and in giving thanks. 

Maybe here in the flashes of these electronic words, we can warm up for the big day.  I know this is hardly clever or original, but let’s make a Thanksgiving list.  I know; I know.  Just play along.  What’s on yours? 

Take your time; be thorough.  Think big; think small; think stuff; think emotions; think ideas; think voices; think song; think of memories; think of possibilities; think of love found or lost and of moments when love eased loss; think the most random of landscapes, the most common of days, the most memorable events; think of animals and people and the songs of birds.  Think. 

Go ahead; I’ll wait.  You can pick up here when you’re done. 

Finished?  I bet it’s an impressive list.  But exhaustive?  Hmmm.  You missed something, didn’t you? 

Add 20 more items to the list.  Feel better?  Not quite? 

I’m guessing that for all of us, there’s a gift we can’t quite name, a thought still unshaped, a feeling, a sense.  We reach, but we can’t quite grasp it.  We search words, songs, silence.  It’s there somewhere, isn’t it?  But what? 

Consider this possibility: At the heart of gratitude is a gift too big and too small for any list.  It’s the life we have, and it’s the Life holding all our lives.  It’s a moment and millennia.  It’s beyond and within.  Is it the voice that calls?  Or it’s the home out there beautiful and beckoning and just for you … and for everyone.  It’s the hope our world needs, the justice that eludes us, the mercy that can heal.  It calls to us, this gift. 

And that brings us to the Sunday beyond this Thursday and the story that begins with a simple statement of faith and truth.  “For God so loved the world …”  Starting November 28, we’ll dig together through ornaments and tangled lights and pull out some words, then we’ll turn them in the light, examining, admiring.  Hope. Peace. Joy.  Love.  Mary.  Jesus.  Emmanuel.  Somewhere in those words I believe we’ll find the grace at the heart of our gratitude. 

Or maybe that grace is simpler still, Word without words. 

A baby cries; a baby coos; a baby holds us all. 

With Gratitude, 

Mark 

Words from Westmoreland: We Remember

We Remember

 We remember and give thanks.

That’s what we do in the church. We remember …and we give thanks. We remember the divine story that stretches back through the ages and forward to embrace us, and we give thanks. We remember the story of Jesus Christ—his words and acts of truth and healing—and we remember how the Holy Spirit makes Christ’s ministry the ministry of the church.

We remember and give thanks.

This Sunday, All Saints’ Sunday, we will remember how the ministry we share now was embraced and lived by generations before us. We will celebrate the parade of the faithful that stretches the length of our story. We will remember the saints who walked Christ’s way of love and truth. And, no doubt, our minds will turn to others who touched our lives with God’s grace and showed us the way of faithful living.

We remember and give thanks.

This Sunday, we will also remember by name those of our Glenn family who in the past year entered the Communion of Saints. Names will be read, lives honored, and holy memories stirred. We cannot begin to describe the richness of their lives, but we can recall their place in our fellowship, the grace that was the foundation of their days, and the faith and ministry we share with them.

And before our service is done, we will remember the words of Jesus, “Do this in remembrance of me,” and share the sacrament of Holy Communion. In the mystery of time and eternity, we will give thanks for the life we share at the table now, and remember the heavenly banquet still to come.

The celebrated saints of Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church are a part of the great story written in faith, told with courage, and shared with love. Their days were filled with routine and obligation, joy and exaltation, love and care, and in and through it all they were the church. To us they offered the gospel that is light and life, and by God’s amazing grace, you and I now are the church in our days.

It is all a gift. Remember to give thanks.