Thanksgiving 2020

November 26, 2020

As preached by Sister Cecelia
Holy Wisdom Church


Dt 8:7-16, Phil 4:4-9, Mt 6:25-34

How might not indulging in worrying be connected to giving thanks?

In Jesus’ time, and for us now, Jesus commands us to NOT WORRY. “… do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more than clothing? What is Jesus calling us to? Ponder on how we unpack this in our lives. He was not advising an attitude of being care-free, shiftless, reckless, thoughtless, failure to take seriously our responsibilities, the concerns of everyday life or to provide for the future.

By worry he was talking about being unreasonably preoccupied, being worried, fearful and anxious of that which prevents us from the joy of life. Anxious worry wears out the mind as well as the body. This worry affects our judgment, lessens our powers of decision and renders us progressively incapable of dealing with life in a healthy and life-giving way.

How can we give thanks when we are beset with anxieties and fears, especially during these times of the pandemic when we are even more prone to worry, to fret over the incredible unpredictable life-threatening issues coming our way?

The antidote to worrying, being anxious Jesus says, is to consider the birds of the air, the flowers in the fields, are we not of more value than they? Strive first to give the best we can for God’s Kingdom and all the rest will be given to us.

Jesus is showing us the path to trust… when we trust, we surrender our sense of being able to work out life’s problems by our own means alone. A line of thought from Teresa of Avila: “Trust as though everything depends on God; act though like everything depends on you.” If we give our best to every situation -we cannot give more than that- then in thankful trust we leave the rest to God.

Giving thanks to God is good to keep our thoughts full of energy. It is not true, psychologists tell us, that we think the way we feel. On the contrary, we feel the way we think, and thoughts can be changed. Joy too is an attitude of mind, an awareness that my life is basically good. Giving thanks to God is a thought process and can change the way we feel.

In a line for a food handout a man was asked what he would be grateful for this Thanksgiving: “I will sit and think about all my past Thanksgivings and how wonderful they were. I realize that only one out of my 67 years being not so desirable was not such bad odds”. He was most grateful.

Engaging in ordinary prudent foresight is giving our best to all our decisions. Being free to make these decisions is something to be grateful for. Knowing we can take everything to God in prayer is one of the greatest things to be grateful for. We can take our own past, present and future into the presence of God. We can pray for others, for those near and far who are in our memories and our hearts.

Let us keep in mind all the people who have decided to travel this year in order to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. For us here now, take a few minutes to remember the gifts of God to us personally… to experience within the depth of our hearts the many events of God’s loving care and for life itself.

Christ is in our midst

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily, November 8, 2020

 

Luke 7: 11-17   

By Sister Rebecca

 

This morning I would like to share some thoughts with you through the lens of poverty.  All the scriptural readings have this common thread: Poverty.  The readings present us with people who are hopeless, in despair, incredible distress, neediness, and dire want.  We hear of two widows losing their only sons, and the Jerusalem community suffering from lack of the basics for life.

The first story, from the Book of Kings, is about the Widow of Zarephath, whose son had just died. Incredible deprivation and despair characterize this poor woman. Just before the text we read this morning, this same woman and her son were described as being on the brink of starvation.  The prophet Elijah was on the run, fleeing for his life and living in exile. God provided him with food by means of a raven, and told him that this same woman would provide him with food.  We may recall that she was ready to give up: she expected that she and her son would have their last meal and die.  Thanks to Elijah, she was given a steady supply of food.

In today’s story we see in this bereaved mother a deeply challenging type of faith. She asks difficult questions regarding her understanding of sin, suffering, and death. She sharply challenges Elijah, accusing him that his presence is what has brought her sin to God’s attention, which is ultimately responsible for the death of her son.  This accusation leads Elijah to confront God: he actually chastises God for bringing calamity upon this poor mother.  In these stories of dire deprivation, we see a wonderful image of a God who in the previous section of the Book of Kings intervened in a precarious situation. Now, we see God listening to Elijah’s prayer for the dead son: “And the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived.”  Elijah gives the boy back to his mother.  The mother exclaims: You are a man of God. We need to keep in mind that Elijah himself is in an exceedingly desperate situation, leading a precarious existence, but he is still willing to act as God’s hands and feet on earth, even when he himself is in dire straits.

The widow’s doubt, and even the prophet’s struggle with this death, may also be our own in these desperate times of sickness and death. It is easy to spiral down into a belief in death-dealing powers, for this is what we witness in our world each day. 

Elijah’s revival of the widow’s son is echoed in today’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus revives another widow’s son. Jesus, like Elijah, shows us today an aspect of his life as a pilgrim, a man of God walking in our midst.  He is on the road again.  This time, with his followers in tow, he approaches the gate of a town while another group is crossing in the opposite direction outside the city.  This crowd surrounds a funeral procession of a widow’s young son on their way to the burial grounds.  Jesus, without being solicited to do anything, feels compassion, tells the widow “Do not weep,” and then puts his hand on the bier and says, “Young man, arise!”  The story couldn’t be simpler.  Yet, from the very depths of his being Jesus feels the wrenching suffering of the poor woman’s incredible grief. No words are needed from her.  Jesus sees, he feels, he acts—and he brings forth new life.  This is Jesus’ mission: “I have come to give life and to give it in abundance.”  Early in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus announces his vision and mission in life:  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;  he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted [literally, to those who are crushed], to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”

In all these scripture readings, we have also witnessed another thread: compassion: the feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

Whence comes compassion?  Is it not from love? Both eros and agape together? In Hebrew, the word “compassion” comes from the root “womb,” which enriches our image of God, who loves the world with a deep and abiding compassion.  In these texts, as in the others, love for the afflicted is manifested through this feminine image of nurture and gentle caring. It’s one image among many that we need to recapture and emphasize if we are to return to a more complete and rounded image of God. 

This compassion is manifested by Elijah in our first reading, by the Corinthian community in the second reading, and by Jesus, explicitly, in the third reading.  All have been profoundly moved to action: bringing new life from death-dealing circumstances.  In the second reading, Paul holds up the Macedonians as exemplars of loving generosity to meet the needs of the poor among the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem.  The word “generosity” denotes a kind of love that acts out of single-minded giving without reserve, without strings attached.  It is all about koinonia: a community spirit of love.

In today’s Gospel, when we hear Jesus say, “Young man, rise up,” isn’t he also inviting us to experience this same reality? Rise up! Rise up from whatever holds you down, drains out your energy, your pain, your doubts, your griefs, worries, anxieties. Today, may his words resonate within us: the words I have spoken to you are Spirit, and they are life.   

The pandemic in our times has literally changed our world. With what attitude do I choose to face the unknown future? Facing poverty in all its facets: physical, psychological. and spiritual.  Do we need to examine our core values of conscience, which are greater than anything surrounding us, that threatens us, where we feel anxious, worried, or deprived?  We are now leaving Chronos time, and Kairos time is beckoning to us,  rising from within us.  We are being precipitated into liminal space, the space of unknowing, when we see the open wounds of our country.  At no other time in my life have I experienced such a need for God—not for a God who will just take away our problems, but God who will give us new wisdom, a vision to see when and how I need to allow his love to be embodied and acted upon in my life now.  It seems to me that God is calling us to abide in his love made visible in our times.  We are not meant to pull down the blinds and remain like a cocoon, in a hermetic self-sufficiency. But we are called to rise up and allow ourselves to be irradiated by Divine love and make proactive efforts to bear new life into this broken, suffering world of ours.