Sermon, Thanksgiving Day, 11-25-10

Preached at Emmanuel Episcopal Church,

Webster Groves, MO

by Pastor Keith Holste of Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, MO
John 10:25-35

Various joint ministries have emerged in this now longstanding relationship between our congregations. Besides worshiping together at key times and sharing the summer children's ministry, we travel together to Mission, South Dakota and the Rosebud Reservation. It's been my privilege to be on that mission trip a couple of times, including last summer.
It's a long haul to get out there. But one has a sense of leaving one culture and entering another.

From tree covered hills we go to wide open plains.

From straining to see a sunset or an approaching storm from between the treetops, out there one watches the panorama of the sky as the sunsets are on wide open display, and the storms roll in way larger than on an Omnimax screen.

From relative affluence we go to where there is a great deal of poverty and rampant unemployment.

Entering the native American world is a journey into a different culture, too.

It takes time to understand it. Interpreters are helpful.

It is a different way of looking at the world. I know I have just begun to scratch the surface. It would take a long immersion to really get into the way of thinking, and I'm not sure it could ever be completely accomplished, just as I'm not sure a right brained person can ever think like a left brained person. But there are ways to become acculturated.

Last summer on the last night of the mission trip, a Friday, about a dozen of us decided to attend the warm-up powwow at Rosebud.

The bigger community event was going to be the next day, but we would be on our way home by then. It was a chance to get in on the festivities of a powwow, a chance to re-connect with Harold and his granddaughter Iesha who had been away during the week, and an opportunity to see young Alan put on his costume and dance a traditional dance, while sitting with Stacie, his grandmother.

The temperature was great, the sky was big. It was a lovely evening.

I didn't know that we would be attending a naming ceremony which was part of the program. A family from the tribe had relocated to the west coast. The young daughter was

coming back to come into the tribe as an adult and to receive her new name.

A part of this was the grand march around the grandstand parade circle by the family.

There were songs by the drum teams. There were dances in full regalia by different age groups and genders.

Then came something we were much less used to. It was the giveaway.

Representatives from the family had large gift containers the size of barrels, and they started going around the grandstand, handing out gifts to all present.

Some items were homemade, some used, some new. If you were there, you were eligible. You received a prize.

They went around once and had gifts left over, so they went around again.

We put ours together when we returned to our lodging, and we had nearly a barrel full of various gifts. We had attended a giveaway.

Some of you know more about this. I have come to find out that it is one of those ways where the native culture is different than ours, but as I hope we can see today, it may not be that foreign after all.

In native culture, at significant events such as a naming ceremony those involved give things away. Donna Erickson, Andy Ruhlin, and Glenn Dunn went out again in July for the memorial service for a man, Don Moccasin, who had befriended the mission trips and who had died the previous July. A year is the designated time for mourning.

Donna, Glenn, and Andy brought back reports of a huge giveaway.

The family with other community members had spent the year assembling gifts, making quilts, getting huge amounts of things together to give to all who came for the memorial event for Don. It was a giveaway.

It is the reverse of the way we usually go about such events.

If there is a special event in a person's life, a baptism and naming, a funeral, a wedding, a birthday, we normally bring gifts for the one honored. The honored may provide favors, but the larger gifts go to the person.

In native culture it is reversed. The larger gifts go to the ones in attendance.

The giveaway is a way to say that the stuff isn't important; you are.

The stuff I give you is a sign of how much I care about you, how thankful I am you came to be with me at this important time. I can give away all I have, but the important thing remains. What is enduring is the relationship we have. (Some do this to make the point.)

My giving things away to you and in your presence is a sign of our enduring relationship and how much I care about you.

I think of Jesus as we hear him being found by the people. He had fed the crowds with the five loaves and two fishes miraculously multiplied the day before. Now he says that they have come back for more. He tells them, “Do not work for the food that spoils, instead work for the food that gives eternal life.”
(As an aside here, this matches with another idea of the giveaway, in that as the loaves and fishes multiplied, the idea with a giveaway is that the gift will keep giving and multiply. The gift is given in a circle, and the circle will keep expanding. What starts as a giveaway, becomes a circle of multiplication in the community.)

When it comes to stuff, we like to have it. We give thanks for it. As the Pilgrims were glad to have enough to survive, partly by a native American giveaway back then, so do we give thanks for the stuff of life. Without food and shelter we don't do very well.

But wouldn't we agree that the things that are most important are the things that are intangible. The stuff keeps our bodies going, but the the things that bring meaning and joy are relationships, purposeful living for others, and a sense of being in tune with God and thankful for an eternal promise.

In Luke we hear Jesus call the farmer foolish who built bigger barns so he could hoard all his excess grain. Here Jesus reminds us to be mindful of that which builds for eternal life.

This morning we bring gifts. This is “thanks--giving,” (two words). As we give thanks, we do our giving, too. We bring foodstuffs and necessities for life that others may share from what we give away. We do so partly for the sake others that they may have necessities. But notice, we don't take it directly to the pantry. No, we bring it to the altar. We return to God what God has first given us. As we give thanks to God, we return a portion to God for sake of giving thanks to God.

In the early days of Israel there was the tithe. Families brought the first fruits of their agricultural produce to the temple. Later on it was given to the priests or the poor as a way to make use of it. But the initial intent was simply as a gift of thanks to God. Today we give thanks to God. In the spirit of the giveaway, we let go of our stuff.

What is important is that we acknowledge our relationship with God.

Some native Americans who are Christian have begun to see how the native culture can inform Christian understanding. There are a host of ways, but among them is to see how the idea of the giveaway is a way to interpret God's action toward people. At a giveaway there are different levels of gifts. Not every one got a quilt at Don Moccasin's memorial, as an example.
The gift given is a measure of how much the relationship is treasured by the giver.

A way to see what God has done for us, and that for which we are most thankful, is that God has had a giveaway. We are most thankful for it because it is the way to eternal life. God chose to say, “I value my relationship with you to such a degree that I am giving away my own dear son away for you. I give my son's life for you as a way to show how much I care about you, how much I want you to be with me eternally, and how much want you to to have joy and meaning in life.

Of all the things we are full of thanks about, this is the one that makes the most difference of all. This is at the top of the list. What could honor the relationship any more?
In a little while we will be part of yet another thanksgiving ritual. We will come forward for the Eucharist. Eucharist is from the Greek meaning “to give thanks.” Our Eucharist or Communion begins, “Let us give thanks to the Lord.”

Here we see another giveaway at work. We come to the Lords' table with hands empty.
We have little to give to God. But God has much to give to us. We come with hands empty to receive the wonderful gift God has for us. God's son is given and shed for us that we might have life.
In this meal we receive the word from God that the sacrifice has been made for us. Gifts are received. The body and blood of our Lord is given and shed for us. It is God's sign of how important this relationship with him is. “You mean all to me,” Jesus says, “I give away my life for you.”

The people were after Jesus for him to perform yet another miracle for them. Could he provide more bread for them on a daily basis as God had given manna to the Israelites on the exodus? Jesus told them, “It is my father who gives you the real bread from heaven.” He goes on to say, “I am the bread of life. Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who
believe in me will never be thirsty.”

When we come to receive the bread and wine of the holy eucharist, the holy thanksgiving, the holy giveaway, God gives it to us so that we know we mean everything to him.
He has given away his best in the death of his son, so that we might have life, life with him, and life eternal. That's what counts, and it is that for which we are the most thankful.