Between the Windows: A Thanksgiving Homily
News about my new job and the manuscript for my first sermon in two years!
Last week I started a new job as the Manager of Spiritual Wellness for a retirement community which is home to people who live independently and those who need a range of skilled nursing care. To the residents, I am their chaplain offering care and accompaniment through life’s highs and lows, as well as opportunities to practice their faith here. Within the system in which I’m employed, I offer leadership in the provision of spiritual care, interdisciplinary collaboration, and administrative management of the details required behind the scenes to keep the department afloat. The moment I learned of this opportunity my imagination took flight, and in many ways it feels like an invisible string has been pulling me in this direction all along. I’m so looking forward to learning from the residents and staff of this place.
My new office reminds me of my inspiration for my work as a Christian chaplain, Julian of Norwich. Julian was a medieval mystic in England, and she lived in a solitary cell attached to her church for most of her life until she died in her 70s. Her cell had two windows: one which opened to the interior of the church where she could participate in the liturgy and receive communion and one which opened to the main thoroughfare of the town where people would approach her for advice and prayer. She was situated between the church and the world, not fully immersed in either, so that she was open to giving and receiving from both.
As it turns out, my office here has two doors: one which opens to a hallway of staff offices, the "interior" of this community, and one which opens to the lobby, the main thoroughfare, if you will. Unlike Julian, I do plan to leave my “cell,” but I pray that I can draw from something of her life and ministry as I offer my own here. I hope to be the sort of chaplain whose hospitality encourages the staff and residents to make use of both "windows" for conversation and prayer, thoughts on the latest Travis Kelce & Taylor Swift news, and an occasional cup of tea.
In that spirit, I will occasionally share things I’ve written for this community here on Viriditas. These will be categorized in a series called Between Two Windows. I hope this, my first homily in this setting, will encourage you as I pray it does those now in my care.
Click here to read the appointed lectionary texts for use in the Episcopal Church on Thanksgiving Day.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
As the season of autumn progresses ever closer toward winter, we see the natural world turning its attention to hibernation, preservation, and even death. Plants that long ago stopped producing vegetation are now dropping seeds to the earth below which will ensure their growth in the spring season to come, usually in greater measure than what was grown this year. Even in death, new life is anticipated.
Unsurprisingly, the readings appointed for today provide a template for gratitude as we turn our attention toward giving thanks for the harvest found in both the field and in our lives. The Thanksgiving holiday presents an interesting opportunity for reflection within the church and society as it is practiced in different ways across different countries around the globe. Its history in the United States is complicated, and it’s fair to wonder if sometimes we need to un-learn or learn anew parts of our history to rightly acknowledge the various cultures which come to mind when we set out our decorations and plan our meals for this day.
I will be honest and say I am still in this process of learning and unlearning, and I’m increasingly curious about what it is I’m celebrating, and how I can honor my American identity and those who inhabit this land alongside and before me. I also want to live into my Christian identity which calls me to express gratitude and care in every facet of my life, and not only on Thanksgiving. In the meantime, I am confident that creating space for gratitude is a life-saving practice, and I give thanks for this season of harvest that inspires our thankfulness as the days grow darker and winter looms.
As I spent time with these passages, I remembered a poem by Mary Oliver and realized she has given us her own template for practicing gratitude that mirrors what these words in scripture call us to do. Using only seven words, in her poem Instructions for Living a Life, she writes:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
First, pay attention:
In Deuteronomy 7, Moses reminds God’s people of God’s faithfulness: For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
This isn’t a simple statement of, “God has done nice things for you.” Instead, Moses is descriptive. Moses calls them to look forward to the land they will inhabit and to remember what God has already done in bringing them out of Egypt. Moses pays attention to the important details of their story and re-narrates in a way that helps them remember their identity.
Next, be astonished:
Psalm 65 provides fourteen verses of praise for God, painting what is certainly an astonishing picture of God’s faithfulness and, indeed, God’s generosity. Awesome things will you show us in your righteousness… You make fast the mountains by your power… You make the dawn and the dusk to sing for joy… The river of God is full of water… You crown the year with your goodness… Does the author not sound astonished?
To be astonished requires taking time. It requires care, devotion, and gratitude. In 2016, my husband and I moved to England and spent five years there. We had two children, worked various jobs, and he completed a PhD during this time. Life wasn’t easy but it was full of astonishment. Being immersed in a different culture has a way of bringing this out of us. Perhaps you can think of memories of your own where you’ve been in a different place that compelled your own astonishment.
I found that one of the biggest factors which encouraged my own astonishment was not having a car. For those five years we got around primarily on foot or bicycle, and occasionally by bus or train. Within our first weeks I was astonished at the various plant life I observed as I walked the mile to the grocery shop. I remember texting my family a photo of what I thought was a flower unique to the British Isles. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this vining flower on the fence post near our flat. I had never seen such a thing! My brother-in-law kindly pointed out that it was a passion fruit vine, and that we did have them in the US, too. I laughed at myself. I suppose I had never noticed such a vine when I drove past one in my Hyundai to Walmart. But walking to the Cooperative Grocery shop? Every vine and pebble stood out anew. Over the course of our time in England I taught myself to garden; it was the natural response I had to the astonishment I experienced by noticing the detail in plants for the first time. Details I missed when I was in a hurry. Details I missed when I didn’t take the time required to pay attention.
Theologian Kosuke Koyama writes, “Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.'”
The average human walking speed is three miles per hour, so Koyama asserts that must be the speed of love. For God became man to live and walk among us, and Jesus Christ is love incarnate, so the speed of love must be three miles per hour.
What do you notice and find astonishing when you slowly wander through the gardens here, or when you sit near a child and see their wonder at something they’re discovering for the first time? What of God’s faithfulness and presence astonishes you when you take the time to pay attention and notice the details?
Lastly, Mary Oliver, and scripture, calls us to tell about it.
There are many ways we can testify to the goodness of God’s love. I think of St. Francis of Assisi who famously said, “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” We preach with our actions, our integrity, our faithfulness, and our gratitude. The words in our Corinthians text for today call us to respond to what astonishes us with generosity.
As a child I remember the verse, “For God loves a cheerful giver,” was used most often to guilt me into giving away something I didn’t want to part with. But perhaps this passage, when read alongside the Psalm and Old Testament passage, give us an opportunity to understand cheerful in a new way. I wonder… where does cheer begin?
Perhaps cheer is more like joy than happiness. Joy is found somewhere deeper within than happiness which is often conditional and fleeting. Paul goes on to say more: “You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.” Our giving is a testimony to God’s faithfulness, a sermon without words, and our generosity begets thankfulness in others as well as ourselves.
We turn now to the Gospel which encapsulates this template for gratitude in a story about Jesus’s encounter with the ten lepers. Remember that lepers were both marked with physical illness and cast out from society because of it. In this story there is an added dimension, as the one leper who returned to express his gratitude was an outsider of another kind. Samaritans were foreigners. In this story we see what scholar Justo Gonzalez points out, “Those whose experience of community and rejection is most painful may well come to the gospel with an added sense of joy.” The Samaritan is the one who returned to express his gratitude, his natural response to the generosity of Christ. He was astonished. He gave thanks. Jesus sent him on his way to tell about it.
Further, in connection with the Corinthians letter which reminds us that our generosity is a means of grace for those who need it – we receive a fuller understanding of the grace of Christ through the thankfulness we see in others. Their expression of thankfulness, as people who may be outsiders in our society, shows us a new dimension of the faith we share.
This week as we move through our traditions, gather with others, or reflect on memories of Thanksgivings long past, it is my hope that we take on these instructions for life:
Pay attention: Notice what God has done and is doing.
Be astonished: Slow our pace and wonder at the astonishing, loving details of God’s faithfulness.
Tell about it: Express gratitude, give generously, and in turn, produce thanksgiving from all God’s people.
Amen.