Harvest Thanksgiving

October 7, 2001

By
The Rev. Ann M. Smith

Readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11 & John 6:25-35

On this Harvest Thanksgiving, our church is once again wondrously decorated with the bounty that our wonderful country produces. As we walk in the door our senses come alive as we take in the beauty of the colours and odours of the flowers and produce that people have donated. It is a veritable cornucopia of produce. It makes me realize how very blessed we are to live in a country of such abundance. It causes me to reflect on how we can live as truly thankful people.

I am not certain why, but Canadians do not have their own story about Harvest Thanksgiving. In fact, we have a myth that the first Thanksgiving dates back to Plymouth Rock. In reality, Thanksgiving ceremonies go back to the beginning of time. The earliest rituals deal with the gathering of the community to eat together and to give thanks to the creator.

The passage from Deuteronomy gives instructions for the festival of the first fruits, an ancient Hebrew Thanksgiving celebration. It is one that still goes on today. I lived for a time in a part of North York which is predominantly Jewish. I was startled my first year there during the fall when my neighbours turned their patio into something that resembled a tree house. It seemed to be a fairly permanent structure. They decorated it lavishly with plants and dried leaves. I finally got up the courage to ask what they were up to. They explained that for a week they would be celebrating the harvest. I was invited to a sumptuous feast that took place on the patio. During the course of the evening, they retold the story, much as we read it in Deuteronomy today.

Repeating the words about wandering in the desert, and about God providing manna for them to eat, they thanked God for all the gifts they had received. "God," they said, "has heard our prayers. God has brought us to this rich and fertile country. God has saved us from oppression and want." They praised the God of history who has been with them through the ages, providing them with spiritual sustenance. And remembering what it was like to be a stranger in a strange land, they offered hospitality to those, like myself, whom they had invited to share in the festivities.

I was touched by how much the recalling of the story meant to that Jewish family. Centuries later, in a different time and space, they still recount the wanderings in the wilderness. The wilderness, for them, is not a time of bitterness. It is a time of closeness to God, of intimacy. It is a call to return to the ancient, simple and loyal faith. It is an opportunity to reflect that everything they have is an inheritance from God. Everything belongs to God and is given freely for their use.

And that calls them, in turn, to open up their hearts to those in need. There is a sense of cooperation between God and them. God will continue to provide. They will continue to help others.

To be truly thankful for what we have, we need that sense of history. We need a story that draws us together as a community. Our Christian story is such a one. Week by week, we come together as community. We give thanks. We break bread. We share together. We ask ourselves how we too can share fresh bread with others. At the heart of what we do at worship together, bread and wine, the fruit of the earth, are taken and blessed. God's promises have again been fulfilled. Seed time and harvest go on producing food for us.

The bread and wine are products of our hands. People make that bread and produce that wine. In bringing food and drink as an offering to God we are enacting the deepest facts of human experience. We are acknowledging our dependence upon the Creator and Sustainer of all things. We trust God and thank God for all that we have.

In an age of spectaculars and extravaganzas, the glitter and glamour can detract from the inner meaning of what we are doing. The words that are spoken and the actions that are carried out can absorb us. We can bury our heads in our books and fail to know and understand our obligation as we break bread, an obligation to the poor, to the disenfranchised, to those who suffer, to the alien, to the stranger in our midst.

We know well that obligation. Yet it is very easy to pass it off, to expect that social agencies should deal with hunger. Yet clearly, the gospel message points out our obligation to be good stewards of all that we have. Jesus continues to provide for those in need. He continues to offer bread for hungry people.

There is an old Chinese proverb about feeding the hungry. When you want to help feed people, don't give them a fish. Teach them how to fish. If you offer only food, the food line will form again every day because stomachs get empty and need to be filled again.

Jesus recognizes the same thing. He gives the multitudes bread and fish to eat, knowing that the bread and fish will not solve their problems. Then he offers them his way of life. It is a way that will truly change the whole of their existence. If we accepted his lifestyle and adopted it in this world, would any child ever again die of hunger? Would any senior citizen waste away in loneliness?

We would be so attentive to one another, using the gifts we are to each other, washing each other's feet, serving at the table of the Lord, that no one would be left out. It might start with more soup kitchens and food banks. But we would search creatively for solutions to the problem of hunger. We would be like Jesus was, is and ever will be.

Many of us today hunger for love, acceptance, life and truth. We try to satisfy our hungers in material ways. We come to services like this one today to give thanks for such things. I hope that we will go away filled with what our true thanksgiving is. When Jesus becomes the Bread of Life for us, we become bread to others about us. It becomes our purpose in life and gives it present, perpetual and eternal meaning.

In the world there are many who are hungry. There are many who are in exile. There are many who are so caught up in despair that they can think of no justifiable reason to give thanks. As Christians we need to be aware of them all, and to address their physical needs as generously and bountifully as Jesus did when he fed the five thousand. We also need to celebrate the God who gives us much to be thankful for, even in the midst of a broken world.