Thanksgiving and Remembrance
(Canada Thanksgiving )
"When you come into the land which the LORD
your God gives you for an inheritance, and have taken possession of it, and
live in it,
you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which
you harvest from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall
put it in a basket,
and you shall go to the place which the LORD your God will choose, to make
his name to dwell there. And you shall go to the priest who is in office
at that time, and say to him,
'I declare this day to the LORD your God that I have come into the
land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.' Deuteronomy
26:1-3
In Canada around the middle of November you see people wearing red poppy
badges on their jackets and at official gatherings you read the words, "Lest
We Forget"
Of course those poppies are reminding us of the sacrifice of veterans in
battles where Canadians have fought and died for our freedom or the freedoms
of others..
"Lest We Forget".
We tell ourselves we must not forget them, who gave their lives or the fact
that freedoms and human rights are often bought at a cost.
This weekend we remember something different. We remember to be thankful.
God tells the people in Deuteronomy that when they have come into the land
which has been promised and taken possession of their inheritance from God
that they must bring some of the first fruits of their crops to the place
of worship and offer them to God who brought them there in the first place.
God knows that thanksgiving begins with remembering.
1. Remember where it came from.
Of course the people had not acquired their material possessions just by
their own strength.
It was God who gave it to them, in acquiring the land where they lived.
"I declare that I have come into the land which the Lord swore to our fathers
to give us."
Whatever you have, do you remember who gave you the ability and the opportunity
to acquire it?
Do you often at the close of day lying on your pillow think about how life
might have been if you had been born in many of the third world countries?
No matter how talented and hard working, if you are one of those african
children whose parents have acquired AIDS, what do you think your chances
would be?
On a ten point scale, somewhere between zero and one, perhaps?
But you were not.
I saw an interview with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, first and second of
the world's richest people. Buffet had given billions of his wealth to the
Gates Foundation.
I was impressed by Warren Buffet as he talked about how fortunate he was
to have been born with a lucky ticket.
There are roughly 6 Billion people in the world. Imagine the
worlds biggest lottery where every one of those 6 Billion people was required
to draw a ticket. Printed on each ticket were the circumstances in which
they would be required to live for the rest of their lives.
Printed on each ticket were the following items:
Sex
Race
Place of Birth (Country, State, City, etc.)
Type of Government
Parents names, income levels & occupations
IQ (a normal distribution, with a 66% chance of your IQ being 100 & a
standard deviation of 20)
Weight, height, eye color, hair color, etc.
Personality traits, temperament, wit, sense of humor
Health risks
Warren spent about an hour talking about how grateful we should all be for
the circumstances we were born into and for the generous ticket we've been
offered in life. He said that we should not take it for granted or think
that it is the product of something we did - we just drew a lucky ticket.
(He also pointed out that his skill of "allocating capital" would be useless
if he would have been born in poverty in Bangladesh.)
But he had been born with a lucky ticket.
So have we.
God reminds us to remember where it came from.
Do you remember?
Today is a good day to remind yourself again that having "your daily bread"
and the ability to acquire it is very much a gift of God.
Remember and be thankful.
2 Remember where you came from.
God tells the people that when they bring their offering to the priest they
are to set it down and then repeat this thanksgiving liturgy.
'A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into
Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great,
mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted
us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the LORD the God of our
fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil,
and our oppression; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand
and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he
brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk
and honey.
Don't forget where you came from.
God gave you the land, but God also brought you here from slavery.
Never forget that.
Do you often stop and think about where you came from?
My family on my father's side came from coal mining in Scotland. Fife to
be precise.
How would my life be if my grandfather had remained in Scotland and I had
grown up mining coal?
It's hard to say, but I can also think of situations in my life where it
would have gone totally differently if God had not been there.
How about for yourself.
How has God been present in your life bringing you to where you are today?
Are you grateful that through it all, God has been present?
Do you stop to remember where you came from?
Today is an opportunity to remember the guiding hand of God in it all.
Lest we forget that it is God who has brought us here and God who has given
us what we have.
Thanksgiving begins with remembering.
Sometime this week end, take a few quiet moments and just stop what you are
doing and quietly before God and heaven, remember and say thanks.
Today is also an opportunity as we come to the table.
We gather to remember.
To remember what he did to give us our eternal inheritance.
Let us remember and give thanks.
Preached October 7, 2007
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian Church
Victoria, British Columbia
Return to Main Sermon
Page
Email Harold McNabb