This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on Thanksgiving Eve on November 27, 2024.
Today’s Gospel passage is my favorite biblical passage of all; and I’m grateful that the liturgical “powers that be” have assigned this passage for the Feast of Thanksgiving. In past years, the Gospel for Thanksgiving has been the story of the healing of the ten lepers in Luke 17 in which only one out of ten lepers returns to thank Jesus for his healing. I’ve preached on that passage at several Thanksgiving Eve services. In fact, the first sermon of mine that my wife ever heard was a Thanksgiving Eve sermon I preached on the ten lepers. It was actually during our first date, after we ate together and then hung out at her apartment that I practiced my sermon on her, 13 years ago; and she’s been listening to me practice my sermons ever since. And I’m so grateful that she’s here today and that I get to spend Thanksgiving with her, since she’s been teaching in Cambridge the last few months!
This is the first year (as far as I know) that Matthew 6 has been assigned as the Thanksgiving Eve Gospel and in this reading, Jesus urges us, even commands us, not to worry: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin, yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ for the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Don’t worry, but rather seek first God’s kingdom. More than anything else, Jesus preached about the kingdom of God. But how many of us know what the kingdom of God is? It is worth asking this question during this liminal time in between the Feast of Christ the King and the First Sunday of Advent.
The kingdom of God is any territory in which the God of Love reigns supreme. Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God has dwelling within us. So, what does that mean? That means that our hearts and our minds and our interior lives are ruled by God’s voice of love. There may be other voices in our lives, voices that continue to ask those worrisome questions about food and clothing and money, but if the kingdom of God is within us, then all those voices become subservient and under subjection to the divine voice of love. That divine voice of love that invites us to look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, that divine voice of love that reminds us how much we are valued and treasured by our heavenly father. May that voice of love reign supreme in your hearts and drown out all the voices of fear and anxiety. During this thanksgiving, I invite you to, of course, give thanks! However, I also invite you to listen to the divine voice of love who is giving thanks to you. The Eucharist is called Thanksgiving not only because we give thanks to God but because, in this sacrament, Christ gives thanks for each of us. By giving us his body and blood, Christ is giving thanks to you. Let that divine voice of love and gratitude reign supreme in your hearts this Thanksgiving! Amen.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 