Our scripture today is about the reason for being
thankful. The Israelites had gone
through a lot of trials and tribulations on their way to becoming farmers and
towns folk. They wandered through the
wilderness until they found land that they could settle, grow crops, and be
free from slavery. Their sacred story
was about coming to a land of peace and prosperity, a land of milk and
honey. Scripture wanted to remind them
to be intentional about thanking God for not just the harvest, but the homes
and the lifestyles they were able to enjoy in ways that their ancestors only
dreamed of.
It's easy to get into a state of grumbling about what we
don’t have. It’s hard work to recognize
what we do have and celebrate that. And
it’s easy for someone like me, who has a roof over her head and a fridge that
works, to talk about counting our blessings when so many people in Canada and
around the world are not so lucky. When
we are warm and dry and do not need to worry about bombs or hurricanes.
This week I had the very good fortune of spending four days
with our moderator and 30 other incredible leaders from across the United
Church of Canada. I also had the very
bad luck to waste a day of that struggling with the flu bug. My community came together in amazing ways to
support those of us who got sick. There
were quick trips to the drug store for Imodium, someone had ginger chews,
another had electrolyte tablets, and someone had a bunch of cute little Jesus
figurines that showed up on top of hand sanitizers, dressers, thermostats and
other unexpected places. Even though we
were struggling, we struggled together, to learn, to worship, to sing, and to
pray.
We learned a lot. We
talked about how the brain works and how community works, we talked about
boundaries and racism, truth and reconciliation, the stressful times and the
joyful times. We learned how to listen
to each other’s stories with compassion and curiosity. We learned about trust. And we learned about
pardoning turkeys.
The US has an odd tradition that the president pardons a
turkey on Thanksgiving. What a job! Turkeys are not what I would call
handsome. They are just big, awkward,
and delicious. Pardoning a turkey wasn’t
official until George Bush Senior did it in 1989, sending a turkey to a nearby
petting zoo, and setting the precedent that has continued to today.
This tradition has even made it into television shows, with
one particular comic session where a press secretary discovered two turkeys in
her office that she had to choose between for the pardon. It wasn’t as easy as she thought. They became personalities, and the idea that
she had to send one of them to the kitchen and one to the zoo became harder as
she got to know them.
It’s not easy to pardon turkeys unless you are a vegetarian
I suppose, but we like sorting things out into safe and risky. We humans have brains wired for recognizing danger
in order to survive a wilderness. Which
is fine when it comes to turkeys, but often our brains sort people into safe
and dangerous too. And once we have put
a human being into the dangerous category, chances are good that they will stay
in that category and everything they do will be seen as reinforcing that
decision. Our brains like to make one
decision and stick to it. Eat turkeys,
don’t pardon them. Judge people, don’t
be curious about them.
Except that life and people are even more complex than
turkeys. On our last day, we gathered in
circle and were asked for feedback. One
person said, “We should ban cell phones from the classroom. I hate seeing people scrolling on their
phones when they should be paying attention!”
The story their brain had made up was that people only use their phones as
disrespect. Until the four clergy who
spoke English as a second language explained that they used their phones to
look up words so as not to disrupt the class.
And another said they were texting their parent undergoing their first
chemo, and so on. Pardoning the phone
users became easy after those kinds of conversations.
Who are the turkeys in our lives that need pardoning? What are the stories we are telling about
them that might be too simple? How can
we let go of those stories that hurt others?
And especially how can we let go of those stories when they keep us
focused on danger instead of thanksgiving?
The Israelis were told to spend more time being grateful to God than
they were to spend time being angry at the Egyptians who had enslaved
them. Time and time again, we are called
to let the angry stories go, and pardon the turkeys. Even when sometimes the angry stories are
ones we tell about ourselves, and we are the turkeys we need to pardon. This thanksgiving, let us remember to count
our blessings, have compassion on those who are struggling, and to thank God
that we are living in a country that values human life, that recognizes that
all people of any age, race, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, gender
identity, family structure or any other factors are to be included in
community. Thanks be to God for the many
blessings we have in this beautiful land. Amen.
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