Pardoning the Turkeys

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Today there is much to be thankful for. I am so glad to be back home with family and getting my health back slowly and surely.  And I’m sure each of you have something to be thankful for too.  Life can be challenging from time to time, and it is good to remember the positive things in life, the simple things like a warm bed and a working fridge.  Many folks are not as blessed as we are, and struggle to find something to be grateful for.

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.

Checking the Polling Numbers

Doesn't today's scripture sound like Jesus was doing a post-debate poll of how his message was going down?  He was trying to find out what the crowds at his rallies thought of him.  Let's check out the undecided listener, let's do some number crunching, let's do a survey and see how our messaging is landing, and if it's making any impact on the folks who are sitting on the fence.

Not too much different than an episode of the West Wing where everyone is wondering about approval ratings and spin doctoring. Is the message getting heard?

For Jesus, the core question he wanted his consultants to ask was 'Who do people say that I am?" He wanted to know if people thought he was the equivalent of a demented cat lady or racist convicted felon. The disciples didn't know those terms of course, but responded with what they heard, prophet, famous teacher, reincarnated baptizer and so forth. Even when Peter came up with the answer Jesus was looking for, Jesus challenged his interpretation of that title. It would be like Jesus saying to us, "it's all well and good to call me your Premier or Prime Minister but I'm going to be living under a bridge, picking bottles so I can buy food, and I'll get arrested on a picket line and stabbed to death in a homeless encampment riot. Wait! What kind of Prime Minister does that?

No wonder Peter challenged him.  What is the point of public opinion declaring that Jesus was an influential person, a political and theological expert, if he was going to use such a ridiculous campaign strategy. It was ridiculous! In fact, in some ways the whole claim he made sounded ridiculous.  Die and rise again on the third day.  What kind of politician would center their campaign on that? Even Paul said that this message sounded foolish.

C. S. Lewis once wrote, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn't be a great moral teacher. He'd be either a lunatic on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg or else he'd be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse."

I don't know about you, but I'm not keen on believing in someone who is delusional. I want to follow someone who shows clear leadership, deep compassion, and determination to consider the welfare of all people, not just his cronies or wealthy friends.

People today are looking for leaders they can trust and don't know where to find such leaders. Some are so cynical that they don't believe that anyone cares at all about them. They have given up on humanity. They've been hurt too much, failed too often or seen their dreams crushed too much. One person claims that 'apatheism’ is the biggest challenge facing Christianity today. Not atheism, not believing in any God, or agnostics who are not sure, but apatheists who are apathetic to the question of whether there is a God or not. Why bother to care? They might be assuming that Christianity is all about saving yourself from Hell and that they know they're going there so what's the point in trying or caring?

Jesus wanted to turn that apathetic attitude upside down. He said that those who tried to save their lives would lose them, and those who lost their lives would find them.  People who only think of themselves, "me, me, me" instead of "you, you, you" or even "us, us, us" would find that they did not have a life of significance or impact. People who go beyond their egotistical attitudes and opinions, who love and serve others, who work towards the common good, they're the ones who will make an impact bigger than they could foresee.

The question Jesus asked his disciples so many centuries ago is still important today. Again, Lewis wrote, "You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher."

This world has a lot of people promising all kinds of nonsense.  No wonder so many are experiencing apathy, depression, and anxiety.  Teachers talk about a mental health crisis.  Estimates are that 1 in four adults are wrestling with depression, one in five have thought about suicide, and 32% of people are addicted to some kind of substance.  Apathy is a way of letting ourselves off the hook, a way of telling ourselves that there’s nothing we can do to change the world.  We are stuck and life sucks, end of discussion.

Jesus taught a different way.  Those who are trying to be safe, trying to control their world, will spiral down into despair and apathy.  Those who try the way of Jesus, will let go of their own lives, and look at what they can do to help others.  People have found when they start looking for opportunities to help, it makes a world of difference.  Ask any grateful member of AA or Al Anon, and they will tell you the importance of service in their recovery.  Jesus calls us to consider who he is for us too.  Maybe we too have struggled to find hope, maybe we too have struggled to find someone to trust, who cares about us, and who helps inspire us to do better and be better.  Maybe when we answer that big question, “Who do you say that I am?”, our stories will inspire us anew.  May we find the strength to share our stories with those who need to hear them.  Amen.