BLESSING IN ABUNDANCE
A Thanksgiving Eve meditation by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk
Harundale Presbyterian Church
Text: “And God is able to provide you with blessing in abundance.” (2 Cor. 9:8)
First
There are three movements in this eighth verse we’re using for our meditation this Thanksgiving Eve. The first movement is from God, “And God is able to provide you with blessing in abundance.” Tomorrow is probably one of the most meaningful national holidays we Americans observe, probably more meaningful that the Fourth of July. Because is puts us squarely where we belong, in a mood of thanksgiving for all that God has done for us and with us. And it should come as no surprise to us as Christians either that this holiday is so appropriate. For we are taught very early in life how thanksgiving is the most fragrant offering we can place at God’s feet. For we in the church know full well that there is no such thing as a self made man or woman.
“If we think about how hard we worked to arrive where we are, we are likely to become stingy, because there is something innately programmed into us to have us think either that by our hard work we deserve what we have or that we have been shortchanged and do not have enough. If, on the other hand, we think about how many doors have been opened to us, about how we have gotten where we are by the way things have surprisingly opened to us or ‘broken for’ us by God’s grace and by the working of the Spirit, then we are more likely to think more generously.” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume XI, Page 132.)
Paul, obviously, would have us think the latter, that where we are and who we are are results of God’s abundant grace and the working of the Holy Spirit. For those of you who’ll take the prayer workshop during Advent, one of the things you’ll start by doing is to write down all the things that you have in life for which you’re not responsible. The purpose of that is not only to get you thinking about how good God has been to you, but how without even asking for it God does answer our prayers before they are even on our lips. God knows what we need before our asking and God does watch over us each day without our knowing it. God makes that movement towards and “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance.
The second movement is then one that we take unto ourselves, “so that by always having enough of everything.” That phrase sort of makes the question, “when is enough enough?” a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Greek says it even better, “So that you may have all sufficiency in all things, in all time.” Namely, what you have for the moment is sufficient for the time being. But, you see what happens. Either out of fear that there will never be enough we constantly yearn for more or then we’re never satisfied. Or, because we don’t really trust in God to supply our needs sufficiently for the moment, we constantly feel that we need to seek some assurances elsewhere, and then we work ourselves to the point of exhaustion and never take the time to realize just how many blessings we have already been given.
What
tomorrow’s intended to do is to take that time, to realize the many blessings
we have, to take a break from all the frenzied activity swirling about us and
to gather with friends and family for some table fellowship together. As Barrie Shepherd has written about his
Thanksgiving Secret: “Thanksgiving is not a thinking matter; more an eating,
drinking with one’s friends and even enemies affair; more a feast of linking
life to life in face of all the guilty shrinking from each other and from needs
and hurts that passes for concern in our neighborhood; more a gift of fun,
hoodwinking fear, and sitting, all surprised, around a table.” (The
Presbyterian Outlook,
The third movement is then directed towards what we do with every blessing in abundance, “so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” This past Monday we served over 100 people with our free lunch Thanksgiving dinner. The Deacons gave out over 30 Thanksgiving baskets to those in need. On Saturday, December 13th the Rotary Club of Glen Burnie will have their annual Christmas party for 75 children from the families of those who come to our free lunch program on Mondays and Thursdays and who visit our food pantry on Tuesdays. The party will be in our Fellowship Hall and each child will receive two articles of clothing and a toy from Santa.
From now until Christmas many people we’ve never seen before will come by the church and give us a check for from $100 to $1,000 just because of what we represent in this community. We are known as a church that reaches out to those in need of assistance when others have shut the door on them. That’s because we take seriously what Paul tells us, because we have received all sufficiently in all things and in all time we are to reach out and share that abundance with those not so fortunate. In that way we continue the cycle of God’s grace and God’s gifts just keep on giving. Bill McCaffrey, one of our members, says he awakens each morning “with gratitude and an attitude,” gratitude for another day God’s given him and an attitude to make of it the most he can. Tomorrow, as we gather about the tables let’s us also have the same gratitude and attitude. For then, as Barrie Shepherd says, Thanksgiving will be “more a gift of fun, hoodwinking fear, and sitting, all surprised, around the table.”
Thanks be to God,
Amen