[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermons for Thanksgiving - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for Thanksgiving

Ephesians 5:20 – “In All Things Be Thankful”
Matthew 25:14-30 – “Come Home”


Ephesians 5, the sermon title “In All Things Be Thankful” 

Back during the dark days of 1929, a group of ministers in the Northeast, all graduates of the Boston School of Theology, gathered to discuss how they should conduct their Thanksgiving Sunday services. Things were about as bad as they could get, with no sign of relief. The bread lines were depressingly long, the stock market had plummeted, and the term Great Depression seemed an apt description for the mood of the country. The ministers thought they should only lightly touch upon the subject Thanksgiving in deference to the human misery all about them. After all, there was to be thankful for. But it was Dr. William L. Stiger, pastor of a large congregation in the city that rallied the group. This was not the time, he suggested, to give mere passing mention to Thanksgiving, just the opposite. This was the time for the nation to get matters in perspectiv e and thank God for blessings always present, but perhaps suppressed due to intense hardship.
I suggest to you the ministers struck upon something. The most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound. Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number dead, men without a country, but still there was thanksgiving to God. Their gratitude was not for something but in something. It was that same sense of gratitude that lead Abraham Lincoln to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day in the midst of national civil war, when the butcher’s list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival.
Perhaps in your own life, right now, intense hardship. You are experiencing your own personal Great Depression. Why should you be thankful this day? May I suggest three things?
1. We must learn to be thankful or we become bitter.
2. We must learn to be thankful or we will become discouraged.
3. We must learn to be thankful or we will grow arrogant and self-satisfied.
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com at http://www.sermons.com/signup 
___________________________
Ephesians 1, the sermon titled “The Two Faces of Thanksgiving”

Brain science has now discovered what The White Queen in “Alice in Wonderland” always knew: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."
The most recent research in cognitive science, which is a fancy name for the science of “how the brain works,” reveals that remembering the past and visualizing the future use the same neural mechanisms. Memory and prophesy are flip sides of the same mental coin. Human memory works forward, and the very skills that enable you to remember your past enable you to envision your future. Or as one scientist puts it, “Memory constructs, stimulates and predicts possible future events in an ever-changing environment.” (Susan Gaidos, “Thanks,” Science News, 21 June 2008, 27ff.)
To walk down memory lane is, at the same time, to follow the yellow brick road into your dream future.
In Roman mythology there was a god known as “Janus.” Janus was believed to be the god who was a guiding force for individuals at fresh starts, at new beginnings, and at all times of transition. Janus was always depicted as having two faces — one face looking backwards into the past, the other face turned towards the future. Hence the hinge month of “January.”
While being “two-faced” has now become an insult, for those early Romans who knew nothing about brain science the ability to simultaneously keep one’s past in clear view while focusing forward to the future was seen as a unique, in fact a divine, ability.
For Christians to be “two-faced” was to be a prophet, except a prophet was seen in threefold scenarios, not two. A prophet was supposed to have three faces: a face oriented toward past, a face oriented toward the present and a face oriented toward the future, simultaneously…
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com at http://www.sermons.com/signup 
_______________________
How to Be a Pilgrim
The Pilgrims had the courage to act on their commitments, no matter what. Do we?
Sociologist Robert Bellah, author of Habits of the Heart, is impressed by the power of religion. He once said, "We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a culture may be changed when two percent of its people have a new vision (and act on it)."
Christians make up far more than two percent of our town, far more than two percent of Massachusetts, far more than two percent of Americans. So, why don’t we have a greater effect: on issues of the environment, on justice for the needy, on the quality of life on Cape Cod? Could it be we need more courage to act on our commitments? To be a Pilgrim means to stand up for what you believe, no matter what.
To be a Pilgrim also means sharing what you have, and turning thanks into giving. The Pilgrim colonists willingly shared all they had. During their first three years, all property was held in common. At one point, they were down to five kernels of corn per day for food. Still, they divided the corn kernels up equally. And, the original group of fifty that survived the first winter shared their limited food with the sixty newcomers who arrived in the spring.
One of their finest moments came in 1623, at the first real Thanksgiving. The small colony hosted over ninety Native American braves for three days. There was eating and drinking, wrestling, footraces, and gun and arrow-shooting competitions. It was the Pilgrims’ way of saying "Thank you" to God, and to the Native Americans who had helped them survive. To be a Pilgrim means sharing and turning thanks into giving. How thankful and giving are we?
Alex A. Gondola, Jr., Holidays Are Holy Days: Sermons for Special Sundays, CSS Publishing Company
___________________________
Tomorrow Will Be Anxious for Itself
An ancient Chinese parable tells of Old Tan Chang who had a small farm overshadowed by a towering mountain. One day he got the notion to get rid of the mountain. With the help of his wife and sons, he began to hack at the rock around its base. A neighbor walked by and scoffed, "You will never finish the job, old man! There are not enough days in the year for you to do this."
But Tan replied confidently, "I am not as foolish as you think, my friend. I may be old and feeble, but after I am gone, my sons will continue to peck away at the mountain. Then their sons and their sons'' sons will do the same. Since the mountain cannot grow, someday it will be level with the ground, and the sun will shine upon our land."
Many of the problems we cannot eliminate instantly can be moved one piece at a time, one day at a time. Did not Jesus share in Matthew 6: 25-34 read a few moments ago, "So do not be anxious about tomorrow, tomorrow will be anxious for itself."
Eric S. Ritz, www.Sermons.com
_______________________
For That I Am Especially Thankful
During a harvest festival in India, an old widow arrived at her church with an extraordinarily large offering of rice - far more than the poor woman could be expected to afford. The itinerant pastor of the church did not know the widow well. But he did know that she was very poor and so he asked her if she were making the offering in gratitude for some unusual blessing. "Yes," replied the woman. "My son was sick and I promised a large gift to God if he got well." "And your son has recovered?" asked the pastor. The widow paused. "No," she said. "He died last week. But I know that he is in God's care; for that I am especially thankful."
Traditional
____________________



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20141120/2ced33af/attachment.htm>