Sermon 11/21/20: Come, listen, and give thanks (Seminarian Taylor Walker)

Seminarian Taylor Walker

The Last Sunday of the Church Year

November 21, 2020

Come, listen, and give thanks

Hi church family! Coming to you live from Hyde Park, in my apartment, which I have not left since we all got the stay at home order last week. I’m feeling pretty stir crazy. Not sure about y’all.

Normally, as we come into the last week of the church year, looking forward to Thanksgiving and then the season of advent, there’s a lot of preparation to do, a lot of gatherings to plan, a lot of food to make. You know, my mother is an immigrant, from Wales. So our family is newly American, and loves traditions. That means our family loves Thanksgiving. My mother goes all out and does everything herself – turkey, sage and onion stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas, gravy, rhubarb pie… the works. The kitchen windows are usually fogged up by steam and most years there is already snow on the ground and a fire in the fireplace. All of us kids are forbidden from going into the kitchen, even though we’re all in our twenties and can definitely be trusted with the stovetop! The only thing I’m allowed to do is shake the cranberry sauce from the can and cut it into slices, and then set the table with a royal blue cloth. And there is something so holy about setting the table for a family gathering, because it feels so good when we’re all together at last.

But this thanksgiving… is going to be different. I won’t be leaving Chicago, and my family isn’t coming in from Brooklyn. I imagine all of you have asked the same difficult question: do we gather, or do we stay home? Either way, the question is scary and hard. Either way, the decision involves the safety of loved ones, and the longing to hold them close. It’s really hard.

It’s one thing to not go to the beach in the summer. It’s another thing to not go to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving. Like Ezekiel says, lately it feels like we’re in the days of clouds and thick darkness. Like everything is just getting worse. Like the kingdom will never, ever come.

So, while we gather in the dark this cold November night, I want us to take a look at the Psalm which Beau and Anna so beautifully sung.

In English, we call the book Psalms from the Greek word psalmoi, which means songs played on strings. But the Hebrew name for the book is tehillim, which means praises. Therefore all the psalms are praise, the sad ones, the joyful ones, the petitions, and even the ones that call for us, the singers, to do something. In this psalm, we are called to do something.

In this psalm, we sing to a god who gave us their name. We sing to Adonai who is god over all other gods – because in the ancient near east, there were other gods, and here in America there are other gods too, politics, capitalism, imperialism – but Adonai is above other gods. Adonai is king over all these gods. Let’s hear the psalm one more time.[1]

It goes, “Let us come to sing for joy to Adonai, to shout to the rock of our salvation! Let’s come before him with thanksgiving, with songs to shout to him! Because Adonai is a great god, and a great king above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains. The sea is his because he made it, and the dry land was formed in his hands. Let us come worship and bow down and kneel before Adonai our Maker, because he is our god, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.”

And that is where the lectionary stops – in the middle of a sentence. But the text continues: “we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hands, if only we would listen to his voice today!” And then in verse 8 God says to us, the people, the worshippers, “Do not harden your hearts like in Meribah, or like Massah’s day in the wilderness.”

Now Meribah and Massah were places that the Israelites came to on the exodus from Egypt, when they were thirsty, and tired, and angry at a God who would lead them to despair, who would lead them to something that must have felt similar to the way we do, in month ten of a pandemic that has taken the lives of our friends and family. The Israelites were on a journey to the promised land, just like us, a land where everyone would be safe and healthy and have what they needed to survive… but the end of their journey was nowhere in sight. Nor, indeed, is ours, as we enter the season of waiting. So in this psalm God asks us, “Do not harden your hearts against me like they did in Meribah and Massah. Listen to me, because I am for you.”

We, dear people, are called to sing and come and kneel and listen. And why should we listen? Because between God’s hands is the whole world, the highest of heights and the depths of the earth. With God’s hands the dry land was sculpted from clay, and we, too, were made by the great potter. God is our maker. We are the sheep of God’s hand. That means that everything that happens to us matters to God, God the King, God the shepherd. Every joy, every sorrow, every frustration, every cough that might be COVID, everything matters to our God. 

So this is why we listen. In Hebrew the word for listen, shamah, also means obey. So this is why we listen and obey… because God loves us, and God is holding us, and God has taught us what love means in this complicated and difficult world. Love means protecting each other. Love means joining in worship together. Love means looking out the window and admiring creation from safe distance while we are asked to stay at home. This love means we don’t need to ache for God and wonder where God is, like they did in Meribah, like did in Massah, because God is here, and we are in God’s hands.

So, my people. Let us go to sing for joy to Adonai, to the rock of our salvation, the one place we always safe, the one place we can always, always count on. Let us come before God at our thanksgiving, when things will be scary and hard, and let us come with songs of praise. Because Adonai is a great god, a great king above the gods of fear and pain and capital. In God’s hands are the depths of the earth and the heights of the mountains, and like a potter, God formed the land and us together. Let us come to worship and bow down to Adonai our Maker, because this is our god, and we are God’s beloved people, who will never be left alone, who will always be the sheep of God’s hand.

So let us sing praises, and let us come into God’s presence, and let us fall down in worship, and let us listen. Listen to the readings from the voices of our friends. Listen to the same prayers recited this day across the country. Listen to the ways God is comforting us during this time, listen to the ways God is teaching us to love each other in this time, listen to the ways God is saying, it will be okay one day, and I will never, ever let you go. No matter what.

Amen.

[1] My translation