Day: November 23, 2025

November 23, 2025  First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

“Thanksgiving is a spiritual exercise, necessary to the building of a healthy soul. It takes us out of the stuffiness of ourselves into the fresh breeze and sunlight of the will of God.” 
― Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart

“I have just four words to leave with you. Four words that have spoken volumes of truth into my life.’  He wanted the words to stay in the room, to remain long after he had gone. Though no one wished to hear Paul’s radical injunction, it had to be told.  ‘In everything, give thanks.’
This was the lifeboat in any crisis. Over and over again, he had learned this, and over and over again, he had to be reminded.” 
― Jan Karon

First Reading:                  Deuteronomy 8: 7-18 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills,  a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper.  You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you. 

“Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes that I am commanding you today.  When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them and when your herds and flocks have multiplied and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock. He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Second Reading:              Colossians  1:11-20 May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

We are coming on Thanksgiving, and right after that, Advent and Christmas and there is just so much on our hearts that, at some level, it’s hard to even begin to see the heart of this season.  

It’s not enough that we’ve just been through a heart-stopping season of wondering about SNAP, or that it seems like we’ve just jumped from lovely cool weather to nasty cold and wet weather.  But coming up on Thanksgiving, we’re faced with the conflict between the elementary-school explanation of Thanksgiving and the realities of early European settler behaviors.  And a number of us have recently faced serious health challenges, there have been way too many times when it all seems just too much.

Here we are, facing Thanksgiving, and in the backs of our minds, there’s a worry that this is no time to stop and give thanks.  There’s just too much that’s still unsettled, too many fears about our future.  It feels, too often, as though we’re trapped in a living version of that old arcade game, Whack-A-Mole.  No sooner do we put on threat behind us, that another one pops up.

Some challenge our feeling of safety; others challenge our hopes for our country’s future.  Some make us re-think the assumptions we’ve carried with us since second grade.  

And for some of us, this fall has been especially difficult, what with family crises or work troubles, or our own individual health issues.

And yet, we have this Thanksgiving, with the expectation that we should all give thanks… before I go into what we might give thanks for this year, I want to take a moment to talk about the act of thanking.  The ability to thank is one of the most important gifts God has given us.  If you look “thanking” up in the Bible, you’ll find that it happens a lot.  From the beginning to the end of the Bible, thanking is a frequent activity.  And it’s not that things are always going swimmingly.  It’s that thanking is one of the major spiritual practices of our kind of faith.

There’s the story of Judith, which is contained in the Apocrypha, that collection of stories from the times between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Judith is a beautiful woman, strong and powerful, who urgers her fellow Jews to stand against an invader.  They want to give up and turn themselves over to the enemy; she says, we can still win… and then goes out and makes it happen.  For today’s purposes, the most important thing she does is offer this speech:

Judith 8:20-26. . . we know no other god but him, and so we hope that he will not disdain us or any of our people. ¹ For if we are captured, all Judea will fall, and our sanctuary will be plundered, and he will make us pay for its desecration with our blood. The slaughter of our kindred and the captivity of the land and the desolation of our inheritance—all this he will bring on our heads among the nations, wherever we serve as slaves, and we shall be an offense and a disgrace in the eyes of those who acquire us.  For our slavery will not bring us into favor, but the Lord our God will turn it to dishonor. 

“Therefore, my brothers, let us set an example for our kindred, for their lives depend upon us, and the sanctuary—both the temple and the altar—rests upon us. In spite of everything, let us give thanks to the Lord our God, who is putting us to the test as he did our ancestors.

Facing disaster, she urges them to give thanks.  Giving thanks turns our focus from what we don’t have to what we do have.  In the same way, there are any number of places in the New Testament where we are urged – in the face of difficulties – to turn to giving thanks to God.  Check out the first letter to the Thessalonians, for a number of places where believers are urged to give thanks.

This is not some empty pie in the sky thing – it’s a vital and central belief.  Giving thanks is good for us.  Giving thanks makes us name that which is good, even in the midst of so much that feels like disaster.

So what do we have to be thankful for this year?  

We’re still here.
We have each other.
Our lives have meaning and purpose.
God loves us.
We’re still here.   

Churches all around us have closed.  I remember meeting every year at the First Church in Springfield…when I first started in ministry – there was a huge, maybe 500 person, pastor’s retreat there every February.  And then one day that big, well-financed church was gone.  Big churches, small churches, well-loved churches, arguing churches – gone with the wind.  But we are still here.   That’s our first thanksgiving.

We have each other.

We are still a strong fellowship of people who love and care for one another and for the world where we’ve been placed.  We see each other in any number of different ways – here in this room for worship, on Zoom meetings, and in casual meetings out and about – and wherever we are, we know we are in the presence of companions on the way.  We are not alone.  That is our second thanksgiving.

Our lives have meaning and purpose.

One of the great gifts of our faith is our call to be people of peace, to be builders of community in our world.  We are not without purpose in our lives.  There is always something we can do – not always the great deeds that are celebrated in history books, but always the small kindnesses which are available to us every day, like holding doors open, smiling at our server.  Speaking up when someone mocks people of color or makes vile accusations about Jews.  Refusing to go along to get along.  

There also opportunities to be active, informed participants in our community, serving as town officers, leading meetings, helping people understand what’s happening, and the like.  In our work, being ethical, honest, trust-worthy people; in our private lives being faithful, loving, reliable.  Our lives have meaning and purpose.  That’s our third thanksgiving.

Finally, we know that God loves us.

This isn’t the arrogant “God love me”, but the compassionate “God loves us”.  God loves each of us == as we are, where we are.  When we do our best, God loves us.  When we do our worst, God still loves us, and hopes for us to grow into a better way of living.  

If you grew up in a home filled with hostility, know that God loves you.  

If you have lived in a world of addiction, know that God loves you.  

If folks have scorned you, hated you, just because…. you didn’t look like, sound like,  live like they thought you should, know that God loves you.  

God loves you, today, tomorrow, and forever.   And that’s the fourth and greatest thanksgiving this year.

We’re still here.
We have each other.
Our lives have meaning and purpose.
God loves us.

Amen.

©2025, Virginia H. Child