Thanks for a Bounty of People
1 Chronicles 16:7-36
This is the time of year I love living in the
Midwest, more than summer, spring or winter, which each have their own
charm. But fall has a particular beauty.
The landscape is alive with wonderful
color, and I don’t just mean the trees in places like Brown County. I mean the fields and woods that adorn the
countryside.
The sunlight is softer, this time of year. And this softer light is golden, transforming
the ordinary into extraordinary, helping me see the richness of life around me.
That’s why I love driving around Indiana at this
time of year, I drive and watch the
light play across the countryside – field stubble casting shadows along the
dirt, bare black tree limbs silhouetted against a royal blue sky, clouds puffy
and white floating serenely along. .
But I feel a sense of connectedness with the land
and that sense grows stronger every year.
Yes, I was born and raised in the city and I often proclaim the wonders
of that existence compared to that of my country cousins. But the fact is I loved visiting the farms of
our rural families. And my father was a
tramper of fields and forests. We often
were out and about.
That’s one reason I am happy about our house. Nine years ago, the home site was a tangle of
briars, thorn trees, and poison ivy all tangled in old fences. Mark Peterson, Mike LaPorte, my dad and I
began clearing all that Thanksgiving weekend, getting ready for building. We worked in the rain and mud and cold and
snow. We cut, we sawed, we pulled bushes
out with the tractor. All through that
work, I smelled the scents of farm and field – clumps of mud clinging to boots,
wood smoke from burning limbs.
Then, as the house was being built, I’d hike back
and work, watching the seasons move through – budding spring, humid
summer. Now we’re eight years in the
house, and watching fall ebb, knowing winter is coming.
I love it.
And more than that, this move and this time of year helps me remember that
I am connected to God’s good earth all the time – from witnessing it’s visual
beauty to partaking of its sustenance with every mouthful of food I eat.
That’s nice, you say, but what’s this all got to do
with Thanksgiving or even today’s scripture lesson? Precisely this. Our Bible lesson is a psalm, one of the
oldest, of God’s faithfulness. That’s
why the reading is from Chronicles instead of the Psalms (where the Psalm sung
here is abbreviated as Psalm 96). This
faithfulness, to me, is evident in the changing seasons. Crops are planted, grown, and harvested. The soil rests over winter. Though the face of the earth changes, God
does not. God watches over it all, and
has for eons, and is faithful.
We question that.
Sometimes when life is good, we imagine that it is good solely from the
sweat of our brow or our own efforts. I
cut those trees and mowed the field for the view – not God after all –
forgetting that all I have comes by the grace of God in the first place.
Sometimes we question it, out of our troubles, like
Job. We wonder if it is true and try to
understand the mind of God. We would do
well to remember the questions of God to Job – “Where were you when I laid the
earth's foundation? Tell me, if you
understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across
it? On what were its footings set, or
who laid its cornerstone -- while the morning stars sang together and all the
angels shouted for joy?”
“Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown
the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges?… Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.”
“What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? … Have
you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail? What is the way to the place where the
lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over
the earth? … Who gives birth to the
frost from the heavens?”
“Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring
forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its
cubs? Do you send the lightning bolts on
their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here
we are’?”
“Who endowed the heart with wisdom or
gave understanding to the mind?”
God asked Job these questions because it was
important for Job to remember that God was not his enemy as he was coming to
believe. This encounter with the Lord
was not to say why Job was suffering, but to learn, by faith, that God was his
Creator, Sustainer, and Friend.
This is something we forget, but the Psalmist
reminds us that the earth does not. “Let
the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;” the psalmist sings, “let them say
among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns!’
Let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant,
and everything in them! Then the trees
of the forest will sing, they will sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes
to judge the earth. Give thanks to the
LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”
Singing trees, jubilant fields – these things we
take as poetic language. Things that
don’t really happen. Or do they? Could it be that the golden light that
transforms field trash into something of beauty is a way the fields are being
jubilant, reflecting God’s light back to him?
Could the graceful, waving naked limbs of trees be hands uplifted in
praise to God? Maybe that’s all bit a
mystical, yet we each could use a bit of the mystery in our lives, for true
encounters with God are more than slightly mysterious.
Of course, what makes the countryside beautiful and
rich are the memories it evokes. And
inevitably entwined in those memories are people. The people whose woods I walked in. The families whose haylofts I played in. The folks, past and present, who molded my
life. I remember Grandpa and Grandma
Bill, Uncle Johnny, Uncle Burt, Aunt Orie, cousin Ernie, and on and on. A parade of Sunday school teachers, youth
group leaders, and pastors also march past.
As do people from the present.
Not a farmer myself, the seasons of my life have been blessed by a rich
bounty of people, not crops. And I am
richer for them all. They have been the
jubilant fields and singing trees, singing “for joy before the LORD, for he
comes to judge the earth. Give thanks to
the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.” They planted the seeds of faith in my life
and watered them and watched them grow.
Some of them have sung the song of harvest home. Some I get to see daily. Regardless, they continue to bless me.
God’s land and God’s people are intricately
interwoven. Even those of us who rarely
venture outside the city limits are tied to the earth by strong bonds and a
bounty of people. And this season is
about giving thanks for that bounty to the gracious God who loves us more than
we can imagine.
I came across a thanksgiving poem the other day that
expresses that thought better than I am able.
It’s by Max Coots and says:
Let
us give thanks for a bounty of people.
For
children who are our second planting, and, though they grow like weeds and wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our
cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.
Let
us give thanks; For generous friends ... with hearts ... and smiles as bright
as their blossoms;
For
feisty friends as tart as apples;
For
continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that
we've had them;
For
crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;
For
handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of
corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and as good for you;
For
funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem
artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as
onions;
For
friends as unpretentious as cabbage, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent
as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and who, like
parsnips, can be counted on to see you throughout the winter;
For
old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends
coming on as fast as radishes;
For
loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our
blights, wilts, and witherings;
And,
finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been
harvested, and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter;
For
all these we give thanks.
Let us give thanks, this holiday time, for golden
light, good friends, and God’s graciousness.
May we open our eyes to jubilant fields and singing trees. Soaring clouds, be they white or gray with
rain. Winds warm or chilled by the
north. People who are made in God’s own
image. Let us give thanks and “sing for
joy before the LORD. Give thanks to the
LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”
Howard Thurman
