Thanksgiving Sunday
Psalm 100
For Americans Thanksgiving is stimulated by our past national history. We are well aware of the story of the PILGRIMS at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. They landed on these shores on NOVEMBER 12,1620. 102 people made the trip to this country.
In the succeeding weeks they hurriedly built for themselves shelters against the winter's cold, rain, and snow.
Illness attacked them. Half of them died during the winter of that year. Hunger came. According the historians they endured a daily rationing of five grains of corn each day. Those who made it through the first winter planted the crops in the spring.
Indians taught them how to fertilize with fish. It was a good year. The crops flourished. Harvest time came and the bounty made the people truly thankful. They invited the Indians in and celebrated with them a feast.
As they gave thanks for what God did for them ... We, likewise gather this evening. As a skeleton upon which to address our Thanksgiving I am indebted to a great English preacher ...WILLIAM SANGSTER. The flesh and muscle will be my own.
I. COMMON BLESSINGS ... USUALLY OVERLOOKED...
II. SPECIAL BLESSINGS ...SOON FORGOTTEN...
III. GREATEST BLESSING ... TRAGICALLY IGNORED...
FIRST; ...COMMON BLESSINGS ... USUALLY OVERLOOKED.
Common Blessings are those blessings, which are so much a part of our lives that we take them for granted.
Sunrise ... Sunset
Day ... Night
Love ... life itself!
OUR FIVE SENSES...
hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling
OUR GOOD HEALTH.
The simple things of life are so important.
SECONDLY: SPECIAL BLESSINGS ...SOON FORGOTTEN
We all WILL OR HAVE reached our highest attainment by the help of other persons. There are really no self-made persons. Some one has helped. The helpers have been family, teachers, mentors, and friends ... at crucial times in our lives they have been there to help.
So often the new level of achievement comes, the newness wears off and we forget. We don't mean too. We just do!
There have been many such people in my own life. One of the most important was Dr.John Rudin, speech and worship professor at Duke Divinity School. I came to Duke from the farming, and textile country of Cabarrus Country, N.C.. It was an area populated by German Huguenots. In the transition from the use of the German to English languages a distinct dialect was developed of people native to that area.
Words like Ice were pronounced with the flat sound of icce
Tire ... tar
Yellow ... Yellar
Wife ... Wiffe
Lord ... Laurd
John picked up my deficiency right away and offered to tutor me free of charge on Tuesday and Thursday. I followed his Advice.
The Speech classroom was next to the Student Lounge. One day I was reading aloud Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, O My Soul and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Only I was reading it...Bless the Laurd, O My soul; and all that is within me ... Bless his holy name.
Rudin would say ... Tom; It's Bless the Lord.
I would say ...Bless the Laurd
It was only after the class that I understood. My friends had heard the interchange and were going down the hall laughing saying, Bless the Laurd ... No it bless the Lord.
His patience opened the door for me to a successful ministry.
A former president of New York University tells of remembering a high school teacher who had introduced him to English Literature and laid the foundation for his academic life whom he remembered and wrote her a thank you note. Was he surprised at the response.
DEAR WILLIE:
I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW MUCH YOUR NOTE MEANT TO ME. I AM IN MY EIGHTIES, AND LIVING ALONE IN A SMALL ROOM, COOKING MY OWN MEALS, LONELY AND LIKE THE LAST LEAF OF FALL LINGERING BEHIND.
YOU WILL BE INTERESTED TO KNOW I TAUGHT SCHOOL FIFTY YEARS AND YOURS IS THE FIRST NOTE OF APPRECIATION I EVER RECEIVED. IT CAME ON A COLD, BLUE MORNING AND IT CHEERED ME AS NOTHING HAS FOR YEARS.
Yes, there are COMMON BLESSINGS usually taken for granted, and
SPECIAL BLESSINGS ...soon forgotten.
III. GREATEST GIFT OF ALL ... TRAGICALLY IGNORED!
Our greatest gift is the ever abiding presence of God in his acts of creation, redeeming, and sustaining that which he creates. All that we have, and are are gifts of God.
3,000 years ago the ancients realized this and developed A religious liturgical means by which humanity could show appreciation to God for his many acts.
In the BOOK OF Leviticus Moses sets out the basis for giving a THANKSGIVING OFFERING. ...(Offering to God unleavened cakes with oil) ...
Leviticus 7:11-15
Now this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings, which shall be presented to the Lord.
If he offers it by way of thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil and cakes of well-stirred fine flour mixed with oil.
With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving, he shall present his offering with cakes of leavened bread.
And of this he shall present one of every offering as a contribution to the Lord; it shall belong to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the peace offerings.
Now as for the flesh of the sacrifice of his thanksgiving peace offerings, it shall be eaten on the day of his offering; he shall not leave any of it over until morning.
Religious people believe that we really own nothing. We are stewards of that which our Heavenly Father owns. As his stewards we know everything we have is on loan from God. Therefore the way to show appreciation IS to give a portion of that gift back to God.
In the giving we relinquish all control over our gift. We have no say over how it is to be used. The ancients burned most of what was giving to God, and some of it was eaten. But the giver ... gave.
When was the last time you made such a symbolic offering to God?
THANK GOD FOR EVERYTHING ...Helen Rice Steiner
Thank you God for everything,
The big things and the small,
For every good gift comes from God,
The giver of them all.
And all too often,
we accept without any thanks or praise
the gifts God sends as blessings
each day in many ways.
First, thank you for the little things
that often come our way,
The things we take for granted,
but don't mention when we pray.
Thank you for the miracles
we are much too blind to see,
and give us new awareness,
of our many gifts from thee.
And help us to remember,
that the key to life and living
is to make each prayer ... a prayer of thanks,
and every day ... THANKSGIVING.