United Lutheran Church, Grand Forks, North Dakota

November 18, 2001

Text: Isa 58:6-12

Preacher: Frederick J. Gaiser

THANKSGIVING AGAIN?

“Happy Thanksgiving” will be in order this week, according to the calendar. But, to me at least, this seems a little odd, since last year Thanksgiving was in May. I know it was, because I preached for it. In Zimbabwe, of course, where the seasons are off by 180̊. That thanksgiving service was at Martin Luther Church in downtown Harare, the capital city—a thriving congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe that I was honored to serve as an interim pastor in the fall of 1997. They sponsor an active street ministry for the many homeless and destitute people of a country where unemployment now runs about 60% and inflation stands at virtually 100%. Things are even worse today than they were last year. The presidential elections are coming up next spring, and everything now must be subservient to the government’s desperate attempts to retain power. So, last Sunday, for example, government officials prohibited foreign aid workers from distributing food to the starving, because it might help the opposition by giving the impression that the government itself cannot provide—which, of course, would be correct. And on Friday, there was a violent attack by government thugs on the headquarters of the opposition political party in Bulawayo. These are not happy times in Zimbabwe.

Still, our Lutheran brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe live with a faith that is both simple and profound—a faith that enlivens and enriches the faith of the Luther Seminary students and faculty who annually visit that country—so, last Thanksgiving (in May), from their own precious supplies, the members of that congregation in Harare decorated their altar and chancel with amazing quantities of food, later to be used for those even poorer. It looked a lot like a thanksgiving bulletin cover—except that the pumpkins were for eating, not carving; and the sugar cane was too long to fit on the altar; and the live goose kept honking during the service; and, yes, those were caterpillars—mopani worms, to be exact—and they would be happily eaten by some lucky recipient as a good source of protein.

The text appointed for the day was from Isaiah 58. And it, too, seemed odd, for here were people in deep hardship, some on the verge of starvation, being called upon to fast. Listen to the prophet (Isa 58:6-12):

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

Share your bread with the hungry, says God, and my friends in Zimbabwe were doing just that—and their mopani worms, too! And so do we, often. Still, the whole thing seems a little odd, doesn’t it: Some of our offerings go to support Lutheran World Relief, and some of that money goes to support people in Zimbabwe, because they have so little. And then they bring food to support people who have even less than they. And clearly there are lots of folks who have more than we. So, people who have more support people who have less, and those people in turn support people who have even less, and so on, and so on. Isn’t there some way we could cut out the middle men (and women)?

But we can’t, of course, and we wouldn’t want to. Because, as the prophet knows—and Jesus, too—while giving to the poor certainly has something to do with the health of the poor, it has at least as much to do with the health of the giver.

This is why the text is written with “ifs” and “thens”—if you share your bread with the hungry, then you will call and the Lord will answer; if you satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then the Lord will satisfy your needs. I knew that I had to talk about that to my congregation in Zimbabwe, because it is so easily misunderstood. The notion that religion is some kind of let’s-make-a-deal arrangement with God is close to the surface for all of us. We scratch God’s back, God scratches ours. At least a few of the missionaries in generations past taught people in Zimbabwe a very legalistic view of Christianity: if you be good, God will love you. And they live in a culture where traditional religion quite clearly says that you must appease the gods to avoid their wrath. So they could read the “if–thens” of this text quite wrongly. But, of course, so could we, thinking that we practice religion to avoid hell and to get greater goodies from God. But a score-keeping God is incompatible with a God of love, and God is love.

No, the ifs and thens of the text have to mean something else. There has to be something in the very giving and the very receiving that makes us human, that restores our soul. If you give, then your light will shine like the dawn and your healing spring up quickly. A bargain? No, a fact of life: if you give, you will be enriched. In terms of worldly wealth? No, in terms of life itself. You will be human, you will be a child of God, you will be alive.

The Hebrew original of Isaiah’s promise is telling: If you offer your food to the hungry, says the English, then God will satisfy your needs. But the original is more interesting: If you offer your soul to the hungry, then God will satisfy your soul, it says. As you give your soul, God gives you soul; as you give yourself to others, God gives your self to you. You find your self in giving it away, just as Jesus said: “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10:39). That’s less mysterious than it sounds, and less like double talk. It’s just true, and most of us know it: When we hoard and hold tight and ward off, we are most fearful and least satisfied; when we give and open up and share who we are and what we have, we are most alive and most free. Try it. It’s God’s invitation to full life.

This is why there are none so poor that they cannot give and none so rich that they cannot receive. People who don’t recognize that, on either end of the economic spectrum, will lose their souls. And the reason is that in giving, in the very act of giving, we become most fully like God, most fully in God’s image.

The God of the Bible doesn't give to us because we give to him, he just gives. The God of the Bible doesn't bless because we do the right thing or worship in the right way, he just blesses. The God of the Bible doesn't love because we are the right color or the right denomination or the right nationality, he just loves. The God of the Bible doesn't send his Son to the people who get it right, he sends his Son to all, that all the world might be saved. This is a spendthrift God, a reckless God. Whatever this God has, this God gives, because God is a giver.

No bargains here; no deals. Nothing to repay. Repay God for the sunset? What would I pay? Repay God for the rainbow? What would I offer? Repay God for a loving wife and family? What could suffice. Repay God for bringing people together in his name across continents and across oceans, men and women, young and old, black and white, as the gospel does? What could I possibly give? Repay God for sending his only Son to be my friend and to give his life for me? How would I do that? How could I even think about it without destroying the gift?

Bill Holm, a Minnesota writer, put it well in an article reflecting on the wonderful and unexpected gifts he received one Christmas:

Gifts are your teachers [he wrote], not your obligation or the fulfillment of a bargain. They are supposed to disconnect you from your own life for a few minutes, so you can see it more clearly. A good gift delivers a brisk shock. A good gift cannot be reciprocated without damage to the soul. You must take it and live.

So it is with the gifts of God. We take them and live. To think we can repay them will damage our soul and cause God pain—for we will have failed to understand who God is, that God gives because God gives. That is what grace means.

So, we don’t repay God, but we do give thanks. What is the difference? To repay is to turn our relationship with God into a transaction. To give thanks is to respond to God simply because we do. We have already demonstrated that kind of thanks when we first received the gifts that sustain us. The farmer's relieved laugh when the crop first pokes through the ground is already thanks. The gardener's smile when the rain falls is already thanks. The shopper's satisfaction at finding affordable food available in the stores is already thanks. Our unbidden joy over the smell of fresh bread is already thanks. We have done our thanks a little at a time.

But Thanksgiving is a time for us to give thanks intentionally and together, and it is good to do that. For the wheat is not just for the farmer, and the flour is not just for the shopper. The harvest feeds us all, directly or indirectly, those who touch the dirt and those who buy at the market and those who eat the bread. We are all in this together, and together we say thanks to God.

So, put away any notion that we are repaying God with our thanksgiving offerings this year or any year or with our gifts to Lutheran World Relief or even your support of our church and seminary programs. But, what then? Are we doing nothing? Not at all, but what we are doing is not repaying God; we are becoming givers in the same way that God is a giver—with no agenda, with no strings, with no thought for tomorrow. God gives, and we give. We just give, because God's gracious giving to us is re-creating us in the image of God the giver. This is a strongly countercultural notion—in this culture or in Africa’s. Everybody's in it for something, aren't they? Everybody expects something in return, don't they? But not God, and therefore not the children of God. God gives, and we give. It is who God is; it is who we are becoming. God doesn't buy our favor, and we don't buy God's. There's no buying with God, there is only giving.

That's what the prophet Isaiah means when he tells Israel in our text: “Is not this the fast that I choose? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; [is it not], when you see the naked, to cover them?” You have been fasting and worshiping in order to gain God's favor, but you already have God's favor. God does not need your gifts, but the hungry do. God does not need your roof, but the homeless do. God does not need your clothing, but the naked do. But the world is in such bad shape; there are so many needs. Will our efforts make any difference? Will it help for us to give? Those are the wrong questions, for then we are calculating again, and we need not do that. We follow a God who simply gives. We give because God gives. God will work out the consequences. We give not in order to gain life, but in giving we do gain life. That is thanksgiving.

These are desperate times in Zimbabwe, and difficult times here. The temptation is to hunker down, hold tight, and take care of our own. Our government wants us to go shopping, which, I guess, is actually useful in a market economy. But shopping assumes at least some measure of cash in the pocket and some few things on the market shelves—both of which are becoming increasingly scarce in Zimbabwe. So, God invites us to give, to open up, turn loose, and care for others. A year ago, that message seemed important to proclaim in Zimbabwe. Now it seems no less appropriate there. God, as our maker, wrote the instruction manual for how to be a healthy human. That manual says clearly that we find our own health in giving ourselves to others. And, above all, God does want us well. AMEN