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Current Sermons Archived Sermons "Do You Hear What I Hear?" January 15, 2006 An Incomplete Feast December 25, 2005 The Third Gift December 24, 2005 Nothing will be impossible with God December 18, 2005 Redeeming Holiday Cheer December 11, 2005 Comfort, comfort my people … December 4, 2005 Advent begins in the dark… November 27, 2005 Thanksgiving Day November 24, 2005 It's All About Respect November 20, 2005 The world is a better place because ... November 13, 2005 Holy Baptism and Festal Eucharist November 6, 2005 Promise and Presence October 30, 2005 This is Only A Test October 23, 2005 Made in the Image of God October 16, 2005 Finding Our Way October 9, 2005 Our Lives Are Based On A True Story October 2, 2005 It Is God Working In You September 23, 2005 Whatever Happened to our Security? September 11, 2005 Put on the Armor of Light September 4, 2005 Giftedness and Identity August 21, 2005 What about Respect? August 14, 2005 Dean Lane's Final Sermon July 31, 2005		Sermon Thanksgiving Day The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch November 24, 2005 Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, PA Sowing Thankfulness 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Do you know the first question in our catechism? Did you even know we had a catechism? We do and it is in our prayer book (p. 845). “Catechism” comes from a Greek word which means to teach by word of mouth. A catechism is an outline of the faith. In our Book of Common Prayer, it is set out in a question and answer format. The first question in our catechism is, “What are we by nature?” The response is “We are part of God’s creation, made in the image of God.” The second question is, “What does it mean to be created in the image of God?” And the answer is, “It means that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God.” There it is. Free choice. The gift that is so wonderful and so troubling for us. It is wonderful because we are the only creatures in God’s creation that have the power to make choices about how we love or use our creative abilities or reason. It is troubling because we have the capacity to make bad choices and we do it all the time. One way to look at our lives is that we spend it learning to choose. A good life might be about learning to choose wisely. A Christian life might be about learning to choose that which brings us closer to God. Another great thing about the Christian life of faith is that God provides a remedy for all the bad choices we make. God offers love, forgiveness and new starts. So…free choice. How are we going to choose today? What will we choose on this Thanksgiving Day? How will we choose to be grateful? We do have a choice. Not only can we choose whether to offer thanks at all, we also choose how we do it. I believe our gratitude is connected to generosity. It seems to me that in giving thanks, we can focus on giving. What is it like to give? As Thanksgiving is also a harvest festival, I want to think about our giving as sowing seeds. I don’t know about you, but I am not sure that I have ever really sowed seeds. Certainly I have planted seeds. But even though I am the granddaughter of a farmer, I don’t think I have ever really sowed seeds. Because to sow seeds really suggests a large planting. It involves casting handfuls of seed on prepared ground (or in most farming done in this country, using machines to handle the large capacity of seeds necessary). You don’t need to know anything about farming to understand that you need a lot of seeds to produce a large crop. The more you sow, the more you reap. Thus St. Paul reminds us-the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully (2 Corinthians 9:6). But Paul is not writing advice to farmers. Paul is writing to the Christian community at Corinth about generosity. See generosity is generative; it produces more. But don’t get caught in thinking this refers to stuff. This is not about giving away one dollar and thinking we will surely get two more in return. Paul is not talking about reaping a bountiful amount of tangible stuff. Rather this is about the increase of our capacity to be the humans God created us to be; to choose wisely, to love, to create, to reason in ways that bring us closer to God. It is about exercising our spiritual muscles. The more we use them, the greater our strength. The more we make good, loving choices, the greater capacity we have to make such choices. Our God given gifts are increasingly available to us as we make more and more use of them. Paul says one other thing about choosing to give--you also choose how you give. I am sure that if you sow your seeds badly it will affect your harvest. Even if you toss a lot of seed on the ground, if you don’t care how you do it and it ends up all over the sidewalk you won’t get much for your effort. The same is true about our giving. If we do it carelessly or grudgingly, it won’t have much positive effect. It is not true generosity if we do it out of compulsion or in order to gain something. Because here is an amazing truth about giving--it is more about us as givers than it is about the receivers. In other words (and this is something I learned long ago in a parish far, far away), true generosity is based on the need of the giver to give rather than the need of the institution to receive. When I give, I exercise my freedom to choose. That affects me, my spiritual muscles, and my life in Christ. In 1891, commenting on this passage from Corinthians, theologian B. W. Johnson says “giving is not a sacrifice but rather a sowing.”* As I am sowing seeds, part of the harvest is produced in my own soul. As I choose to give, I am affecting my self and my ability to love, create, and reason. As you think about and enact giving thanks this day, try to imagine it as sowing thanks. How might we throw handfuls of thankfulness into the soil of the world around us? And in doing so, how might we become more the people that God created us to be, to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God? * B.W. Johnson, the commentary on 2 Corinthians in “The People’s New Testament” 1891.