Thanksgiving Eve
November 26, 2015
Joel 2:21-27; Psalm 126; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Matthew
6:25-33
Verb tense makes a difference. In most Bible translations our Joel passage
opens with something to the effect of: “Do not fear, O soil; be glad and
rejoice, for the Lord has done great
things!”[1] However, in the new Common English Bible,
which is the main version I use in my sermon planning, it says “Don’t fear,
rejoice and be glad, for the Lord is
about to do great things!” The Lord
is about to do great things. What great thing do you want the Lord to
do? If God is about to act, how do you
hope he acts? The Lord has done great things and will do great things soon! Likewise, our psalm begins with “When the
Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,”
or, again in the Common English Bible, “When the Lord changed Zion’s circumstances for the better.”[2] Then it changes to a prayer in the middle of
the psalm: “Lord, change our circumstances for the better.”[3] God has acted, has saved in the past; Lord, act again now! And again the question, how do you want God
to act? Which circumstance do you want
the Lord to change for the better? We
move to our Epistle lesson and Paul begins this chapter in 1 Timothy by
writing, “First of all, then, I ask that requests, prayers, petitions, and
thanksgiving be made for all people.”[4] First of all, pray. And don’t just pray for yourself, but pray
for all people. So again, praying for all people, I ask, what
great thing do you want the Lord to do?
God is about to act; how do you want him to act? How do you want him to change our circumstances?
Finally, in our Gospel lesson from Matthew Jesus gives us
some advice about prayer. “Do not worry
about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body,
what you will wear. …Life [is] more than food, and the body [is] more than
clothes.”[5] Jesus will
take care of the basics. He knows you
need food and you need clothing and you need shelter. God knows you need them and he will provide
them. By worrying about these things you
cannot add a single moment to your life.
In fact, you’ll probably lose time off your life by worrying about
them! “If God dresses grass in the field
so beautifully, even though it [does not live very long, then] God [will] do so much more for you.” Verb tense makes a difference. Won’t God do more? Yes, God will
do more. The Bible is full of promises
of what God will do. God will
not forget you, in the future. God loves you, no matter what, that’s
present tense. God is here, among us, a promise we re-live again as we are about to
celebrate the birth of his son, among us, again. In Joel we read, “You will eat abundantly and
be satisfied. You will praise God’s
name.”[6] Because God will repay you for the lost years, the years the locusts have
eaten.[7] God will repay you for the famine in the past
and you will eat abundantly in the future.
What a beautiful promise!
And how about this verb tense: God has heard your prayer. That’s
called the past perfect tense. God has heard. Through the famine, through whatever hard
circumstance, through all your worrying through the time of famine, God has
heard your prayer, and he is about to act.
The Lord is about to do great things.
He has done great things in the past and is about to do great things
now. Today. Tomorrow.
The Lord is about to do great things.
He is answering our prayer from the psalm to change our circumstances
for the better. Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.[8] That’s a promise from the psalm. So, how do we focus our prayers tonight? By praying for all people, as 1 Timothy tells
us. By seeking first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness, as Jesus tells us in the Gospel. And so tonight, we can and we do give thanks,
for the Lord has heard our prayer, and is about to answer it. Thanks be to God.
I’d like us to spend the next few minutes thinking about
those questions, and there are index cards for you to write down your prayer,
to write down what great thing you want the Lord to do, or which circumstance
you want him to change, or describe the famine going on that God promises to repay
you for. Write down a thought, write
down a prayer for all people. Our organist will play some for us while we do this, once she has written her own
prayer. I’ll collect us back together
with a prayer, and then we’ll turn our cards in with the offering so that we
can offer them to God and put them on his altar. Let’s spend some time in reflection and
prayer.
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