October 9, 2022, Thanksgiving Sunday

Lighting the Christ Candle

Welcome and Announcements

Happy Thanksgiving and thank you Rev Ena vanZoeren for leading our worship today. We thank you for joining St. Andrew’s Salmon Arm on-line may you be blessed and filled with rejoicing, always.

Called to Worship:

Come, let us celebrate the wondrous gifts that God has given us. Throughout all our lives, God has blessed us with love and hope.

Praise be to God who provides for us. May our hearts be truly grateful, and may we show our gratitude by the ways in which we live and care for others. Hallelujah! Amen.

Hymn: 65 All people that on earth do dwell

 

 

Prayer of Adoration

O God of mercy and faithfulness; the witnesses tell of your boundless generosity, and their telling is compelling to us: You give your world to call the worlds into being; You give your sovereign rule to emancipate the slaves and the oppressed.

You give your commanding fidelity to form your own people; You give your life for the life of the world… broken bread that feeds, poured out wine and binds and heals.

You give…we receive…and are thankful. We begin this day in gratitude, thanks that is a match for your self-giving, gratitude in gifts offered, gratitude in tales told, gratitude in lives lived. As we worship you, we will pour forth our thankfulness, we will give, we will tell, we will live, your gift through us to gift the world, even as we with sorrow recall that we have not always lived our thankfulness into the world. Hear us as we confess before you:

 

Unison Prayer of Confession:

Creator God, forgive our moments of ingratitude, the spiritual blindness that prevents us from appreciating the wonder that is this world, the endless cycle of nature, of life and death and rebirth. Forgive us for taking without giving reaping without sowing. Open our eyes to see, our lips to praise our hands to share. May our feet touch lightly on the path we tread, and our footsteps be worthy of following, for they lead to you.

 

 

Assurance of Pardon

God’s grace reaches out to all of us, calling us to live as citizens of heaven, strengthening us to live in a manner worthy of the Good News we have received.

We celebrate God’s goodness with gratitude and hear the good news, that the last are first, and the first are last, and there is grace enough for all.

The Peace

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

 

Hymn: 13 ATBS Give Thanks

Scripture Lessons:

Deuteronomy 26: 1-11 Philippians 4: 4-9

Sermon: The Commandment of Thanksgiving

We have all been through difficult times. Those times of tragedy, pain, and distress have been so all encompassing that at in the moment we think we will never forget what it was like to live through them.

Yet we do forget. Not completely, but we forget the intensity. We forget the dread we felt when we woke up every day. We forget the all-encompassing pain, both physical and emotional. We forget the feeling that the current problem will never end.

We will never forget the situation; but in time our memories will lose some of the details. This is a good thing. Once the incident has passed it is not good to remain in such constant pain and anxiety, and the forgetting becomes part of the healing.

There is a danger in the forgetting, however. The source of our peace, our hope and our confidence in those difficult days was always God and the many acts of mercy and grace that came to us along the way gave us strength and hope. The danger is that we can forget God and his benefits.

This is why the people of Israel are commanded to set aside a day to remember that God brought them out of slavery, through the desert and into the promised land.

Let us look at that commandment again, reading this time from the Message:

Once you enter the land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance and take it over and settle down, you are to take some of all the first fruits of what you grow in the land that God, your God, is giving you, put them in a basket and go to the place God, your God, sets apart for you to worship him. At that time, go to the priest who is there and say, “I announce to God, your God, today that I have entered the land that God promised our ancestors that he’d give to us.” The priest will take the basket from you and place it on the Altar of God, your God. And there in the Presence of God, your God, you will recite:

5-10 A wandering Aramean was my father, he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, he and just a handful of his brothers at first, but soon they became a great nation, mighty and many. The Egyptians abused and battered us, in a cruel and savage slavery. We cried out to God, the God-of-Our-Fathers: He listened to our voice, he saw our destitution, our trouble, our cruel plight. And God took us out of Egypt with his strong hand and long arm, terrible and great, with signs and miracle-wonders. And he brought us to this place, gave us this land flowing with milk and honey. So here I am. I’ve brought the first fruits of what I’ve grown on this ground you gave me, O God.

 

10-11 Then place it in the Presence of God, your God. Bow low in the Presence of God, your God. And rejoice! Celebrate all the good things that God, your God, has given you and your family; you and the Levite and the foreigner who lives with you.

Do we notice the emphasis on what God has done? Or the emphasis on who God is to us?

This is not a litany of how difficult it was, and how we felt like we could not endure. This remembrance does not include dwelling upon the depths of our distress, the overwhelming presence of pain. This litany states as a matter of fact that we had a problem, in this case slavery in Egypt and a difficult journey in the desert. But then the litany rejoices that in it, God prevailed. God kept us safe. God led us safely to the other side. God brought us home to a place of security and peace, justice and comfort.

Why would God do that?

Because God is in an unbreakable relationship with us. God’s love for us is eternal and everlasting and God never wants to see us in distressing situations. He is our God, and he will always come alongside us in the difficult days and remain with us in the promised land.

Repeatedly we are told that God is our God. We are reminded that this is a multigenerational relationship, because God is also the God of our ancestors. Regardless of whether we acknowledge that relationship or not, or notice what God is doing in our lives, or not, God is still our God and will always remain our God.

That is why it is good to pause and remember all that God has done and continues to do.

Take a deep breath.

Do you feel the peace and the comfort?

God is our God and will always be our God, regardless of how we acknowledge him. Our relationship with God does not depend on us, it is wholly dependent on the love, grace and mercy of God.

That is what is behind the commandment to gather in Thanksgiving and Remembrance. We gather to give thanks and to remember that where we are now is solely because God has walked with us along the way and delivered us to a place of security and safety. More importantly, because life is always revolving through times of distress and sorrow, we are reminded that God is always walking with us and bringing us through the valley we may be currently inhabiting.

In good days and bad days, we are surrounded by the grace and mercy of God. No matter what, we are always in the presence of our God, the God of mercy.

The commandment to gather to give thanks, is a reminder that what we give thanks for is God’s labour on our behalf. God is always working for us.

We are reminded that each of our journeys are unique. So, in part this is about how God has intervened for us in our personal situations. But we are also reminded that our journeys are communal. As a congregation of God’s people, we share our journeys as a source of hope and inspiration to others. Gathering in thanksgiving reminds us that God has an amazing power to deliver us from oppression and provide a future of abundance and hope. We know it in our personal lives; but we also know it in our lives as a congregation. God is not only your God, but he is also

our God. In our daily lives, in our lives of worship we are in the presence of God and his mercy.

Dennis Tucker writes that the call of the community to thanksgiving is a calling to the individual and the community and the two commands are held in constant tension. We are thankful for what God has done for us as individuals and we express that in community. And we are also thankful for what God does for as a community of his beloved and we express that in our daily living.

That is why we offer thanksgiving every time we gather to worship. And that is also why we gather at specific times to worship and bring our specific sacrifices of praise in an abundance of joy, celebration and hope. In fact, we see in the commandment to the people of Israel that although they come to express their personal gratitude, it is expressed appropriately only when done so in the community which shapes our corporate identity.

When we worship our theology, the liturgy, and even our outlook of justice and ethics comes together in a tightly woven response to the gifts God has given to us. The ways in which we respond is seen not only in the celebration; but also, the generous sharing with each other and the world.

Our justice and our ethical living then, is an expression of our gratitude which is lived out into the community and the world. How we live is the culmination of all that God has given to us, all that God has already done for us, and all that God will yet give and do for us as individuals and as the community of St. Andrews.

That is why we celebrate. That is why we rejoice. That is why we serve. It is the ways in which we express our confidence in what God has given.

We see the full expression of that in Philippians.

Paul writes: Remember. Give thanks. Don’t worry, rather pray. And when we pray it shapes our praises and we will know that God is working in us his most excellent harmonies of grace, love, hope, and mercy.

That is why Paul gives the following commandment to the people in Philippi.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies. MSG

Rejoice. Remember. Rejoice always, and remember. And in everything give thanks.

Amen.

 

 

 

Hymn: 425 We praise you O God

Offering Doxology Offertory Prayer

Gathering Prayer Requests Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer

O Lord our God, You have blessed us as a church over the past year. Through good times and difficult times we have felt Your hand of grace, forgiveness and healing.

Today, as a congregation, we publicly express our gratitude to You. We thank You for the leaders among us—for the many in our church who offer their time, energy and abilities to lead us—both paid staff and volunteers, seen and unseen.

We thank You for many opportunities we have had to serve You, to demonstrate our love for You to our co-workers, our neighbors, our families and friends. We thank You for the many who reach out to others in informal ways each week.

You O Lord, You have blessed us not only as a congregation, but also as individuals. We have been blessed materially, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

We thank You that even when sickness and accidents make our future uncertain, You are with us, strengthening, healing and encouraging.

As we look back over this past year, we realize that we have much to be grateful for. We humbly receive the gifts You have given us, knowing that You are the giver of all good things.

For these blessings, Lord, we give You thanks.

And now O God, we bring before you all people and your whole world that it may also receive the blessings we know in abundance.

Healing:

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We especially thank You for the healing experienced by us and others who have felt Your healing and sustaining touch this past year.

We pray for a world in crisis:

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We thank you for the ways you work in each crisis situation to bring hope, justice, mercy and peace.

We thank you O God in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray, saying: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever. Amen

 

Hymn: 338 Let all things now living

Charge and Benediction

Go from this place with joy, giving thanks to God, proclaiming His goodness, celebrating His love, and worshipping Him with your lives.

For He is the Lord our God, faithful to a thousand generations.

And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you and among you in the days ahead.

We go forth, singing the praises of God, who blesses us without measure and we give thanks for his endless mercies.

 

Sung Blessing 457 Now thank we all our God verse 1 Public Domain

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in whom God’s world rejoices, who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way, with countless gifts of love and still is ours today.