'THANKSGIVING'

Rev. Brian Wilkie By Rev. Brian Wilkie                                                                                     Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community Rockland, Ontario http://www.rocklandchurch.ca/

_______________________________________________________

PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, October 13^th, 2013:

http://proxy.autopod.ca/podcasts/chum/6/16451/good_news_074_oct13.mp3

____________________________________________ 

Broadcast Notes:

*************************************************                    

‘Thanksgiving’

Welcome to Good News In The Morning, a program of words and music bringing a Christian message of hope and encouragement to those who are looking for intelligent meaningful and spirited approach to faith and to life.

  

This program is sponsored by Good News Christian Ministries Box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario K0G 1W0. I'm your host today, Brian Wilkie of St. Andrew's Christian Church in Rockland. As always we will start by thanking you our listeners were grateful for your encouragement and support and remember that you can always visit us on our website for materials to encourage and support you in your Christian walk.  I encourage you to mark your calendars for November first, for an evening of worship and celebration in Ottawa with Good News In The Morning and Ernie and Linda Cox. For further information about the time and location you can visit our website, www.GoodNewsChristianMinistries.ca , or call 613-283-4546.

Today I would like to speak to you about the celebration of Thanksgiving. It may be fairly obvious on the day of broadcast, but if you listen to this program on the website, or are reading the text afterwards, it may not be fully apparent that this is a Thanksgiving Day broadcast (in Canada).  Well, now it is!

Our Scripture does to speak about Thanksgiving. It is  a brief Scripture from the Old Testament, from the book of Exodus, chapter 23, when God sets out for the people of Israel the feasts that they ought to celebrate every year. And so he says in Exodus 23 chapter 23 verse 14 to 17: 

“Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. Celebrate the feast of unleavened bread, for seven days eat bread without yeast as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib for in that month you came out of Egypt.  No one is to appear before me empty-handed. Celebrate the feast of harvest with the first fruits of the crops you sow in your field, and celebrate the feast of ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in your crops from the field. Three times a year all the people are to appear before the Sovereign Lord.”

Feast of Harvest – that's what we’re celebrating, in Canada, in mid-October. In the United States it is celebrated late in November, but feasts of harvest are celebrated around the world and they’ve been celebrated from a very early time. Even the people of Israel celebrated a form of Thanksgiving. We’ll get into all of that in a few moments but first let's listen to this hymn of praise Come, Ye Thankful People Come, a familiar Thanksgiving song. This is from the collection A Celebration of Hymns.

The celebration Thanksgiving in North America is surrounded by stories about the settlement of this continent by Europeans a few centuries ago. The celebration is observed here with some of the fruits of the field and some of the fruits of the barn. We celebrate at my house with the with turkey and with potatoes and hopefully sometimes parsnip, turnip and a whole bunch of vegetables that actually don't always make the table during the rest the year. It's kind of traditional. Turnip is not a vegetable that my wife likes very much. It’s not something that we’d eat most the time, but somehow or other it brings back the early settlers, who had to grow those crops that lasted. You know,  the things you keep in the root cellar – and many of the vegetables of Thanksgiving for us are root vegetables.  I know that many people celebrate with a ham dinner and some with other kinds of food, but tradition seems to dictate what each family does. It's funny that we celebrate Thanksgiving as we do, because these days we don't have much of a sense of harvest. Most of us living in cities, and even if we live in rural areas, we can go to the grocery store and find all kinds of fruits and vegetables in and out of season.  In fact sometimes I wonder whether some of the young people even have an idea of what the proper season is for this thing or that thing.  I know, we enjoy a strawberry social in the spring, but we also have strawberries year-round. It's a great time when the corn comes in the summer but there's almost no time we can’t go to the grocery store and buy some corn on the cob. I know that we recognize how much fresher it is just off the fields.  When it has just been harvested at the right time, when it has been grown in natural conditions, rather than greenhouses or hydroponically. At the same time we have lost a sense of how closely tied we are to the cycles of the seasons: the planting, the caring for crops and the reaping of crops. There are not as many of us who are farmers today.

In this day and age, and is particularly for us in North America, we find ourselves enjoying food year-round and perhaps we've lost some of the sense of thankfulness. Perhaps we take it for granted: we go through the store and we pick through the vegetables, trying to find the best head of lettuce, trying to find the ripest tomatoes and trying to find is strawberries that haven’t been sitting for too long. We carefully check the best before date before we by our milk, and we look for the freshest bread, the choice of grains – we have an abundance in our society today and we can get a little bit picky. When it comes to that, I remember some of the tales of the depression when my grandmother and grandfather, My Nanny in my Poppy were young families trying to make a go of it. How difficult it was to find what was needed to feed the kids! My grandmother and grandfather worked for while as laborers in an apple orchard and they were allowed to take any of the fallen apples home. That was basically what my dad grew up on when he was of tender years my grandmother apparently had hundreds of ways to preserve apples in jellies and sauces and pies, and all kinds of things. That was because there wasn't that kind of abundance for them. They didn't have the choice of picking the best apples – those went to market! They had to choose what they could find in a hard time. 

And yet we keep hearing (and perhaps it's been too long because we don't hear those voices talking) about how thankful they were for the little things. How thankful they were to have enough food because they knew that it didn't have to be that way. What about you? When you go to the grocery store are you like me just trying to get this job done? I am not a good shopper.  I just want it over with, and I'm not very impressed by all the abundance on the shelves. I wonder whether I shouldn't spend more time just being in awe,  being filled with wonder at how many things we have to choose from; how good we've got it right now. I know that not everyone is doing well financially. It's tough times. It's a difficult economy. Just this summer my wife was laid off and she joined the ranks of so many people who are trying hard to find work in the midst of these things.  It seems to me that we become more thankful, more aware that life isn't to be taken for granted but is to be understood as a great gift for which we can be thankful.

I'm so thankful for the way God provides, but I'm more aware of his provision when there's a bit of need, a bit of a worry. I remember to put my trust in God and I remember that he's the one who gave us the prosperous times as well. As I speak out on the radio, I don't know the condition of the various people who are listening. Some of you might be at the top of your game. You might be celebrating Thanksgiving that is filled with family and abundance, good news and happiness. Or it might be one of those years when your Thanksgiving is a little bit lonely or little bit stressed; difficult for reasons of grief or loss. How do we remain thankful for the harvest that God has given us?

Well one thing I do is I listen to other people giving thanks and that helps to lift my spirits. I want to share with you a song by Greg Sczebel, a Canadian singer and songwriter. The song is simply titled Thank You.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving and the harvest, you may notice that the description I read speaks of two different harvest festivals. One is called the feast of harvest when the first fruits of the crops are brought in, and then at the end of the season is the feast of ingathering when you gather in all the crops from the fields. When the people of Israel celebrated they celebrated two different kinds of harvests: one was the promise of harvest in the feast of first fruits. When first you see ripe fruit, grain or other crops, and you recognize that God has begun to provide what you need, well, that was a great celebration. Then at the end, when all the work of harvest was done, you can see the abundance that God had given, well, then you had another feast!

Sounds like a great plan! But I want to speak about it a third kind of harvest which Scripture tells about. It speaks of the harvest that Jesus was gathering when he went about doing his good work in the gospel according to Matthew. Jesus speaks about that harvest. Jesus went through all the towns and villages teaching their synagogues preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.” Now here was Jesus doing a great work among all the people: healing diseases and sicknesses, preaching the good news. He saw great crowds that needed the blessing of God and he said to the disciples, “This is a harvest.” This is bringing the goodness in the Providence of God into the storehouses. It's the fruit of God's labour to bring salvation. Here is Jesus bringing in the harvest, bringing people into new life, into new health, into God's love, and he says to the disciples that there is a great big harvest, an amazing harvest! The only problem is that not enough people are working in that harvest. There are not enough people going and gathering in the lost and the helpless and bringing them into the safety of God's storehouse. Jesus, immediately upon calling the disciples to pray for workers into the harvest, sends them as workers into the harvest. He called his 12 disciples to him and he gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness and then he sent them into the towns and villages of Israel. He tells them to pray for workers in the harvest and then he sends them as workers in the harvest. 

There is a great harvest that God is gathering even today. I don't know whether you see it around you; whether you belong to a church that is growing or church that is slowly declining;  whether you see great forces at work in society that seem to be impeding the forward progress of the gospel or whether you see the power of the Holy Spirit at work and you, in tangible ways, see that there is a harvest being gathered in. That God is gathering a harvest and he calls us to two things. One is to pray that there will be workers for the harvest. We recognize that this is a work that is so great it requires more than just one pastor at the head of a church, or more than just one committee and the church is engaged in a harvest that requires many workers.  Then as we pray for workers in the harvest he calls us and sends us into that harvest.

You know, when the people of Israel went out to harvest the land for their sustenance, for the food they needed for the year to come, God gave them a particular command  (Leviticus 23:22):

“and when you reap the harvest of your land do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien, I am the Lord your God.”

It seems to me that one way of celebrating how great was God's provision was for the people of Israel to recognize that other people need to be blessed by the harvest that God had given. It wasn't good enough simply to gather all the grain and all the fruit to yourself and keep it all and be glad your storehouse was full. Instead part of their Thanksgiving was leaving something for someone else, letting their field be a blessing to another. Well, as God has gathered you into his harvest as God has gathered you into his storehouse and given you the gift of eternal life, he does call you to share that good news with others.

I know that you are wanting to give thanks to God, and I do too. So let's turn to him in prayer.

Almighty God, we do pray with thanksgiving for all the things you provide: the things our body needs, the things our society needs, the things that our family needs. We know that we still have things that we ask for, things that we lean on you for. You've provided so well that we can trust you for these other things. Help us to be a blessing as you have blessed us, in Jesus name Amen.

Thank you, listeners, for your encouragement and support. We thank you because you keep us on the air week by week. If you can, please make out a cheque payable to Good News Christian Ministries and send it to box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario K0G 1W0. We will send you a receipt at income tax time. Please also tell others about this program and don't forget to mark your calendars for November 1st for that special evening of worship and celebration in Ottawa with Ernie and Linda Cox.

Be sure to worship in a church where the gospel is soundly proclaimed and lived out with compassion, integrity and resolve.

Now to conclude our program here is a song from Mary, Mary. The song is called Thankful and is from the album by the same name.

I do pray that the Lord will hold your heart and you would know Jesus personally and profoundly. May the Holy Spirit reside deep within your heart and may the heavenly Father surround you with his constant and abiding and accompanying love.

Good News In The Morning is produced in the Studios of News Talk Radio.

- Rev. Brian Wilkie

________________________________________

To listen to the above broadcast, click on the following link:

http://proxy.autopod.ca/podcasts/chum/6/16451/good_news_074_oct13.mp3