Domes - Our Monthly Newsletter
Dunbar UCC
November 19, 2006
Mark 13:1-8
Pop-Tarts
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Do you believe next Thursday is Thanksgiving? It’s hard for me to imagine that on Thursday morning Janet and Brindle and I will get up at six and drive to my mother’s house in Falls Church, Virginia. Wasn’t it just August? But the calendar says this Thursday is Thanksgiving. So it’s time to think about what we’re thankful for.
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Right now -- this moment -- what are we thankful for? Should we thank God for our gloomy Gospel reading? Jesus predicts that the Temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed, and there will be earthquakes and famines and wars. Wars everywhere.
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Sounds like this morning’s news. Should we be thankful for that? Maybe we should be afraid. Some people tell us to be afraid of “terrorists.” What’s a terrorist? If you live in Iran, we’re the terrorists. One country makes another an enemy and then calls them a name, and says, “O be afraid, be very afraid. These people hate you and they will hurt you. So get them first.”
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What did Jesus say about that? He said, “Don’t be afraid of people who can kill your body -- you’re going to lose that anyway. But worry about your soul. Be AFRAID about losing that!”
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So what am I thankful for this Thanksgiving? I’m thankful for a man I saw on the news three or four years ago, who showed me the true meaning of the holiday we will celebrate next week. Listen to this. Our country had just invaded Afghanistan. We dropped a lot of bombs and ruined many peoples homes. These people were poor already, and now they had no home and no village to live in. As they looked for shelter, they were starving. U.S. cargo planes dropped them food. CNN had a camera crew and reporter at one drop-site and interviewed the people desperately tearing at the boxes. One package had Pop-Tarts. The reporter asked a man what he had to say to the people who gave him this food. He held up a box of Pop-Tarts and said “I wouldn’t give this to my pig.” Then he spat and threw them on the ground and said, “May Allah punish the Americans.” Then the reporter asked another man: “What do you have to say to the people who gave you this.” The man looked at the reporter, and with a box of Pop-Tarts in one hand and the other hand over his heart he said in broken English: “Thank you.”
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And I thought: With all the terrible things that happened to that poor man, he still has his soul. And I’ve never heard a “Thank you” spoken with more grace and eloquence. He showed me that thanksgiving doesn’t depend on our circumstances, but on whether or not we still have our soul. Which is why Christ came: to heal the sickness of our souls, so that we can also be gracious, and kind, and thankful all the time, no matter what good or bad thing is happening to us. To me, the greatest gift is to be able to live every moment from the soul. And on this Thanksgiving, as I clink my wine glass with those of my family members around the table, that is the gift I will be most grateful for.