Thanksgiving is ancient and almost universal, almost all cultures have a time of giving thanks for the bounty of the harvest. The harvest meant the difference between starvation or sustenance.

I am a city girl.

Which means I am out of touch with the fact that I, too, am still dependent on forces beyond my control for my basic survival.

Because we are not an agrarian people, we put the cornucopia here and invited each of you to bring symbols of the fruits of our labors. It isn’t easy. So many of us don’t have a ‘product’ that is as easily recognized as is some fruit or grain or vegetables.

But we are not so far removed  from the farm that we are not aware that we still reap what we sow. And so it seems this morning on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we are asked not just to be grateful for all that we have been given; we are also challenged to be aware of what kinds of crops we may be planting, nurturing, watering, tending to be harvested later.

I am not much of a gardener. But I have learned this: if you want an oak tree, don’t plant carrot seeds in the hope that they will grow into oak trees. No amount of prayer or longing will change that.

I want to be a more enlightened person. In Calvin’s terms: I seek in my life to more fully glorify God and enjoy God.

In other words, to be more open to what God is doing in the world. To be more open to letting God’s love flow in and through me.

Gordon Atkinson recently wrote some signs of spiritual enlightenment that can be helpful in determining how well I may be doing on my quest:

  •        The embracing of paradox.

  •        The love of mystery in the presence of unanswered questions.

  •        The acceptance of your small place in reality.

  •        The willingness to engage in spiritual exercises without knowing how they will work or even what it would mean for them to work.

  •        The increase of the love, grace, forgiveness, and patience visible in your life.

I believe life is a dance with God, but only if we allow God to lead.

Our texts today are filled with metaphor for the dance:

Hannah begs God for a child and Jesus talks of birth pangs. Nothing turns life upside down more surely than a birth.

Hannah needed a child. She yearned for a child. She was desperate for a child. Her husband, who already had many children by his other wife, Peninnah, didn’t get it. His plea to the grieving Hannah seems to come from a man out of touch with her reality:

“Why is your heart so sad?”

It reminds us of last week’s psalm: “Why are you cast down, O my soul?”

Just as in the story of Ruth, God comes to the aid of a woman. In a culture that viewed being barren as a curse as well as leaving a woman at social and financial risk, Hannah’s husband really doesn’t seem to understand her problem. Even though his other wife, Peninnah, had borne him lots of children, he clearly favored Hannah by giving Hannah double portions. (One can only imagine the tension in that home!)

And his plea to Hannah, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” is both dear and tragic at the same time. He so wanted to make things better, but he couldn’t. He was blind to the larger picture. Of course, this is not his story. It is Hannah’s. And she will not give up. She pleads and bargains with God. She made a fool of herself before the priest, who thought she was drunk, but in the end, she is given a son. And not just any son. She is given Samuel, priest and prophet and the last of the judges of Israel.

Hannah keeps her vow to God, when she takes the child to the temple and her song is our psalm for this week. You may hear it echoed in the Magnificat. Both women seek to give thanks to God for the gift of life. And both sound words that proclaim the upside down kin-dom of God, proclaiming God to be doing new, and radical things. “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”

Robert McAfee Brown said, “Reversal is the order of the day in the kingdom of God.”

Hannah, like Ruth, is a metaphor for God’s care for the lowly and downtrodden. Hannah is lifted up in this story to remind the people to be open to God’s leading.To recognize once again that their lives are not just about them. They are in this with God.

Hannah’s story took place at the end of the Judges period, when Israel was in disarray. Israel was under threat by the Philistines and was also suffering from decay and corruption in it’s own life. Israel needed deliverance. As always, those composing these texts believed the Israelites had brought these troubles on themselves, because they were not being faithful to God’s directives in their lives. They believed God’s intervention was their only hope for salvation.

As usual, they were looking for a strong leader. A male leader. They were looking in high places and among the rich and powerful. They were looking for those whom society honors as the best and the brightest. Because that is where we always look.

Even when we know in story after story that God works in unexpected ways. This time, God has chosen to intervene in history through the young, desperate, childless Hannah. Her prayers are answered, her bargain made: she was rewarded with not just Samuel, but three sons and two daughters.

This story is so similar to the story of Ruth that we dare not ignore it. God chooses a woman to be the hero in this crucial moment in salvation history. In this patriarchal culture, in these texts written by men to maintain that patriarchal culture, and at a time when women were treated as the lowest of the low, there is something remarkable to find these stories of both Ruth and Hannah as the ones who bear for God’s people the action of God’s saving work.

Yes, it is through childbearing, but the focus of the text is on her perseverance and trust in God. Her willingness to work with God, her willingness to look beyond her own self centered needs to the greater needs of her people. It begs the question: where in our lives do we feel barren? What parts of our own lives seem pointless?

Can we, like Hannah, connect our own needs to the greater needs of the world around us? Can we offer our emptiness and longing as a place for God to move in and through us?

Hannah’s redemption is a metaphor for Israel’s (and for our own) redemption. Hannah teaches us how to be faithful and how to trust in God. For here, in this long line of women who trust in God, we find the mothers of Samuel, David, and finally, Jesus. Amazing things can be born into our world when we are open to God’s leading.

Each of these women praises God with thanksgiving, but they are not only celebrating for themselves. It isn’t just personal. They see God’s hand in helping the weak and the poor, and praise God who casts down the mighty and raises up the lowly. Hannah’s world was turned upside-down and if we pay attention, we, too, can see God’s broader workings.

Look (we are taught) for God to be turning the world topsy-turvy in the most unlikely places and in the most unlikely ways and among the most unlikely people.

Things hadn’t changed that much when Jesus showed up on the scene, and they were even worse by the time Mark wrote his gospel.

Our reading from Mark is called a “little Apocalypse.” I doubt that many of you remember that the last of this chapter was the first gospel text of our liturgical year, which is about to come to an end next week.This chapter of Mark has been used as almost bookends to the liturgical year.

 It began the first Sunday in Advent.  I remember only because it was the first Sunday I preached here officially as your pastor. It seemed funny to me at the time to begin our time together by talking about the end of the world.

But in reality, there can be no beginnings without endings.

Ched Myers, who does a wonderful job of reading Mark politically, points out  (in his book “Say to This Mountain”) that scholars believe that Mark was written in the context of the Judean Revolt of 66-70 CE, with the call to arms ringing to come to Jerusalem’s defense.

According to Myers: “(Jesus’) apocalyptic sermon, with its cautionary refrain to “Watch out!” (13:5,9,23, 33) suggests that Mark’s community was critical of both imperial collaborators and nationalists. It’s non-violent stance, refusing to cooperate with either the Jewish guerillas or the Roman counterinsurgency, earned it persecution from both sides of the war.

The disciples, representing the anxious concern of a community caught in the war, pose a double question to Jesus (13:4).

When will this be and what will be the sign that these things are to be accomplished?"

Let me say that once again. I don’t think it can be said enough. Jesus was committed to a way of non-violence. As was the early church. They were radically non-violent.

The early Christians seemed to know that if violence is at all an option – it inevitably becomes the path chosen. When I read Myers words I was reminded of the strain the Pleasant Hill Shaker’s must have been under during the Civil War, when, even though they didn’t condone slavery (because it, too, is a form of violence) they refused to take up arms against either side.

Once again, we are reminded that God is working in different ways.

John Dominic Crossan reminds us that we have a tendency to think the way the culture thinks. Actually, what happens is that we quit thinking. We participate in ‘group think.’ We become unconscious. We go along with the crowd. And the way of the culture is this: First, ‘victory’ and then ‘peace.’

The message of Jesus was and is profoundly counter-cultural. Because the message of Jesus was and is: First, ‘justice’ and then ‘peace.’

Violence does not get peace. Carrots do not grow into oak trees.

Our Mark text begins with the disciple’s awe. Ched Myers, sees the stage direction of Jesus taking a seat facing the temple as the dramatic action symbolizing Jesus’ utter repudiation of the temple-state, the entire socio-symbolic order of Judaism fallen from its true self, in its exploitation of the poor, and denial of who and what it was meant to be. Jesus’ words are so timely we need to pay attention: “Beware that no one lead you astray.”

Beyond our lesson, in verse 14 is a parenthesis, “let the reader understand.”

Has Mark inserted a revolutionary broadside into his gospel?

Meyers also poses this question:  "What does it mean for us to discern the signs of the times today, and to retain hope in the face of so much violence and discouragement?"

The epistle to the Hebrews picks up on the theological dimension of the new thing that God is doing with the destruction of the temple as seen through Christian eyes. (Keep in mind that the epistle was written before the gospel.)

Michaela Bruzzese wrote:

 “Eschatological, or "final judgment," texts were always popular during times of severe persecution and oppression, in both Jewish and Christian circles. They provided hope for those experiencing persecution and reminded believers that suffering and evil, while mysteries, were not meaningless. Rather, the community was encouraged to remain faithful despite adversity, for God too shall remain faithful.... It is likely that at the time of the writing of Hebrews, the Christian community was truly expecting Jesus' second coming, and thus the end of the world. Paul reminds them to observe the laws of God as revealed in Christ, now and "all the more as you see the Day approaching" (Hebrews 10:25). 

Though these expectations have changed, the texts still serve a valuable purpose. With the close of the liturgical year, next week the church prepares to celebrate the Reign of Christ. The kin-dom is the beatitude kin-dom, the upside-down kin-dom where the last are first, where those who suffer for justice and righteousness will be comforted. It is a place where the community considers "how to provoke one another to love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:24); where we can "all  enter the sanctuary (because of) Jesus" (Hebrews 10:19). No longer are women or other "impure" persons excluded from God's presence: In Jesus we are made one and we are all worthy. And Jesus himself emphasizes that it is not just our oppressive social structures that must be destroyed and rebuilt, but any religious ones too. No matter how glorious our church buildings, structures that exclude others "will all be thrown down" (Mark 13:2). Jesus assures us that the coming of the kin-dom will truly bring cataclysmic changes, especially to structures of death that oppress and exclude those who seek justice, mercy, and love.”

Thanksgiving, like many of our holidays, can look very different from other perspectives. Native Americans, for instance, will tell you that first Thanksgiving was not necessarily a joyous feast for a people whose land had been invaded, whose population had been nearly destroyed by the new illnesses for which they had no immunity, for which the  ‘Christian’ invaders thanked God.

Awareness, consciousness, intentional decisions and actions are called for as we sow.

There is a story of a Native American grandfather who tells his grandson that there are within us two wolves fighting to the death. Only one can win.  One is on the side of right, compassion, justice, beauty, truth and love. It is the wolf that works for the good of the pack, the whole. The other is only concerned with self, and hatred has made it’s heart small. It tears others down and judges and criticizes in order to build itself up. It is mean-spirited and proud, and prefers lies to truth.”

“Which wolf will win?” asks the boy.

The grandfather puts his arm around his grandson and says, “The one you feed.”

As we thank God this week for the many blessings in our lives, let us also examine our selves and our works on behalf of God. Let us seek to be a people planting for the sake of all, let us seek to sow and nurture justice, mercy, and love in our lives and in our world.