Ah, is everybody ready for Thanksgiving?!? I always wish that for the Sunday before Thanksgiving we had the story of Mary and Martha--the one in the Gospels where Martha is frantic in the kitchen while her younger sister Mary sits around with Jesus and the disciples talking. Which infuriates busy Martha, who bursts into the main room and tells Mary to get up and start helping. Then Jesus says (and this is the New International translation of the Bible that I grew up with, so it’s how I learned this story): “Martha you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed.”
Few things are needed.
What do we need this week, for real? Or what do we ever “need,” for real?
Friends. Basic comforts--food, shelter. It doesn’t have to be fancy food, or perfectly cleaned and decorated shelter. If you don’t like cooking turkey, cook something else--it’ll be fine. We need a sense of purpose. A sense of belonging. Decent health. More and more I think happiness lies in curtailing our wants to as few things as possible, and yet we unthinkingly assume it lies in that next thing, that next step, that next milestone, achievement, accolade. Only to get there and have the same sense of emptiness as before.
It makes me think of a line from Pascal: 'All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.' Or, back to Jesus: few things are needed.
That’s not our reading for this morning, but it’s in the spirit of them, especially the Gospel. This comes from the Sermon on the Mount, and it’s one of Jesus’ most famous teachings:
"I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”
I took the liberty of replacing our regularly assigned reading for the last Sunday of Pentecost with this coming Thursday’s propers (or readings) for Thanksgiving Day. I didn’t think anyone would mind. The bishop needn’t know :) But with readings like this, how could I not?
As we enter a season with so many expectations and so much excess, we should be reminded today of Jesus’ admonition that we truly need much less than we think. That happiness lies in simplicity. It may not come naturally for us as it does to the birds of the air and flowers of the field. Paradoxically, simplicity for us takes work. We have to train ourselves in it. With each small refusal to take on that extra task, with each small and unnecessary want put away, with every rejection of perfectionism and unrealistic standards, with each quiet afternoon in our own room, or each observant walk outside ... with such small decisions we make every day We get closer to the state of simplicity that Jesus knew would make us freer, happier, more attuned to God, to each other, and to the world around us.
Remember, Jesus said: “Few things are needed.”
I’m keeping this morning’s sermon simple, too. And short. But before I sit down there’s one more thing I want to mention: today we’re winding down our Annual Appeal, the theme of which is “In Thanksgiving for God’s Blessings.”
The other thing about a simple life is that it’s a more Thankful Life. Gratitude somehow gets lost in striving for more. And it’s gratitude that motivates the best in us. Helping our neighbors in need, giving generously to things we care about (like our church, especially our church!), taking time with our kids, our parents, our loved ones: it all comes much more easily when we’re grounded in the knowledge and assurance of God’s grace.
Last week I preached about our budget, our (very real) needs here, the fact that we’re totally supported from the ground up; we get nothing from outside this congregation. If you didn’t catch that sermon, please read or listen to it online. I think it’ll convince you to be generous.
I appealed then to the need. But I’d always rather appeal to our sense of gratitude for all we’ve been given. I have to believe that’s the greater appeal, and I hope that it, first and foremost, motivates you to give, and to give generously, to St. James the Less.
So as you sit around the table this Thursday, please count (of course) all your blessings, and remember to count this place among the things in your life you’re thankful for. Amen.