Union Church

Thanksgiving. October 12, 2008
2 Corinthians 9: 6-11

A saying has come back to me recently from author Ann Lamott. She writes, “One of the secrets of life is that laughter is carbonated holiness.”

It’s a wonderful image.
We’ve all had Coke or Pepsi fizz up our nose.
We’ve all had Ginger Ale foaming on our upper lip.
And we’ve known laughter that bubbles up from a mysterious place and transforms a difficult moment. We’ve known the release of humour in the face of death.

On this Thanksgiving Sunday, let’s play a little with this image.
If laughter is carbonated holiness, then what is Thanksgiving?
Or if laughter is carbonated holiness, then Thanksgiving is...

Our Epistle reading is a Thanksgiving text.
Listen to the progression of descriptive phrases: cheerful giving, sharing abundance, great generosity, harvest of righteousness, and summing up with God given grace.

We could use any one of these phrases to finish the sentence I propose. “If laughter is carbonated holiness then Thanksgiving is cheerful giving.”

If laughter is carbonated holiness then Thanksgiving is sharing abundance.

If laughter is carbonated holiness then Thanksgiving is great generosity.

If laughter is carbonated holiness then Thanksgiving is a harvest of righteousness.

If laughter is carbonated holiness then Thanksgiving is God given grace.

But to stay with the beverage and food theme I would like to suggest that if laughter is carbonated holiness then Thanksgiving is delicious grace. Think about it.

Laughter and Thanksgiving carbonated holiness and delicious grace.

Luke 14: 16-23

Think of a time when you just couldn’t wait. We are not counting the old bodily functions ‘just couldn’t wait.’

Think of a time when you were so sure that something, some idea, some answer, just couldn’t wait.
Remember the build up of energy, the intensity rising up in you or others.
Remember the absolute belief that this thing, this information, this truth just couldn’t wait another second to be expressed.

Maybe you were a child in school, hand waving frantically in the air, words escaping, I know! I know!

Maybe you had just purchased the perfect Christmas present for mom, and were perishing to have her open it right away. And since she wouldn’t open it right then and there you blurted out what it was.

Maybe this wasn’t you. Perhaps you remember your sibling doing it. Probably you remember your child or grandchild caught up in this kind of moment.
One way or another we have all been there ‘when it just can’t wait.’

We have all been in that moment, in the grip of this self-referencing frenzy, where life itself seems to hang in the balance, and we believe it just can’t wait.

Well Jesus tells a parable suggesting that the Kingdom of Heaven ‘just can’t wait’, and those who think it can wait, miss out.

There are three separate versions of this parable.
In Matthew’s hands the parable involves kings and armies and killings and is about who comes to the table. He adds that problematic passage about someone improperly dressed being thrown out. Not a first choice for a Thanksgiving reading.

However, from today’s reading of Luke’s gospel and the gospel of Thomas we can reconstruct Jesus’ original teaching.

A man is giving a big dinner and invited many guests.
At the dinner hour, the host sends his slave to tell the guests: “Come, it’s ready now.”

But one by one they all begin to make excuses.
The first says to him, “I just bought a farm, and must go and inspect it; please excuse me.”
And another says, “I just bought five pair of oxen,
and I’m on my way to check them out;
please excuse me.”
And another says, “I just got married, and so I cannot attend.”

So the slave comes back and reports these excuses to his master.
The master says to his slave, “Go out on the streets and bring back
whomever you find to have dinner, for my banquet just can’t wait.”

Now scholars make a big deal about the rejection implicit in all the first invited guests saying ‘no’, and with such lame excuses to boot.

Listening to it today, suffices it to say that after 2000 years of Christianity our society in general just isn’t interested.
It just doesn’t care enough to make the effort to come to the banquet of the Kingdom of Heaven.

People today don’t even bother with a reasonable excuse for not giving thanks to God.
But since the dream of God can’t be held back,
since God’s bountiful banquet just can’t be wasted,
since the great feast in the midst of life ‘just can’t wait:’

Whoever come are the right people.
Whenever it starts is the right time.
Whatever happens is the only thing that can happen.
When it is over it is over.

So if laughter is carbonated holiness and Thanksgiving is delicious grace:
If the Kingdom of Heaven is a banquet that just can’t wait, then this Thanksgiving, our Thanksgiving is the joy of just being there… just being here! Amen.