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Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! (Joel
2:21)
Don’t you just hate it
when stuff like this happens? Our First Lesson for the American Day of
Thanksgiving is a reading from the Hebrew prophet Joel (Joel 2:21-27), and the
backstory on this is a total bummer. Now, you may not know a whole lot
about Joel. He’s considered a “minor prophet.” That’s not because he’s not an
important guy or because he’d get carded if he wanted to buy a sixpack. The
term just means that his book of prophetic writing is a lot shorter than the
books ascribed to Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Those guys (or their
disciples who came after them) did a lot more prophesying and wrote much longer
books so they get to be called “major prophets.”
But I digress.
Being a minor prophet
doesn’t mean Joel doesn’t have something important to tell us. He comes on the
scene around 400 – 350 BCE (or so we think), just as the exiles of Judah (or,
more likely, their kids and grandkids) have returned from captivity in the
now-defeated Babylon. The Jews are trying to get their act together, rebuild
their capital city and its temple, and try to start over again as a vassal
nation of the Persian Empire. This must’ve been a real rough patch for them.
Here they are back in the Promised Land and there doesn’t seem to be a whole
lot of promise. Everything is in ruins, but they plow ahead anyway and, just as
it seems like they’re becoming a nation again, they suffer a massive setback.
Joel chapter 1 and some of chapter 2 describe a very inconvenient and vastly
unpleasant interruption to their attempt at revival—a devastating plague of
locusts.
I’ve never seen an actual
plague of locusts myself, mind you, but I’ve seen that great old movie The
Good Earth. It was made back in 1937, but the special effects aren’t too
shabby. There’s a scene depicting a massive infestation of these insatiably
hungry insects—millions of them in a swarm so thick they black out the sky
before descending to munch on the grain harvest of helpless Chinese peasants[i]. The camera gives a
close-up of the bugs crawling on the ears of grain and on the bodies of the
peasants as they try to fight them off and pray that the wind will change
before the bugs can devour their entire food supply. It’s pretty exciting and
pretty gross at the same time if you’re not into looking at millions of
grasshoppers.
The prophet Joel
describes just such an infestation which has devoured everything—grain, grapes,
and the olives needed for oil. An attempt to fire the fields to scare off the
invading bugs has failed. Joel describes the grasshoppers as a relentless army
that passes through the smoke, scales the walls of the city, and is crawling
into peoples’ homes. Yuck! And like any good ancient Jew, he maintains this
catastrophe is a punishment from God. He doesn’t say exactly why, but he
warns the people they better pull their heads out, repent, and turn back to the
Lord.[ii]
But Joel’s not all doom
and gloom. Our assigned reading for Thanksgiving is actually pretty uplifting.
Yes, things were rather crappy when the grasshoppers ate everything, but
anything is endurable if you know it’s not going to be forever. God is good and
merciful. The crops will grow again, the rain will come again, and maybe there
won’t be any bugs this year. A little gratitude to God would be in order.
I feel a little like
those ancient post-exilic Jews, don’t you? It’s a crazy time in the history of
the world. Church attendance has fallen and attitudes about religion are
shifting. We’re just barely back from the Great Exile that was COVID-19 and
we’re trying to put a congregation back together again with limited resources.
At least we don’t have to
deal with a swarm of locusts.
It may look at times like
everything is going against us, but God is still our God. God’s still gracious
and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Normally I don’t
do a year-in-review until it’s time to write the Annual Report, but I think
practicing gratitude calls for a brief recap right now.
In May of last year, we
predicted a deficit which would, we thought, deplete our savings by Easter of
this year. Easter has come and gone, and we’re still here. In fact, it’s
conceivable we might be around for yet another year.
We have received new,
active members this year. Some of our teens have picked up the mantle and have
become the third generation of Faith’s Christian Ed Department by
organizing VBS, reviving our annual Christmas play, and doing a great job—along
with some older adults—with the Kids’ Time on Sunday mornings. We are regrowing
our decimated Sunday School program from seed. We also confirmed three
youngsters at Pentecost and have three more in our current Confirmation
program.
Our AC system has been
repaired and we’ve repaid all the money we spent to fix it. We are debt free.
We’re coming together as
a family through fellowship meals like we did on Maundy Thursday, Welcome
Sunday, and recently our “Football Sunday.”
We have gifted deacons
and assisting ministers who can hold down the fort when Pastor is away.
We’re still growing
veggies in our garden and providing carloads of food for the food bank. Through
nickel and dime monthly donations we’ve given away over $1,600 for various
charities—not counting our monthly gift to the Synod and our sponsorship of a
Honduran school boy.
But like Joel, I’d say
some repentance is in order. The difference is, our change of heart and mind
won’t be engulfed in contrition as the old prophet demanded. Our repentance will
be more in line with the words of Jesus in our Thanksgiving Gospel (Matthew 6: 25-33).
This is a time to take a breath and refocus. Let’s, just for this moment, take
our minds off what we don’t have and be grateful for what has been given
to us. Let’s see our God as a God of abundance and not one of scarcity. Let’s appreciate
our God who never stops being good even when we fail to recognize that goodness.
I’m always moved by the
story of this national day of giving thanks to God. As kids we heard the story
of grateful British Puritans feasting with generous (if somewhat naïve about
what was coming) Indigenous Americans. We might forget those Puritans lost half
of their company to hunger and disease the previous year. They were just glad
to be alive. When Abe Lincoln declared the November tradition to be a national
holiday, our country was right in the middle of the Civil War. Lincoln knew
times were bad, but he was grateful they weren’t any worse. When FDR set the
second to last Thursday in November as the official date for Thanksgiving,
America was just creeping on hands and knees out of the Great Depression while
holding our breath as we watched war break out in Europe. Thanksgiving has
never been about denying hard times or challenges. It’s about gratefully
acknowledging our capacity to meet them. For we serve a good and loving God who
is good all the time.
So, let’s celebrate. Let’s
replace worry with gratitude and pessimism with faith. Let’s seek after the goodness
of God and believe all these things—that is, all the things we really do need—will
be added unto us. Hallelujah!
May God’s peace be with you and may you and your family enjoy a loving and peaceful day of thanks.
[i]
Okay. Disclaimer. The Good Earth is still a pretty good flick, but it’s
not exactly woke by today’s standards. It follows the story of its Chinese
protagonists as respectfully as a film based on a novel by a white American
author can, but the actors who play the lead roles are white Europeans made up to
look Asian. Good actors but still, not cool.
[ii]
We use some of this material from Joel in the Lectionary for Ash Wednesday.
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