Raise the Song of Harvest Home

A Sermon by The Rev. Jerome F. Politzer

We gather together to offer thanksgiving to Almighty God for all the benefits that He has granted unto us.  We praise Him for our lives created by Him and redeemed through His Son Jesus Christ and sanctified each day by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit.  We thank Him for the privilege of living in this great land where we have the opportunity to work and prosper.  We thank Him for our families and friends and for all those we love.  It is truly a blessed thing to be thankful.

Pilgrims give thanks before forging a life in the New World.

It is significant that the prayers and scriptures that are set aside for our worship on this Thanksgiving Day stress not only the good gifts of God, but also our responsibility as the recipients of those gifts.  In the collect for today we ask God to bless our labors so that our land will bring forth its increase and we might prosper.  We do not simply ask God to keep pouring His gifts into our lives out of heaven.  We have the responsibility to work in order to obtain the gifts that He gives us.

In the Epistle for today St. James admonishes the followers of our Lord to be doers, not just hearers.  The responsibility that is laid upon us is that we work for the gifts of God, that we labor to preach the gospel and spread His word, that we do good works to help those who are hungry, homeless, and sick.  These things do not happen automatically.  There is a requirement of motivation and activity on our part, and then God’s gifts are poured down upon us.

It is an interesting historical fact, of which few people are aware, that several expeditions of pilgrims set out from Great Britain for this New World. An earlier expedition found its way to the West Indies. In that warm climate things were much easier for the colonists. They experienced a much more hospitable reception.  However, the West Indies colony disappeared and dropped out of history, and is almost totally forgotten.

Whereas the Pilgrim Fathers, who landed on the rock-bound coast of New England, found hardship, cold weather, and difficult circumstances.  Yet, motivated by the gospel and their own energies, they did the best they could with what they found there, and they laid the foundation for this great land.

If you have ever thought of what the traditional food of the Thanksgiving Day feast has to do with the Pilgrim Fathers, consider the fact that all the primary elements are found naturally growing or living wild in the wilderness. It took hard work to gather and prepare them.  The cranberries had to be picked in the swamps.  The yams and sweet potatoes had to be dug up from the ground.  The turkeys had to be hunted in the forest.  The pumpkins had to be gathered from the fields.  The pumpkin is perhaps the meanest of food growing on this earth. When prepared correctly, what a feast they made!

Today when we celebrate Thanksgiving, we are in a symbolic way going back to that original experience and reliving the necessity to do the best with what we have. Then, miraculously, in a wonderful way, God’s blessings flow down upon us.

Today as we grace our Thanksgiving Day tables with all of these delicacies, let us not forget their origin.  They were simply the raw materials that were available in the wilderness, without which our Pilgrim Fathers would have starved to death.  They responded to their own needs by working hard, and by taking advantage of the opportunities that were there before them.

“Feed me, feed me!”

We should not expect God’s gifts to be shoveled into our mouths as if we were tiny birds in a nest and all that we had to do was look up and all these good things would be showered down upon us.  No, we have to seek out the opportunities that are there and develop them.  Then our free enterprise will be rewarded by success.  This is what we should be thankful for: the combination of God’s good gifts as well as our God-given motivation and energy to make use of these gifts. This is known as the Puritan Work Ethic. We need always to do our part as the beneficiaries of God’s blessings.

Unfortunately, not everyone in this country looks at life in this way.  An example of how some folks feel that work is beneath them is the story of an individual in a depressed part of the United States, who had a friend with enough enterprise to get out of the backwoods and move to a big city.  He wrote back to his friend in the country and said, “Come up here to Chicago.  There are jobs everywhere. There is money in the streets and all you have to do is come up here and pick it up.”

This sounded very interesting to this individual so he bought a bus ticket and rode all the way to Chicago.  He arrived there on a nice sunny morning, got out of the bus, met his friend, and walked out onto State Street from the bus station.  Right there in front of them was a $20 bill lying on the sidewalk. His friend said, “Pick it up.”  He replied, “Not me.  No way am I going to work on my first day in Chicago.” There are some people who still do not get the message that they have to do their part.Booker T. Washington was an outstanding educator and communityleader in

 our country. He founded a great educational institution and a system of education. He is also to be remembered for the inspiration that he has given
to all of us. He stressed that we must do our part in receiving God’s good gifts. He made a famous speech in 1895, which was based upon a true story.
He told about a ship, which was becalmed off the coast of Brazil and had run out of fresh water. The captain and crew were in desperate straits. They hoped to find some help as they drifted through the seas.  About the third day they saw in the distance another ship appearing over the horizon.  They flashed a semaphore saying, “Send us fresh water; we need help!”  The signal came back from the neighboring ship, “Put down your buckets where you are.” They repeated their distress cry and the same answer came back. Puzzled they lowered their buckets and they found that for days, without realizing it, they had been drifting through fresh water. They were in the outflow area of the great Amazon River, which is so plenteous that its fresh water flows out into the ocean for hundreds of miles.

St. John’s Chapel, Monterey, California

Booker T. Washington gave this speech over and over to the people of this country. In it he emphasized the necessity for us to do the same.  We need to put down our buckets where we are.  The ingredients for success are all around us.

Every great movement, every great success story in this country is based upon an individual or groups of individuals who have done this very thing.   They have taken the ingredients and the opportunities that were right there at hand and put them to work and succeeded with them.  God blesses the labors of the workman, and pours out his gifts upon him.  If we will work then God will respond with His good gifts.

We are truly thankful that we live in a land in which there is opportunity, there is wealth, and there is hope for the future.  We are grateful as well that God has given us the intellect, the strength, and the will power to make good use of these propitious circumstances.

Most of all, we are grateful for the redemption that He has given us through our Lord Jesus Christ.  God has promised us if, in a spiritual sense we will put down our buckets where we are, that He will constantly replenish and refill them with His life-giving Spirit.    His Spirit will be like a stream of fresh water welling up inside us each day.  In spite of defeat, disappointment, and sorrow, He will refresh and renew us time and time again.  He will give us the motivation to live our lives creatively and successfully.

For all of these good things, we thank God today.  At the Holy Eucharist this morning we share in the feast of our Lord.  Christ comes, through His Spirit, to dwell in our hearts, to feed us spiritually, and to strengthen us.  Let us then return to our homes with joy and gratitude for all of these good things and share them with our families and our friends. In the words of a delightful Thanksgiving Day ballad: “Hurrah for the fun.  Is the pudding done?  Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!”

The Rev. Jerome F. Politzer serves on the Advisory Council of ETF. Fr. Politzer gave this sermon in St. John’s Chapel, Monterey, California. St. John’s is an Episcopal parish that honors its commitment to the worldwide Anglican Communion and worships using the traditional 1928 Book of Common Prayer.