Sunday, October 09, 2005

Proper 23

Deuteronomy 8
7For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with springs that gush forth in the valleys and hills. 8It is a land of wheat and barley, of grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, olives, and honey. 9It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. 10When you have eaten your fill, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
11"But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and laws. 12For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, 13and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, 14that is the time to be careful. Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt.

The pattern is well known to each of us:

I had a terrible case of...
But then I discovered...
And now...

Anyone who has ever watch more than a minute of television can fill in the blanks. "I had terrible dandruff, but then I discovered Head and Shoulders and now I'm dandruff free." You too can be an ad writer. Let's try it together:

I had a terrible case of...
But then I discovered...
And now...

This simple and well-worn formula works on the highly attuned sense on inadequacy that each of us feel. My teeth are not white enough. My dishes are not white enough. Even my whites are not white enough. Am I the only one who puzzles over the concept of whiter whites? Thank goodness I'm colourblind, although I'm not altogether certain that this makes me exempt from having whiter whites and brighter brights and all the other things that rhyme with unspeakable cleanliness.

***

7For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with springs that gush forth in the valleys and hills. 8It is a land of wheat and barley, of grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, olives, and honey. 9It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. 10When you have eaten your fill, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

It seems that the Bible is not beyond the time-honoured approach that many an ad man could understand. Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament scholar, draws the connection between the familiar pattern in advertising and a biblical formula regarding giving thanks. The pattern is as follows:

1. A review of a crisis that God has solved.
2. An account of a rescue from trouble, which is fully credited to God.
3. An invitation that the community join in thanksgiving. (p. 211)

Looking at all of Deuteronomy 8, we find all the elements are there:

Remember how the LORD your God led you through the wilderness for forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would really obey his commands.

Do not become proud at that time and forget the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry.

For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land...when you have eaten your fill, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.

The pattern--crisis, rescue and thanksgiving--appears throughout the scriptures: in the historical writings, in the Psalms, and in some of the prophetic writings. It is a pattern that is familiar beyond the trivializing realm of advertising and finds itself in everyday life. How often do we recount personal stories that follow essentially the same pattern. Something bad happened; we were saved; thank heavens for that. As a mode of story telling, it makes good text. We convey our stories using the conventional pattern because it honours the resolution by framing it in a dramatic way.

The biblical text usually goes further. Re-read a variety of crisis-rescue-thanks passages and you will also find a set of warnings. Think of the drug ads that list all of the possible side effects that may occur. Can a drug be any good if the list of side effects is longer that the list of benefits? And I love it when the side effects contradict one another. "May cause drowsiness or sleeplessness." Or the standard "Do not operate heavy machinery." Am I to presume that heavy machine operators take a lot of medication?

Warning:

If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods, worshiping and bowing down to them, you will certainly be destroyed. Just as the LORD has destroyed other nations in your path, you also will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.

The greatest temptation in the context of these passages is misplaced thanks. In many ways, it makes sense. Imagine you are an ancient near-eastern farmer and you are worried about your crop. You are busy praying to God for a good harvest. You know, however, that your neighbour over the next hill is praying to another god, maybe a more specific god like a harvest god or a wheat god, and tell me that you wouldn't be a little bit tempted.

For years my parents had a little St. Christopher thingy on their dashboard that some previous owner left there. When challenged on not being Roman Catholic, not being in the habit of praying to saints, or even the fact the St. Christopher has been de-listed from the official list of saints, my parents remained unrepentant. "We're doing okay so far," they would say, "so the thingy stays." End of discussion.

Back to our ancient near-eastern farmer, the temptation to utter a little prayer to Baal (which can be easily translated to mean "other neighbourhood gods) was very great. God, our God, however, is a little particular about such things. Re-read the ten commandments and you will recall that idolatry is something that God won't tolerate. Most often, it is rooted in our inability to give thanks where thanks is due.

Today, of course, idolatry is bigger than ever. Self-congratulation and an unwillingness to thank God for the things we enjoy is epidemic. Read anything that is even vaguely related to personal finance or success in the marketplace and you will find that familiar theme of misplaced thankfulness. After we have given thanks for self-directed RRSPs, a low prime rate and the so-called success of the big 5 we seem to have little time left for the Creator And Maker of All.

***

At Passover, Jewish families pause to remember the Exodus and give thanks for rescue from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. The format is most often question and answer, with the youngest child asking the traditional Passover questions and the father or leader of the ritual providing the answers. Let's listen in:

How is this night different from all other nights?

For on all other nights we eat both leavened and unleavened bread, but on this night only unleavened bread. On all other nights we eat meat that is roasted, boiled or cooked; but on this night only roasted. On other nights we eat many dishes, but this night we have only these before us.

Why is this night so special?

This night is like no other in our year, for this night is special to the people of Israel. This was the night when we passed from death to life, from slavery to freedom.

Notice the immediacy of the language and the extent to which it seems to ignore time. "This is the night WE passed from death to life, from slavery to freedom." Not our ancestors: we were released from bondage and entered into freedom. Why?

The language is immediate because for God time does not exist. Time is a human construct designed to make us late for things. Time is an artificial means to send things to the past that properly belong in the here and now. For everyone who sits around a table and considers Pharaoh there are obvious ways to define bondage. Bondage to patterns of behaviour. Bondage to things that bring us temporary distraction. Insert your bondage here...

From Walter Brueggemann:

As Pharaoh is a harbinger for all such oppressors, so the narrative makes clear that Pharaoh in the end is always defeated. This narrative and its immense generativity represent the most compelling mode the Bible has through which to enunciate the decisive conviction that the world and the reality God are deeply intertwined, so that the well-being of the world is a gift of God's glory.

***

We give thanks because we are surrounded by immeasurable bounty. We give thanks because God is endlessly generous with things we need from the food on our table to the forgiveness we crave. It is a familiar idea that God knows our need before we ask it, and sets it before us.

We are most thankful for minds to know God and minds to discern God's desire for us. At thanksgiving, amid the celebration of bounty, we don't lose sight of the families we serve through the foodbank, for example, and look to God for the strength to continue this ministry and work to an end to all foodbanks. We seek God's help in freeing families from the bondage of poverty. We cannot do it alone.

May God bless us as we gather together to express thanks. Amen.

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