On behalf of all the Yankees, I would just say to Joe, better late than never.

I think that before I do anything else, I really need to share with you some extremely good news coming out of our Stewardship Sunday.

Based on past experience, we're aware of the fact that on any given Sunday, various people are away, and we would estimate that probably only about 80% of those who will be participating in making pledges to the Lord and to the support of Truro Church, only about 80% were here on Stewardship Sunday. That's typical of past years, in spite of which fact, something happened that nobody can remember happening previously, namely that we made our budget in one morning.

We were so overwhelmed at one more demonstration of God's goodness and faithfulness to us as we seek to be faithful to Him. And within the vestry, the sense of one more confirmation that yes, in fact, we're hearing Him. He's leading us. He's showing us where He would have us go as a people. We had quite an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday evening.

even more exciting to us than the simple dollars involved in all of that was the fact that there was such an evidence of God's people wanting to do His will as they simply begin to hear it and understand it. Over 75% of the folks making pledges checked one or the other of those two statements about committing themselves to a program of tithing. And the bottom line of all that is that we felt very much moved by the Spirit of God to vote to go directly to 35% outreach next year rather than the 30% that we had planned. We're just thrilled at what God is doing. And I had to share that with you.

Having said all that, I want to confess to you that I find the subject of Thanksgiving Day rather a difficult one. Not Thanksgiving itself, not the subject of giving thanks, but the subject of Thanksgiving Day, the observance of this particular national holiday. And the reason is that it's become a celebration of abundance.

And I think that's somewhat short-sighted. In the first place, it's a distortion historically. We have a kind of a mythic view of what was going on at that first Thanksgiving that's come down to us, that those pilgrims and their Indian friends were sitting around at tables laden down with sumptuous abundance.

And the truth of the matter is that it was a pretty desperate situation. They just barely made it. The weather had been extremely severe. Out of the first 103 who came over, 51 died during that first winter.

Yes, there were some Indian friends, But there were a whole lot of Indians who weren't so friendly. They had gotten up very few buildings because they were so concerned to get in that first harvest so they could make it through the next winter.

And I think that a careful examination would say to us that it wasn't so much that they were thanking God because of the abundance that was theirs,

as they were deliberately choosing to thank Him in the midst of still quite precarious circumstances.

They were choosing to affirm His goodness. They were choosing to say He is trustworthy, even though at the present moment there aren't any guarantees. It's rather a different picture than the one that's come down to us, I think. I'm reminded again of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego saying to King Nebuchadnezzar, God is able to deliver us from this fiery furnace, but even if He doesn't, we praise Him. We thank Him.

The problem with being thankful merely for abundance is at least twofold.

First of all, we know that abundance can be a snare as well as a blessing. It can be a snare. You can get so caught up with the things of this world that in the last analysis you're worshipping them. You're fascinated with them. Jesus said, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul? Things, abundance, can be a snare.

What does it profit us to heap up more and more material goods, more and more financial blessing, if in the process we end up losing our families?

What does it profit you to take on a bigger and a better paying job if in the process you lose your kids

or your integrity or your relationship with God?

Satan came to Jesus and said, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world for one little compromise.

And notice, just in passing, by the way, that he did not say, deny God. What he said was, worship me too.

How many folks would capitulate to far less of an offer than that one?

That's the first problem. It's just the simple recognition that the fact of material goods may not be a blessing or it may be a mixed blessing. It may be a snare.

The other side of the coin is that if your thanksgiving is only because of abundance, then what do you do when that abundance itself is threatened?

What do you do when OPEC raises the price yet again? When GM and Ford lay off thousands of workers? When inflation gobbles up whatever raise you got? When America's power is being eclipsed on every front so that even a little tiny country can hold us hostage and bring us into paralysis. If, what I'm saying, if the only basis for our thanking God, if the only basis for our celebration is the abundance of our wealth, it may be hard, it may be impossible in such a moment to be thankful.

But, of course, biblically, that's not the basis at all.

The Scripture says, In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. In everything. It doesn't say for everything. It says in everything. There's no room in the New Testament for a Pollyanna view of the world. that God's in His heaven and all's right with the world. God may be in His heaven, but there's a whole lot wrong with the world.

We're not thanking God for everything, but in the midst of whatever, He's still worthy of our thanks and our praise. Paul wrote to the Philippians and he said this, I know how to be abased and I know how to abound in any and all circumstances I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger abundance and want I can do all things in him who strengthens me in any and all circumstances the question is what is the source of our joy what is the motive for our thanksgiving is it our circumstances

or is it in the midst of our circumstances Him who strengthens us? You see that difference?

I think I've told you about circumstances. The word is simply a product of two Latin words, circum and stare. Circum means around and stare means standing. Circumstances are just those things standing around.

Is our joy a product of just whatever's standing around us?

Or could we really say with Paul, in any and all circumstances, my joy, my thanksgiving, is for him who strengthens me.

When I was at Yale, I got to be fairly close to Bill Coffin, the chaplain at Yale. He was very much an activist, political figure, very controversial, as you know. I found myself probably disagreeing with him more often than agreeing politically. But we shared a common basis of faith in Christ. And he's quite an extraordinary figure. And you may recall that he was very much in the forefront of the protests against the Vietnam War. so much so that he found himself on trial along with that other notorious felon, Dr. Spock for conspiracy

and it was a remarkable trial up in the city of Boston because the prosecutors led by Ramsey Clark who was then Attorney General of the United States had great respect for the felons and vice versa.

and one morning on the way into the courtroom Coffin and Ramsey Clark met each other on the way up the stairs and Ramsey Clark said to Bill Coffin I just don't understand you at all he said Coffin here you are on trial for conspiracy how come you're so happy

and Coffin said Mr. Attorney General I'm a Christian do you think I would allow the United States government to take away my joy.

We might ask this morning, this morning, this Thanksgiving morning,

if you're Christians, are you going to allow the Ayatollah to take away your joy?

Are you going to allow OPEC to take away your joy? Are you going to allow the Soviet Union to take away your joy? Or anybody else? Are you going to allow anybody, if you're a Christian, to take away your joy? If you are, then you have missed the point of thanksgiving.

At the beginning of that letter to the Philippians, Paul makes an incredible comment. He's writing from a prison cell in the city of Rome. All of his plans and desires and hopes to be evangelizing the world have ground to a dead halt. He's chained to a prison guard. And he writes to the Philippians and he says, I want you to know, my brethren, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel so that it's become known to the whole praetorian guard.

The story is that they had to keep changing the guard because you get chained up to St. Paul, you become a Christian.

that is so true

Karen and I visited the city of York a couple of years ago we took a tour down through the excavations beneath York Minster the mightiest gothic cathedral in the world and it's been a place of Christian worship way way back into history and there have been successive buildings on the same site and they've excavated beneath the minster and you can go down through these various levels of excavation and see the remnants of previous places of Christian witness and worship all the way down to the cobblestones that were there when on that very site there was a Roman garrison.

Do you know that it is beyond dispute, beyond dispute, that the earliest evangelization of that part of England

came through Roman soldiers who were converted to Jesus Christ and who were sent there

under the expenses of the government of Rome.

Paul wanted to get to England. He wanted to get to Spain. He wanted to get to France to evangelize. Instead, he got clapped into prison. And he's sitting there in prison chained to one soldier after another and they're getting converted. Paul is being multiplied and at the expense of Caesar, 20, 50, 100, who knows how many little Pauls go out.

And in the meantime, frustrated because he couldn't be preaching, all he could do is write a few letters.

I want you to know, my brethren, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. That's why I've learned in any and all circumstances to be content. I can do all things, not necessarily the things I would have chosen,

but I can do whatever God wants of me and I trust Him for the end result. We serve a God who can take the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the world

and turn it into the redemption of mankind.

Joseph.

Joseph. Says to his brothers after he becomes the vice-regent of Egypt responsible for saving a nation and they come and bow down before him begged for some grain to take home. And he says, don't you see what's happened? You intended to do me harm, but God meant it for good.

We serve a God who can wrench victory out of defeat and blessing out of tragedy. The message of this Thanksgiving Day is a clarion call to America to put our faith once again in the God of our fathers. To recognize as that reading in Deuteronomy said, when you come into the land and you've built your houses and you've harvested your crops, don't you dare say, it's our power that has got us this.

The moment you say it, you're going to start to lose it. I, the Lord, am the one who has given you that power. I can take it away. Put your faith in me. This is a spiritual issue, my friends. This is not a matter of economics and it's not a matter of agriculture. It's a matter of who's running the show.

Do you dare to believe

that God means it for good and is inviting us to trust Him in the midst of whatever circumstances? To praise Him in the midst of whatever circumstances? To reaffirm Him as worthy. Thou art worthy.

And as we do so, to see Him moving amongst us in blessing. The issue is not the abundance of things, but that in the midst of things or in their absence, our joy is in Him who strengthens us.

Happy Thanksgiving. Amen.