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PROVIDENCE BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Lafayette, Indiana
Luke 12:22-31 John M. Buchanan

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November 26, 19/2
If you are able to get past the way history has romanticized them, the Norman Rockwel1]
portrayals and Currier and Ives prints; if you are able to get back of school plays and

poems, the ever-popular image of fresh snow, starched white collars, and long picnic

tables laden with butterball turkeys, shrimp cocktail and fresh-cut crysanthemums ;|if you

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can cut through all the extra baggage 350 years of American adulation has heaped upon them,

what remains is a truly remarkable - and intriguing-group of very brave people.

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101 of them crowded onto the small ship Mayflower in September of 1620 and things
were bad even at the start. \ They were scheduled to sail in two ships. but one developed
trouble causing a delay and eventually the decision was made to pack all their belongings
and crowd themselves into one. | Tt took 66 days to cross the Atlantic, a remarkable passage

in those days in that only one of them died in route.

Contrary to the popular image, only 35 of the original 101 were religious disserters.

The other 66 were recruited to make the voyage by backers of the project in order to have

sufficient number to assure a self-sustaining colony. \ut was, of course, too late in the

year to do any planting when they arrived. \ Work parties went ashore every day and began

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v yt constructing a crude "common house", while others looked for food. | They chose the cite

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for their “plantation” on what had been a large Indian corn field, and one of their first

discoveries was a cache of corn the Indians had hidden.| Their first_encounter with the
Indians was hostile, involving the exchange of shots and arrows, although we know now
that the entire Indian population on the Eastern sea board was badly decimated by disease -
three quarters of them had already died - and they never came around again until the
following spring and this time as friends.

It was a terrible winter. William Bradford recorded that on some days two or three
persons died;| and that, on occasion, only a half dozen were well enough to work. \ Starva-

tion was held at bay by the supplies they had carried in the Mayflower, but hunger was a

fell abowt Calories ~ €,060 porrihe Made of pees, eheese, afe -$/p. cf mee

constant companion. Through it all though the tiny village continued to rise.
On March 16, 1621, an Indian appeared in the community -Samoset- who spoke English,

and told the surprised Pilgrims of another English speaking Indian by the name of Squanto.

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Squanto had been kidnapped by an English trapper in 1614, sold in slavery in Spain, had

escaped to England where he lived with an official of the Newfoundland Company. After

making at least one round trip across the ocean, he jumped ship in 1618, only to discover

that his entire tribe had been wiped out by disease the year before.

Samoset and Squante arranged a meeting with the chief of the Wampanoags, Massasoit,

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which resulted in a friendship treaty, and of course, the famous advice about ese 7}

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a fish in each corn mound.
By late spring the 50 pilgrims had their planting done, eleven houses built and all
were well. 20 acres were put into Indian corn and siz acres of peas and barley. They porn
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barley didn't do very well, the peas were a disaster - but the corn grew beautifully. pile
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So it was in the fall of 1621 that the 50 knew that they could survive and they plan-
ned an event to mark their remarkable accomplishment. Edward Winslow, one of the pilgrims,
wrote about it to a friend, in what is the only eyewitness account of the first Thanksgiving.
"Our harvest being yotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that
we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the
fruit of our labors. The four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a
little help beside, served the company almost a week, At which time,
amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians
coming amongst us, and among the rest thetr greatest king Massasoit,
with some ninety man, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and
they went out and killed five deer, whch they brought to the planation
and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although
it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the vi us
goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers yee a \y
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It was the custom in midieval England to celebrate a successful crop with a “Harvest

- predern tradibive = Spokwat +:
Home Festival”, several days of games, sporting, cakes, and ale. It was such a good time

of our plenty.”

that Henry VIII had ruled that the festivities couldn't begin until the harvest was ing mene
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That was what the Pilgrims had in mind when they invited their Indian friends to the feast.

But they did add another dimension - a dimension with its roots in the offering. ofthe

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"First Fruits" described in 26th Chapter of Deuteronomy. I can imagine that the words
had particular significance for them:
",.the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this
place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey."

So they called it Thanksgiving - and they thanked God for bringing them through -
even though fifty of them didn't make it; and they thanked God for shelter - which they
had constructed out of the logs they had cut with their backs to the cold and forbidding
wilderness; and they thanked God for the food - which they had planted and which had grown
with a generous assist from the Indians.

They believed,that it is to say, in God's providence - in some rather difficult

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circumstances. |They believed that everything would "work out" even when it obviously was-
n't working out very well. | They became the most eloquent practitioners of that strange
advice Jesus one time passed on to his disciples: "do not be anxious about your life, what
you shall eat, nor about your body, what you shall put on. For life is more than food,
and the body more than clothing."

Please notice that they did not substitute trust in God for hard work. | They believed

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in providence: but they also died out there in the wilderness building their cabins. | Their
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faith was that God would be with them - in the bad times: jon those gray days when little

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children died of pneumonia: and on that good day when the corn was harvested | They knew

in a way not many of us do, that existence required every resource they could muster: and

still they could share their deep gratitude with God.\They believed in Providence - a
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theological ana hronism to many people today - because we get it confused with some very bad

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theology which happens also to be very popular theology.

General George Patton for instance, who summoned the chaplain the night before the

attack on Bastogne, and ordered him to write é_''good weather" prayer, because he desparately

needed air support. \ or Cranmer, who wrote most of the Anglican Prayer Book, and penned
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One that goes like this:
"O Almighty God, who for the sin of man didst once drown all the world...

we humbly beseech thee that although we for all our iniquities have

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worthily deserved a plague cf rain, yet upon our true repentance
Thou wilt send us such weather as that wo may receive the fruits of
the earth in due scason..."
Or worse, the assumption that God's hand and will may be secn in a disaster at sea
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casting thousands of lives - which, in fact, was tho resulto faulty wiring in the boiler

room.

Or more familiar, the assumption that God's will is operational when a loved one dies:
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or when we feel the sing of personal tragedy and ask £ “What have I done to deserve this")

Or the other side of the coin that assumes that God will provide in a special way for
those who love and serve him.

That's bankrupt, empty theology, and I continue to ba amazed at tow many people seem to
believe it.\ one writer put Lt succinctly: < idea that God's providence means that he
looks after those who serve him by a special use of his power in terms of favoritism is

an immoral idea and insulting to both man and God."} (Weatherhead, The Christian 19 308)
P,208

Jesus never promised his followers immunity from sittioutty:{ he never told them they
would be healthy, wealthy and wise, nor that they would live happily ever after. In fact,
he predicted.with relentless consistancy, that to follow him was to suffer and to be
persecuted, \what he did promise was that he would be with them in the good days and the bad,
and that he would give them the power to overcome the world - which doesn't mean a full
stomach and a fat wallet: rather 7t means strength and power and heart to live tkrouch

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anything life deals out with joy and peace.

Yeu see, accidents happen in God's world. He has created a tem in which accidents
can and do hapben: good ones and tragic ones. Same of prem are a result of human ignorance
and sin. God soot eau war, for instance,

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Bhat happetis because for centuries white people have been

ar happens - because men can't get along.

Gon doesn't cause race riots =
oppressing black people. God doasn't Cauge cars to collide or airliners to crash or towns

dren te die of euROnia, Cancer is an accident - and some day

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we wil] know how mrevent it and heal it - but there Tso way to blame God for causing it.

We beltéve in a God who has created a universe - a world “an ecosystem - and placed

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scial gift of life in it. We believe that God loves his creation, and that he has

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of suffering. To have it_osnerwi to have a God who arranges every event in life is to be

deprived of that whieh makes us men ~ our Freedom: it is also to fly in the face cf the

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testimony our faith which sees man free to do as hep
wh e wants.

Te-bolieveotharwises: to believe in a God wno keeps popping in and out of the system

ses: free to go to hell, if that's

he has created - knocking down an airplane here - saving a family there, giving this man
95 years ana that one 25 - is not providence: it's just wrong. And the worst part about it
is that it prevents us from coming to grips with wnat God really offers us.

The late John Oman said it this way..."...nocther delusion so shuts us off from
real trust in Ged or from any need of learning his mind...Until faith in Providence as
mere beneficence breaks down, the faith which reconciles us to God in face of every con-
ceivable evil cannot arise."

The faith which the Pilgrims obviously carried with them into the new world and
expressed on a November day in 1621: the faith Jesus talked about when he advised his

disciples not to worry about food and clothes and shelter, is a faith that regards God as

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the third party in every situation. \t is a faith that sces the creative possibility in
every situation, and that knows that regardless of what is happening now, God's love remains

constant and his will cannot be destroyed.\ We learn that,after all, at the foot of a cross

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on which the very son of God was put to death - dishonestly, unnecessarily, cruelly.| And
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if God could handle that one ~ if he could turn that disaster inta the saving revelation of
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his love, certainly he can deal lovingly and creatively with your troubles and mine.

Providence is always easier to believe in retrospect. \ I don't think it's given us ©

to know how God works in the confines of the events that are happening today. I can say

that personally and honestly. | The major descisions in my life have never, at the time,
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been surrounded by a sense of certainty, nor the conviction that God was in fact involved
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in the staging But looking back - I gladly join all those who have been able to say with

Austin Farrer, "...we can see how circumstances have shaped us, even in spite of ourselves,

and regret that we have put so many chstacles in the path of a mercy we failed to discern."

God is part of life.\ In him we “live and move and literally have our being. | He is

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most like a father to us. | And if I know anything absut that, having had a father who

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loved me, and being a father I know that fatherhood is a matter of loving and granting
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Freedom; |of loving so much that it hurts when they stumble and fall, of being humiliated

when they are humiliated, of laughing because they taugh. | If I know anything about father-

nood, I know that it's having a plan - a will - for them that includes health and well
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being and happiness \ but never enforcing that plan so that they fail to grow and learn and

become. \ rf I know anything about fatherhood, it's in terms of granting freedom, freedom

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to walk out of the yard, te ride a bicycle, to play football, to drive a car, to go away

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to school, to get married - and then hurting deeply when the risks of the freedom granted

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turn into disaster. \ A fathor can't prevent accidents in the life of his children if he

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loaves them enough to allow them to be Free. \put he can keep loving - and be there to com-
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fort and cradle and wipe away the tears.

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That's what Goc promised to be to us.\ and that's what his Providence means to ic.

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He is present. \ he does provide - sometning far more essential than food and clothes,
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namely love and strength. \ that's wnat he provided the pilgrims: \for that they gave thanks.
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That's what our Lord had in mind when he assured his disciples that God would fake care
of their needs. AW of tht ~ pest CxPeessel in am oN’ Vayu
Gratitude—is—best—expressed—tr-a—shetrtsa enbTace, a song. Se
giviig—this--day~=—for-a- wor
POr—a-Bed-who-4.s..wibh—ts

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"Now thank we all sur God

With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom his world rejoices.

0 may this bounteous God

Througn ail our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts

And blessed peace to cheer us. AMEN