November 24, 2024 Sermon
Sermon title: “Happy Thanksgiving!”
Scripture: Psalm 100
(Other lectionary choices include II Samuel 23:1-7, Psalm 132:1-12, and John 18:33-37.)
Psalm 100
All Lands Summoned to Praise God A Psalm of thanksgiving.
1Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. 2Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing. 3Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. 5For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have a lot to be thankful for, and you just might be thinking a little about what you are thankful for, as I did my brothers! I have three younger ones, and I thought I’d share their thoughts with you.
1.) I am so grateful and awed that I made it to 80! (Now I really wanna make it to 81!)
2.) Immense gratitude for Jan offering me a ride to AK in '66; and I am so grateful for all of my AK years and friends and experiences.
3.) I am so grateful for my 3 brothers who still talk to me! (I always laugh at a good friend from law school who said a neat thing recently. He and his brothers were all renting a trailer in Moscow ('74-'77), as he was in law school and one + other brothers were undergrads; family was from central ID, rural ranch; John (my friend) and his brothers were all single, and they adored Napak (age 2-5), as well as Jan, as she would tell them about her Masters & Johnson sex therapy training at WSU; he stayed in ID, and he became a SS judge; we went to dinner with him a year or so ago, and he said: “Mike, I was NEVER surprised that Jan did NOT DIVORCE you; I was surprised she didn’t SHOOT you!”
4.) I am so grateful to having had Chris in my life for 44 years (16 with DOC); I sense his being close to me off and on;
5.) I am so grateful for no return to a burn unit for over 40 years!
6.) And I am so grateful for my finding support in the 12-Step community. As Matthew Perry said when he was clean and sober, “GOD is a roomful of DRUNKS!” So true.
It does feel most times that Mom was right: “Mike, God has a plan for you.”
And an NA Sponsor said, “If you can find some GRATITUDE in your heart, you will not ‘pick up.’ ” (NA code for getting drunk, loaded, or any other mind-alternating substance.)
My other two brothers were thankful for our parents, and for their children. One brother has two grown daughters, and one just welcomed his first grandchild, a little boy. I too am thankful for my parents, and really grateful that my mother introduced me to God or gave me my faith. I know, I know: only GOD can grant us our faith, but my mother was His helper!
All four of us are so thankful for our parents. Both of my parents could sing a little bit, and it was my mother who insisted that we take piano lessons, and I am SO glad she did. My two youngest brothers went on to get Ph.D.’s in music, and they both became college music professors. (By the way, my brother Tim and his wife Nancy will be here January 12, and Nancy will sing us something, probably accompanied by her husband!) My brother Mike and I both sang in our college Glee Club, and Mike still listens to various music on the radio. My knowing something about music helped me get my first job out of college - and later one of my broadcasting jobs was as an announcer at a Classical Music station. Had it not been for my mother insisting that I take piano lessons, I might not have gotten that first teaching job - and knowing something about Classical Music helped me get one of my broadcasting gigs.
It’s not Mother’s Day, but I want to tell you something more about my Mom. My parents learned of a foster children’s program, and once a month she would write a letter and send a check to a Korean orphan organization. These were victims of the Korean War, and once these orphans became 18, they were kicked out. Well, the little girl we were writing to was named In Ja, and when she left the orphanage, she kept my mother’s address! To make a long story short, my parents were able to get In Ja to move to the states, and my parents sort of adopted her. (My parents were helped by our local Congressman, a fellow named Lee Hamilton. Hamilton was later considered for other government jobs, so if his name rings a bell, I am not surprised.) Anyway, In Ja is our foster sister. She married a white American guy and had three boys with him. Her husband died in 1991, but the three boys are flourishing. When my parents were living, they told us they were going to split their estate five ways, and we were all fine with that. (Some of our relatives weren’t okay with the idea, but we four brothers were and are!) In Ja lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and so do two of her sons. She may join us in Las Vegas over New Year’s.)
By the way, I am thankful for you and for this church - and I’m glad God finally got me into the ministry! What are you thankful for? Happy Thanksgiving!
Pastor Skip
