This weekend we are celebrating Thanksgiving in worship.
One of the first scriptures I learned as a child was Psalm 100: "Enter God's gates with thanksgiving and God's courts with praise... for the Lord is good; God's steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 100:4 & 5).
The word we usually translate as "steadfast love" has many meanings and cognates in Greek. It can be translated as compassion, kindness, goodness, mercy, faithfulness, devotion, loyalty, favor, and forebearance. Walter Brueggemann used to translate it as "tenacious solidarity."
What's important to note here is that these words are used to describe the character of God and how God relates to us first. Think about that for a minute. God chooses to tenaciously stand with us. More specifically, with all those who are in need throughout the history of God's people: the orphan. The widow. The stranger. The hungry. The foreigner. The poor. The lost. The homeless. The oppressed. The children. The sick. The women. The afflicted. The slaves. The grieving. The prisoners. The outcast. Anyone that we humans choose to designate as unworthy for any reason (that's worth pondering for a while).
God comes to us and makes God's home in the messiest and unseemliest of places. Among the people who need God the most.
God also shows up at those moments when we need God the most. No matter how big the mess or how unworthy we may feel. No matter how small the world has told us we are. God envelops us in love that will not let us go and helps us to take the next breath. The next step. The next whatever it is that we need.
Our story we will be looking at is about one of the hardest challenges many of us have faced. The tale of Elknah and Hannah is a classic Hebrew bible infertility struggle. But as with so many of these narratives, the women face challenges that the men cannot begin to nor care to comprehend. What this ancient weaving does is open an opportunity for us to consider how and where we might see others in need of compassion in our own midst. Here and now. In ways we may have overlooked either unintentionally or quite intentionally.
Because no matter what else may come, just as God has made God's life among us, so God desires us to make our lives with one another in the same way. Giving thanks for all God continues to do.
Blessings,
Rev. Janie
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