Introduction

Emmanuel Lutheran Church, east of Beatrice, Nebraska, invited me to preach and preside at worship on Oct. 16, 2011, the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Readings

Isaiah 45:1–7
Psalm 96:1–13, antiphon v. 7
1 Thessalonians 1:1–10
Matthew 22:15–22

Homily

Let us pray …. May the words of my mouth and the meditations in our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

One of America’s most beloved and iconic images is this one [Show print.] Sometimes it’s called “Thanksgiving Dinner.” Norman Rockwell painted it during World War II as an illustration for a war bonds poster. Then it appeared as the cover art on the March 6, 1943, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Called “Freedom from Want” in that issue, it was the third of four paintings to appear in the magazine to dramatize the Four Freedoms that President Franklin Roosevelt outlined in his January 1941 State of the Union address.

I think we’d be safe in saying that this image rests in our memories more as the ideal of Thanksgiving than as a reminder to us of war bonds or even of the President’s speech. Even so, the themes of Thanksgiving and Freedom from Want somehow tie together.

Here in the painting, a family gathers in joy and peace around a table dressed in white. Young and old together, they are all smiling, except the grandmother who may be more focused on finding a space for the turkey platter and the grandfather who perhaps is resisting the urge to guide the platter to its resting place. And we are there too, at the foot of the table, taking in the scene, our eyes caught in the gaze of the gentleman in the corner looking expectantly at us.

The turkey is large; the fixings are simple and not overly abundant. The drink is water. A good meal in wartime; surely the family will be praying in just a minute, basking in the diffuse white light filtered through the curtain from the sun, shining on a land and a people caught in the throes of war.

It’s funny, though. Our understanding of words has changed over the years. This was a painting about Freedom from Want, but if you look at the food on the table, you see a meal that offers freedom from need, not want. Or perhaps the family in the painting wanted less in the middle of World War II than we do today.

Even so, despite the differing interpretations we might make of this painting, it sticks in our minds’ eyes as an illustration of Thanksgiving, of gratitude for the sufficiency of God’s gifts in our lives.

But sadly, now as then, not all people can look forward to placing enough food on the table to feed a family. They cannot afford what they need to eat, much less to pay for what they might desire beyond their needs.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report released last month notes that across the United States in 2010, about one in seven households experienced what experts call “food insecurity.” That level of insecurity shows the effect of lacking the resources to afford to purchase the food needed to eat nutritionally sound meals. So it’s easy to see that poverty and hunger go hand-in-hand. In 2008, government statistics showed that 15.4 million Americans found themselves living in extreme poverty, where their family annual cash income didn’t amount to one-half the poverty level. That meant that their income was less than $10,000 for a family of four. (http//www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm, accessed Oct. 13, 2011, citing http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR125/err125.pdf.).

Numbers and statistics can quickly cause our eyes to glaze over. So, it helps to keep faces in mind. Perhaps you know someone who doesn’t get enough to eat, or some family facing questions of what they might find to eat, rather than figuring out if the leftovers in the fridge are still safe after a week or more.

Those are the faces to envision as you gather your offerings for the food pantry. Picture the joy on the faces of a family as its members gather around their table—lifted up by the generosity of the community—and prepare to give God their thanks and to eat the meal he has provided through your contributions.

Why do we give canned and dry goods to the food pantry? For a variety of reasons. First, we and others give because it is a kind and neighborly thing to do. America is not always all about competition and getting ahead, making a killing off of those trying to make a living, just as it is not always about getting one’s fair share without contributing the sweat of one’s brow.

A great and deep strand in our national heritage is to reach out to others, to help them when they have a need, just as they will help us when we face a need. As Christians, we can ands ought to give for this reason, working alongside of others who do not share our faith in Jesus Christ.

This type of charitable work is good. We see a need. Someone is hungry. So, we share our food. That’s our basic humanity at work.

But for us as Christians, other, deeper motivations take root. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’s pointed parable about the judgment of the sheep and the goats reminds us that the righteous king will say on the last day, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me …. Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25: 34–36, 40, New American Bible).

So beyond acting out of basic humanity and basic decency, we can trust our Lord’s promise that when we feed people who are hungry, we are offering food to him. And so, in our minds’ eyes, our Lord joins us around the table spread in white. He comes to eat whenever we give our food to someone in hunger.

And finally, there is a third reason to give food to hungry people, to share what God has given us with the food pantry and other ministries that serve people in need. St. Paul hints at this third reason in his first letter to the Thessalonians. In today’s second reading, we heard him say:
For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction … (1 Thessalonians 1:4–5a, New Revised Standard Version).

The message of the gospel comes not only in words, but also in power and in the Spirit and with the full force of conviction. And so, we give food to hungry people because it is humane, because by feeding them we feed the Lord who gives us life, and finally, because our actions proclaim the gospel with power. We can say that God loves his children and that he calls us to care for others. Once we have said that, we can share God’s love and care by giving food.

And beyond that, if someone asks us why we give food to people who are hungry, we can say we do so because we are neighborly and because we are grateful to God. But in truth, when our giving prompts someone to ask why we give, then our proclamation comes fully to life, “in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” as we take that opening as an invitation to tell them about the love and grace we have received from Jesus Christ.

So, when we discover the opportunity to share food, we have privilege of giving to meet a need and the chance to proclaim the grace of Lord. For that, we can say, “Thanks be to God!” Amen.