Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
Community Thanksgiving Service
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Joel 2:21-27; Psalm 126; Matthew 6:25-33

A Harvest of Joy

Our common lectionary texts for Thanksgiving are all about pending restoration and God’s presence in our lives. The prophet Joel delivers the message to Judah, “Do not fear, ...be glad and rejoice, ...” “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.” “You shall know that I am in [your] midst . . . .”

The psalmist cries out, “Those who go out weeping, bearing the seeds for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.” In his gospel, Matthew tells us not to worry: “...do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” ‘Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

And yet we do fear, we do weep, we do worry. Life is a struggle, even in the best of times. getting through school, raising our children, working out relationships, scraping together enough to pay the bills, growing older, making sense of life’s injustices....

And today, we know, we are experiencing some of the worst of times: People like us have lost their jobs, their homes, their savings. People like us are flooding food pantries and soup kitchens. People like us are crowding shelters and being turned away for lack of beds. People like us are receiving their loved ones – mangled in war zones, tortured with senseless killing – when they come home, if they come home alive, at all.

Yes, trials and tribulations beset people of faith just like everyone else. To be human is to be sad as well as happy, to be challenged as well as affirmed, to be angry and afraid as well as content and at peace. The difference, perhaps, between people of faith and people of no faith, is that people of faith know that misfortune is not the end of the story. Joel proclaims God’s love and presence in the midst of adversity and God’s restoration of Israel. “My people shall never again be put to shame.”

Do we people of the 21st century believe it? Do we believe that God lives? That God restores us like a river restores the desert? Can we say with the psalmist, “[we] will come home with shouts of joy...?”

Two years ago, I met someone who did just that. His name is Mark Thallander, a remarkable young man. Mark had had a long, distinguished career as professor of music and free-lance organist. He had performed in events at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Carnegie Hall, and other venues, but probably Mark was best known for his music ministry of 18 years at the Crystal Cathedral in California.

Two years ago, he was back on the east coast for Thanksgiving concerts – which is how I came to meet him. He had come to celebrate an anniversary, the anniversary of a tragedy that befell him in Maine in August 2003.

It seems that Mark had played the organ for an old friend, who was a pastor at a Congregational church in Worcester, on that Sunday morning. When he left for a drive to Ogunquit, where he was visiting another friend, it began to rain. Mark never arrived.

A summer storm had followed him up the east coast, and when he exited the Maine turnpike, his car hydroplaned which sent him into a ditch and then over a guardrail into oncoming traffic. The impact bent the car in two, smashed the windows, and broke the rear axle. His seat belt, still buckled, pulled his left arm from his shoulder and shredded all the muscles and nerves. His arm was severed in three places. When rescue arrived, Mark had to be lifted out through the sun roof and rushed by ambulance to Portland. At the Maine Medical Center, even as he signed permission to amputate if necessary, he begged them to save his arm. But he was bleeding to death; the surgeons had no choice.

What is an organist to do without his arm? Mark’s career was over, his life was ruined, his talent wasted – one would think! But Mark is one of those people who radiates spiritual energy – who could “go out weeping and come home with shouts of joy,...” regardless of the circumstances. He is one of those people who trusts in God’s love, who is able to say with conviction, “rejoice in the Lord...” regardless of the circumstances.

Mark touched the medical staff so profoundly that they could be found sitting beside his bed while he slept, holding his hand, long after their shift ended. Emails and cards flooded the hospital. Flowers overflowed his room into every nook and cranny. Friends flew in from around the country to do whatever they could to help.

A few days after the accident, Mark awoke from his morphine drip to say that in his sleep he had been arranging one of his favorite hymns, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” for one hand and two feet. Around the world, organists who knew Mark began work on other pieces for one hand and two feet.

Why do bad things happen to good people? This is the age-old question that Rabbi Harold Kushner asked in his well-known book. Trouble comes to all of us and can’t be explained. Tragedy strikes when we least expect it.

How shall we respond? Shall we be closed, angry and afraid? Or shall we be open, expectant, trusting? Can we be glad, like the prophet, and rejoice, no matter what, for the Lord has done great things? Can we approach life with an attitude of thanksgiving? In my experience, the one who trusts, the one who is able to praise the name of God, no matter what, is the one who allows God’s energy to flow through us, to bathe us in healing love – even when our hearts are broken....

I had to see Mark at the organ. So two years ago, my partner Kim and I drove up to Mechanics Hall in Worcester for a Thanksgiving concert and heard Mark play his beloved, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” – with one hand and two feet. The music was vibrant, full of joy, and whole!

During the concert, Kim began a poem for Mark, entitled simply,

Gospel of Mark

I raged the fist of why bad things happen to good people
when I heard about the world-famous organist
crippled to one arm in a car crash.

I sneered the indignance of where was God
when I heard about the flesh-ripping horror of that stormy night.

I wept the tears of how could he bear to play on
when I heard the musical ecstasy of the one-armed organist
still praise the Savior.

I extolled the majesty of the Divine One
when I witnessed the organist balance the tune
with the beautiful song of his feet.

Would my humble feet grace the wisdom of God
if I lost my arm of arrogance?”

Is it arrogant to blame God when bad things happen to good people? To protest the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that Shakespeare puts in Hamlet’s mouth? God might well ask us why we allow bad things to happen to good people: Why do we allow wars and poverty and children to go without health care?

The lesson for us this thanksgiving is that God loves us, and the God that lives and moves in each one of us, is counting on us to love one another.

Something in us is always being wrenched, or broken, or severed. To be human is to experience both great love and joy and overwhelming tragedy and loss.

When we get a promotion, we can rejoice; and when we lose a job, we still can rejoice, for God will be there in the presence of each other to help us chart a new course....

When one family celebrates the birth of a baby and another family is having trouble with a marriage or can’t make a mortgage payment – we can sow in tears. God will be there to help us to learn and to grow.

When a young person is killed by alcohol or a brain tumor or a bullet on an Army base – we need not fear, because God will sit beside us in the hospital, and in the church, and in the courtroom, and even in the jail if necessary, and help us cry for the lives that are lost.

Whether someone you know falls ill – or your best friend is killed by a bomb in Iraq or Israel ... God will be there to help us make sense of the tragedy – and when it doesn’t – to hold us in holy, loving arms.

And so, this Thursday, when we sit down with our family and friends at the Thanksgiving table, and think about all that has happened in the past year, the celebrations and the sorrows, may we say with the psalmist, “our mouth [shall be] filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy;…”

May it be so! Thanks be to God.

Amen. Shalom.