Work

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
November 13, 2022

28 Proper C 

          Sometime in the summer of 2018, Rabbi Michael Ross from Temple Beth Shalom, Pastor Peter Wiley from First Congregational next door, and I began talking about hosting an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service.  Our congregations are a three-minute walk from each other, at most.  We share a rootedness in gratitude, and Thanksgiving is a holiday we all hold in common.  We talked over coffee several times and decided to wait until 2019 rather than rush things in 2018.  We really wanted to get the Interfaith Thanksgiving service right.

          But then, on October 27 of 2018, a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 congregants who were at prayer.  This was the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history and shock and fear rippled through the Jewish community in this country.  Peter and I reached out to Rabbi Michael immediately to offer our support, then quickly decided that this was not the year to delay an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service.  We put together a service quickly, letting go of any notion of perfection, and members of the three congregations gathered at Temple Beth Sholom on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to worship, sing, and give thanks together.  We have gathered every year since then, even when we had to be totally online, convinced that not only are we are better together than we are apart, we also need each other. 

          I thought about the Tree of Life shooting, other school and faith community shootings, the war in Ukraine, the pandemic, hurricanes Ian and Nicole, the conflict in our country, and so many other disasters as I read our gospel lesson this morning.  Jesus is speaking to people who will endure everything he describes, and Luke is writing to an audience currently experiencing those events.  Jesus tells the people that all of these things will come to pass before he returns and that his followers are to endure.  But here we are, two thousands of years later and acts of hatred, natural disaster, and plagues are still among us and Jesus has not returned.  What do we do with Jesus words?

          The answer to the question about Jesus’ return is a mystery I cannot solve.  But our other readings this morning do guide us in how we are to live while we wait.  The prophet Isaiah is writing to people who are trying to rebuild their lives in the Promised Land after their exile in Babylon.  The work is difficult and there is no clear path forward, much less agreement on that path.  The temple has been destroyed, the land burned out, and most of the people who once lived there have died.  Isaiah writes to encourage the people and call them to watch for the new thing God is doing in their midst.  God is not going to repeat what God has already done, but God will create Jerusalem as a joy and her people as a delight, a place where there will be no more weeping or cries of distress, and even the animals will get along.  In the midst of all that plagues and horrifies us, whether as individuals, as an institution, or as a country, God promises that God is about to do something new and God calls us to open our eyes and watch for God’s new action. 

          But this watching is not to be passive waiting.  The reading from I Thessalonians reminds us that the Christian life requires work. The specific work that is being commended to the Thessalonians is the work of earning their keep.  As Christians, the Thessalonians cannot expect others to do their work.  Likewise, as Christians we are called to model the work to which Jesus calls us, the work of tending the sick, caring for those affected by disaster or tragedy, working for justice and peace in cases of conflict.  That work is not easy, but that work is holy.  Our work is to point to and actually be part of the new thing God is doing in our midst despite any and all evidence that wars, plagues, violence, and conflict are winning. 

          In 2018, in the face of devastating violence, the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service was our attempt to bring people together across differences and to see what new thing God might be doing in our midst in the face of tragedy.  The work to which I Thessalonians calls us is the work of actually being that new thing Isaiah writes about, working across differences to usher in a new day in which faithful people across faith traditions can gather, give thanks, and build relationships that will make the world look a little less like what Jesus predicts and a little more like what Isaiah foretells.  When we practice that work in something so easy and simple as an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, we are better prepared to practice that work in the rest of our lives.

                                                                   Amen.