Are They Coming for Thanksgiving?
Wed, November 24, 2010
I am a friendly person. I can stand on line at Giant or Safeway and know someone’s life story before the checker even scans my groceries. When my children were very little, they would ask me, “Do you know that person, Mama?” Then they realized that I was always making friends with people—on airplanes, on line, in restaurants. So for as long as I can remember my sons have joked with me when I finish one of my conversations, “Are they coming for Thanksgiving?” It was their way of acknowledging the immediate intimacy I create with people I’ve just met. Some of you do the same thing. And sometimes I actually invite strangers for Thanksgiving, as I did this past weekend with the kind woman who checked us out at BJ’s, as she shared with us that her family was very fussy and she would be exhausted when the holiday was over. I am always inviting people to visit and to come for Thanksgiving, as it is my favorite holiday.
In fact, my Israeli family is here tonight, their first time in a church, because they have never celebrated Thanksgiving and we wanted to share it with them. Inviting all of them for Thanksgiving is such a blessing for us. Thirty-eight years ago they invited me into their home and adopted me into their family with a love I had never known in my life. Their presence is my Thanksgiving this year.
Imagine for a moment that with every encounter you have with every single person that you imagine inviting them for Thanksgiving?” How would that change the encounter if you knew that person would be at your table, sharing food, intimacy, kindness? It is harder to be angry with, objectify, ignore or hurt someone who will share Thanksgiving with you — the slow driver on the parkway, the person who doesn’t smile and pushes ahead of you at the mall, the unfriendly or shy coworker or neighbor, the fellow congregant who drove you crazy at the last meeting you attended together.
Our Founding Fathers set a great example for us. Whatever disagreements they had in the halls of government, they went out for a beer or a meal afterward. They never let political or philosophical differences change the civility of their discourse. They ate and drank together as Americans, knowing they might live to disagree another day. We live in times when people have made politics personal. Gone is the breaking of bread and civility of yesterday. How I wish this Thanksgiving would inaugurate a new tenor in our leadership where good people would work together for the good of all people.
My prayer is to be able to break bread with those who are in positions to make peace in our world. Each person would come with an empty plate and an open heart and I would feed them, under the condition that each would leave his agenda at home and work to finding the commonalities instead of focusing on the differences. When you come with your agenda and lash out with negativity and criticism there is no room for peace or friendship. You kill any hope for common ground or understanding.
We had a phenomenal congregational trip to Israel and Jordan in October. Thirty-six members of our congregation were welcomed in both countries with Middle-Eastern hospitality. In a region so often known for discord, I am always amazed at how welcoming and friendly Arabs and Jews are in their daily lives. Our friends in the Haifa congregation invited all 36 of us to dinner with open arms, and in true Perlin fashion, I invited our Jordanian guide to visit our congregation. I also invited the Lutheran Bishop of Jerusalem, Bishop Younan, to visit both of our congregations when he welcomed me into his community for lunch in Jerusalem two years ago. While enjoying the bishop’s hospitality, I recounted the bond that our congregations have shared for 25 years, and they wrote about our Thanksgiving service in their newsletter. For 25 years we have been gathering at God’s table together to celebrate the blessings we share, even as we respect the religious differences that make us uniquely Jewish or Lutheran.
Bread is such an important and powerful symbol of faith in Christianity. At Pastor Keseley’s installation, I was so moved as she offered communion to the congregation. I could feel her holiness and the fact that she invited you to God’s table with her whole heart. Tonight, with her permission, I have brought our challah bread, made with care by our friends at Great Harvest. It is a symbol of how our lives and our prayers are intertwined in friendship and community.
For 25 years we have blessed our challah bread, which has been part of our Jewish sacred lives since God commanded the bread for the Tabernacle in the wilderness. For us, challah is a weekly Sabbath symbol of togetherness. In our congregation, we bless the bread each Friday on the same table where we read our sacred scroll of the Torah every Saturday. And before we had a building, we blessed the challah on this very table. Your old lobby was too small to hold everyone after the Friday service, which is when most synagogues bless the bread, so we began the custom of sharing bread during the service. As we bless the bread, we acknowledge that God places it on our table for all of us to share, and that we are supposed to share what we have with others. And I will forever remember your hospitality and generosity to us for the nine years we worshipped in this sacred space. Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe who brings forth bread from the earth. Amen.
In Genesis, Abraham is known for his hospitality to the angels who visit him. He runs to welcome them with a special meal including fresh bread. The rabbis of our tradition teach that Abraham left three flaps of his tent open every day, even though his tent got dusty, so that travelers would know that they were welcome to come and rest, eat, and refresh. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we made every day an invitation for others to join us in Thanksgiving, in our homes and our houses of worship? We each open our doors wide to this community we love saying, “Please come for Thanksgiving and please feel welcome.” Abraham taught us that putting a meal on the table is hard work (a lot of which he left to Sarah, of course) but we know it is worth it when the table becomes an altar of love, laughter, memory, hospitality and good feeling.
Two weeks ago tonight, my son, Jacob, who was supposed to be here with us, was hit by a car on his street in Los Angeles. We are thankful that he is alive this Thanksgiving and despite a head injury which will take time to heal, he is doing remarkably well. And we are particularly thankful to the good Samaritans and even the driver for stopping to take care of him, as he was unconscious on a busy city street. In my heart, I invite every person who helped my child, from the strangers on that street to the medical professionals, to his amazing friends for Thanksgiving. I wish all of them could be at our table this holiday when we thank God for life and its blessings. I plan on thanking each person, personally, when we get their names. I had the sweater that someone placed on my son dry-cleaned and want to thank that person for the simple but profound act of kindness. We learned first hand that a small kindness can save a life.
In the book, The Power of Small, the third chapter encourages people to make small talk, to acknowledge the other person. It begins with a story from the early 1930’s in a small German village outside Berlin. Two shoemakers had their shops directly across the street from each other. Like clockwork, every morning at 8 a.m., they opened their shops so that neither one would lose business to the other for not being there. But, every morning, when Saul Mueller unlocked his shop, he paused to tip his hat and nod and say, “Hello, Herr Schmidt!” Herr Schmidt would reply with a polite, “Hello, Herr Mueller,” from across the street. One morning, when Saul’s youngest daughter, Anna, came to work with him she asked her father, “Papa, why do you say hello to that man? He is not your friend, is he?” (Just as my children asked me hundreds of times.) Saul replied, “Dear Anna, as Jews we are taught that you must always greet your neighbor with a few friendly words, even if that neighbor is your competitor.”
As Hitler’s grip tightened, Saul’s life became more restricted in the village, but he never failed to greet Hans with a proper hello whenever he saw him. One morning while it was still dark, Saul and his family were awakened by the sound of men pounding on the front door. The German army was rounding up all the Jews for deportation to Auschwitz. As daylight broke, Saul and his family stood shivering and scared in the town square with other Jewish families. Suddenly, he heard a voice call to him from down the street.
“Good morning, Herr Mueller!” Hans cried out.
“Good morning, Herr Schmidt,” Saul automatically replied.
Herr Schmidt could see the tragic scene before him and realizing what was about to happen, thought quickly and rushed over to the guards. “You cannot arrest this family,” he protested. “They are not Jewish.”
The guard shot him a menacing look and asked, “How do you know that, Herr Schmidt?”
“Because he is my cousin, that’s how I know.”
Herr Schmidt’s authoritative demeanor and unwavering tone convinced the soldiers that he must be telling the truth and they let the Mueller family go. The two shoemakers never saw each other again. The Muellers fled to France and then to England, and finally settled in the United States, where they lived long full lives, living to see several great-grandchildren and to celebrate a lifetime of Thanksgivings.
The authors conclude, “Because of a simple greeting each morning, just that slight effort to reach out to another human being and acknowledge the bonds between them, the Mueller family was saved. There is nothing small about small talk.”
Let’s make every day an invitation to all those we meet and encounter to join us for Thanksgiving, or at the very least may we greet others with a friendly and joyful countenance. When we do that we invite God into our homes and our lives. There will always be something wrong, some heartache or adversity. Life is filled with problems and is so often unfair. But, we are given a choice by God. We can be messengers of negativity or we can be vessels of blessing and thanksgiving.
Once Thanksgiving is over, I am still going to be friendly to everyone I meet. The second half of the year, my kids would always ask, “Are you inviting them for Passover?” And I would just smile.
Tonight, we share challah and your lovely reception to follow our service with fellowship. May you be able to live your life giving and receiving invitations of welcome and kindness to others. And if you need a place to go for Thanksgiving or Passover, there is always room at our table. God bless you all.