Sermon: "Thanksgiving During a Plague," October 11, 2020

Psalm 126
Sermon: "Thanksgiving During a Plague”
Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

A few weeks ago, Ingrid and I attended an online workshop with some fellow United Church ministers. The speaker, Tony Robinson, opened one of our sessions with a prayer. The prayer included words from a hymn titled “Now Thank We All Our God.” Which we’ll sing later following the sermon. First couple verses go like this:

Now thank we all our God, with heart,
and hands, and voices,
who wondrous things has done,
in whom this world rejoices;
who from our mother's arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.[i]

O may this bounteous God
through all our life be near us,
with ever joyful hearts
and blessed peace to cheer us,
and keep us strong in grace, and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all ill in this world and the next.

As soon as he started reading I was struck by the striking poetic elegance of the words. It’s soaked in gratitude. Gratitude for Creation, for motherly love. For abundance, blessing. Countless gifts. It’s beautiful. It’s a perfect hymn for Thanksgiving Sunday.

It’s beautiful. But, as beautiful as the hymn is, though, beauty isn’t the most interesting thing about it. Because after Tony finished his prayer he gave the hymn a little background.

The words were written in the 17th century by Martin Rinckart, a Lutheran Pastor in Eisleben, Germany, during the 30 years war. During that war, his city was sieged, and during that siege, many townspeople were struck with hunger, and killed by the plague. This hymn was written by Rinckhart following the worst of it. Where—as the last minister in town—he was burying upwards of forty people per day. And this is what he chose to write.

Now thank we all our God, with heart,
and hands, and voices.

How could someone who’d seen such misery, such terror. Who’d experienced such sickness and death first hand. How could someone with so little to be thankful for, other than his own survival maybe. How could this guy sing such a song of joy? It sounds naïve maybe. Or even delusional.

It sounds that way… But in writing this hymn Rinckart was rehearsing an ancient pattern. A pattern that’s found throughout the Bible. And that pattern is evident in today’s scripture, the 126th Psalm.

This Psalm, like Rinckhart’s hymn begins with a recollection of God’s wondrous works.

                When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream
                Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues shouts for joy.

The Psalmist here is probably talking about ancient Israel’s return from exile. In the 6th century B.C., the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were invaded by the Babylonians—the world’s largest superpower.[ii] The Babylonians burnt the country to the ground. Thousands were killed. And to top it all off, they smashed the Jerusalem temple, and they hauled off countless men, women and children in exile as prisoners to Babylon. It was eighty years long. A generation. And yet one day it came to an end. Babylon fell, and the new empire that took them down—Persia—sent the exiles home. Things seemed so hopeless and then suddenly, the exiles returned home. The Psalm says that it was unbelievable, like a dream. They were giddy with laughter because the only real explanation for such a reversal of fortune, they thought, was God. God had delivered them from exile. “The Lord has done great things for us,” it sings. “And we rejoiced.”

And yet, in the second half of the Psalm we find out that things ain’t so peachy anymore:

“Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like the watercourses in the Negev.
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.”

We’re not sure exactly what actually happened. How or why things changed. But here we discover that Israel’s life had somehow dried up like a river that’s ceased to flow. The Negev  The only thing that’s flowing now are tears. The good times were all gone. We don’t know what happened, could have been a literal drought. But we know it was bad enough for them to think back. To think back on their deliverance from Babylon with fondness. And hope for another similar miracle. That tears would cease and joyful shouting would happen again.

At this point in the Psalm we might think “fine… it’s perfectly normal to want things to get back to a better time.” I mean, I know I’ve prayed to just go back eight months ago and that COVID never happened. But the Psalm doesn’t end like that, with a longing for the past. The Psalm ends like this. Or even a prayer for things to go back to how they were. No, it ends with an affirmation of hope.

                Those who go out weeping
                bearing the seed for sowing
                shall come home with shouts of joy,
                carrying their sheeves.

Here the Psalm grabs hold of agricultural imagery. In the riverbed run dry, where there is no life, where the tears of the exiles have fallen on the ground. The Psalm says that these tears have watered the valley. And, in time, in the future, there will be life again. Though now sadness reigns, once again there’ll be a harvest. Once again there’ll be shouts of joy and sheeves of wheat.

It could be the Psalmist is an optimist. Just wants to look at the sunny side of life. If you remember that song from The Life of Brian. More likely though, it’s because of how the Psalmist began. The Psalmist remembers that God has done this before. God has done this before. God has brought exiles home before.  And God will bring exiles home again. Not only that, but God has brought order from chaos in creation. God has brought children to the childless. God has delivered slaves from Egypt. The Psalmist has hope in the future because God’s done this all before. And God can do it again. Will do it again.

The Psalmist can be hopeful now, even when things are hopeless, because he remembers what God has already done. So the future’s never closed. This is why Martin Rickhart could give thanks for God and God’s goodness, this is how he could shout for joy. Even in the middle of a deathly plague and siege. He knew it wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be the end. Because he’d heard that Jesus had entered death on a cross only to be raised again to new life. He knew, as the song says, that God would keep us in his grace, and guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills of this world in the next.” He knew, he heard that God had dealt with this kind of thing before. And that God would deal with it again. Eventually for good.

That’s how he could give God thanks. Even in the middle of a plague.

Now, I know that our global situation isn’t quite as intense as Rinckart’s experience in the 30 years war. Nor is it anything resembling the Babylonian Exile. Our personal lives—especially where we live in B.C., in Canada—are relatively untouched by the worst of the world’s troubles. But none of this means life’s been easy. Our world’s been messed up pretty bad. The kind of shock, the kind of massive change. Job losses, overdoses. Loneliness, depression. Combine that with our own every day burdens and worries over the environment, racial injustice, and the struggles of our friends south of the border, and you’ve got yourself something of a stew of hopelessness.

In this sense this ancient Psalm, and this somewhat less ancient hymn have much to teach us. What they teach us is that our past joys, moments in our lives, and moments in history where there has been a sudden turnaround from death to life. These are not just unrepeatable accidents. But in them we encounter something of God, the character at the heart of the universe, and the divine pattern of things. In them we are not just given fleeting joy. In them we’re given a promise for the future. In them we find a foretaste heaven, of an even deeper, truer joy.  And that in remembering them, we are given hope. A hope that will carry us through even our worst circumstances.

God has been faithful in the past, and God will be faithful in the future. Remembering past joy with gratitude helps us become more hopeful in the promise of future joy, even when life is not joyful. Today’s troubles are not eternal. Rather, all trouble will one day be scattered in the face of the eternal God. Those who sow in tears will one day again reap in joy.

So friends, church. Brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. I invite you, this week, maybe as you sit down to a COVID-sized family gathering. Or as you watch the leaves fall from the trees for autumn. Or as you stare at the ceiling during your middle of the night anxiety. Remember the great things that the Lord has done in your life, and in our world. Remember them, be thankful, and rejoice.

How can we be joyful, how can we be thankful? When the world ain’t as it should be? We can, because God has dealt with it all before. And God will deal with it all again. Or, as the last verse of the hymn puts it:

All praise and thanks to God
the Father now be given,
the Son and Spirit blest,
who reign in highest heaven
the one eternal God,
whom heaven and earth adore;
for thus it was, is now,
and shall be evermore.

AMEN.

[i] Martin Rinckart, “Now Thank We all Our God,” in Voices United: the Hymn Book of the United Church of Canada, 236.

[ii] An alternative suggestion is that it was the rescue of Jerusalem from siege by Sennacherib in 701BC. More likely, though, it is a reference to the return from exile. See Walter Brueggemann and William H. Bellinger Jr. The New Cambridge Bible Commentary on the Psalms, gen. ed. Ben Witherington III (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 538-541.