Thanksgiving Baskets:  Not Because They Deserve One

If there weren’t already a hundred good reasons to be at Park on Sunday morning (and there are), coming to hear Christa Andersen’s brief moment for mission interpretation would make it worth coming this Sunday. Christa will tell you a story she told the Deacons last Sunday. It’s a Thanksgiving Basket story and it is true and it comes from Park Church just one year ago. 

Christa’s story is more than a feel-good story, but it is that, for sure. We ought to feel good about the way God used our simple gifts a year ago.

Around 35 Thanksgiving Baskets will be delivered this year and we expect them to feed well over 200 people. Perhaps one of those 200 people will have a story to tell that makes us feel good about what we have done. But maybe not.

While some of those who receive our baskets really are the down-on-their-luck, pushed-to-the-edge types we thought about during last Sunday’s sermon, some of them most definitely are not. Some people end up on a Thanksgiving Basket list because they have become expert at making poor life decisions. Others know just how to work the system and there are even an audacious few who will complain that they were hoping for something other than pumpkin pie this year. 

At the end of last Sunday’s sermon text, we heard Mark report that the disciples had figured there were around 5,000 men in the crowd that had been fed by those five loaves and two fish.  Matthew points out that they had not bothered to count the women and children. It would be nice to think that all 5,000 plus in the crowd had listened that day to every word Jesus had spoken and that they were already applying those life-changing words to how they lived. 

My guess is that among the 5,000 or more were some who didn’t pay attention to a thing Jesus said. Others were just hoping that he’d quit talking and start healing, maybe even turn some water into wine. In fact, I imagine that the before the disciples finally approached Jesus about who was in charge of providing a supper, those who were good at making life decisions, the Presbyterians in the group, had already left the lakeside to make their way home before dark or to be sure to get to the village bakeries before they closed for the day.

Jesus knew about each person who made up that crowd of over 5,000. He had compassion on every one of them and his grace made no distinctions. He had them sit in groups of hundreds and of fifties, not in groups of the deserving and of the undeserving, though both were there.  They all ate and were satisfied, Mark says. 

This Sunday we bring our food; the following Sunday we deliver our food, and, Jesus-like, it will be to both the deserving and the undeserving. It will not be ours to try to figure who is who. We just pray that they all will eat and be satisfied.