I love that George Bernard Shaw story about the time he went into a used bookstore. He browsed around the dusty shelves looking for some treasure, the way you and I like to do, and discovered one of his books there. It saddened him to think that anybody would throw away one of his books. He took it off the shelf and discovered that it was a book he had given to an old friend. The inscription was there inside the cover: "To W.T.B., With compliments, G.B.S." So he bought the book, and mailed it back to his friend with this inscription, "To W.T.B., With renewed compliments, G.B.S."

It is a good story for Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving is the recognition of God's dependability and our dependence upon God for his grace.

In America, according to the legends, the first Thanksgiving was prompted by the Pilgrims surviving a terrible winter, and then the next fall, having a harvest sufficient to survive. They realized that with all of the mistakes that they had made, it was grace that enabled them to survive. It illustrated what the Pilgrims knew already, we are dependent on God for our existence, and for life itself.

That is the perspective of the Bible. Life is a gift, and the Giver is dependable. That is the point of the Noah story. After the Flood, God made a covenant with Noah, but it was a covenant with all of creation, for all the earth, that he would never destroy the earth because of human sin. He said to Noah, "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

In other words, God's creation is dependable. And this dependability, this faithfulness, according to the Noah story, is a gift to us. We do not deserve it. Though we are unfaithful, God remains faithful. It is a covenant that God has made with all creation, through Noah, that God will always be faithful, and "seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

That covenant is sealed, as you know, with a rainbow. That is part of that story. So after the storms, you will see the rainbow. The rainbow is a sign. It is there to tell us that God will always be dependable.

The Old Testament lesson, which was read to us this morning, is that familiar passage from Deuteronomy traditionally read at Thanksgiving. It is a similar testimony to God's faithfulness. This passage is about the covenant God made with Moses, the rescue of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. The instruction in Deuteronomy is that at the time of the harvest, the Jews are to remember the Exodus. They are to take the first fruits of the land that God had given to them to the priest in the Temple, and have a service of thanksgiving. Then they are to recite this creed, which is a rehearsal of Israel's history.

A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt...and the Egyptians treated us harshly...and the Lord brought us out of Egypt...and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Therefore the land, itself, our life, is a gift to us out of God's grace. That is why we sing,

Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide
For our wants to be supplied.

The dependability of nature, according to the Bible, is a gift given to us by God. The place we live, this land which is ours, is a gift to us by God's providence. It is that sensibility that is the origin of Thanksgiving in America. And it comes right out of the Old Testament, the covenants that God has made with us always to be faithful to us, even when are unfaithful. That's how the pilgrims saw their life.

e e cummings has a wonderful poem about this gracious covenant that God has made with us. It is hard to quote e e cummings poetry in a sermon, but suffice it to say that in the poem, he lists all of the terrible things that we do to nature, we buffet it, poke it, punch it, abuse it. Then at the end of the poem comes this line: "Thou answers all of this with spring."

It is just amazing, the faithfulness of God. God answers our abuse of the gift that he gives to us with spring. "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall never cease."

That's a promise. So when we receive the gift, and abuse it, or misuse it, or are ungrateful and do not recognize the Giver, what does God do? God returns it to us with renewed compliments. That is why sensitive, faithful people celebrate Thanksgiving.

But sometimes it is hard, because sometimes life is hard. The world is dependable, not only in terms of seedtime and harvest, but you can depend also on the world bringing us sorrow and pain. That makes it difficult for some people to be thankful. I am terrible with names, so I am always pleased to hear that other people have the same problem, and I am interested in how they cope with the situation. I heard this. A man had trouble with names. so when he came to somebody whose name he couldn't remember, he always asked, "How's the old complaint?" because everybody had one. They thought, "He remembered. How nice."

How's the old complaint? Everybody has one. Do you ever feel this way? Things are going well, the family is all right, things at work are going all right. In fact, you are probably a little ahead, so you think maybe you can take some time off, have a little vacation. Then the phone rings. I bet I know your reaction when you heard that phrase, "the phone rings," because we have all been there. We have all picked up the phone to hear the news that interrupts the wonderful time that we were having.

A woman attended a hockey game, sat in the front row, right next to the ice. One of the players is slammed into the railing in front of her. Another player follows up with a shoulder to his body, then takes his stick and hits him, and completes this brutality with a forearm to the side of the head, turning the player around so that he is draped over the railing, looking right up at the woman. He says to her, "I'll trade jobs with you." The woman says, "I teach 6th grade." He skated back into the game.

Everybody has it rough. How's the old complaint? Everybody has one. Everybody has heard the phone ring. Everybody has said, "I knew it wouldn't last." Even old Paul. Which brings us to the New Testament lesson for this morning, the letter to the Philippians, the fourth chapter, our text. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice."

If anyone had a right to complain, it was Paul. He was in jail when he writes this. He is in jail because he tried to do something good for somebody else. He returned to Jerusalem with the offering he had taken up among the Gentile churches for the poor in the church in Jerusalem. He knew it was risky. He knew that there were probably people there who would remember him and would report him to the authorities, but he came anyway. He came to Jerusalem out of a sense of compassion, out of a sense of responsibility, a sense of duty. He did the right and noble thing, and look what happened. He paid for it. He is in jail now. He has a right to complain. Yet he can tell the Philippians, "Rejoice; again I say, rejoice."

He had a right to complain, because he is not going to get out of there. He tells the Philippians early on in this letter that he is going to get out, and will come and visit them. But they know differently. And he knows he is not going to get out of there. It is not going to happen. In time, one of these days, they will come to take him away, and cut off his head.

That is the way they executed Roman citizens. They didn't hang them the way they did non-Romans, on a cross. They cut off their heads. It was more humane. So Paul will be executed by decapitation on the Appian Way. He knows it is coming. And yet he says, "Rejoice." He doesn't even mention what is coming. "Again I say, rejoice."

Not only that, we know that he was convinced that God wanted the Gentiles in the Church. That was his mission as an apostle in the Church. Only he got opposition from the very beginning from the power structure down there in Jerusalem. They were called "Judaizers," because they said that in order to be a Christian, first you had to become a Jew. Paul disagreed. He made another trip early on to argue his case before the Council in Jerusalem. He won that argument largely because Peter sided with him. Peter, the most prestigious person in the Church, sided with Paul, and they won. It was a major victory.

Paul went dancing down the road to Antioch, the nearest Gentile church, because the Council said they would announce this major decision in a Gentile church at Antioch. He went dancing down to the church, got it all decorated for the big party. The representatives from Jerusalem arrived. Peter had come with them. They walk in and make the announcement. Now it is time for the party. Everyone is to sit down and eat together. The Judaizers, the representatives from Jerusalem, say they will not eat at the same table with those from Antioch, because they are Gentiles.

Paul was crushed. He was betrayed. Peter betrayed him. Everything he had worked for in his career, up to that moment, was crushed. So how's the old complaint, Paul? He doesn't even mention it. Not here. Here he says, "Rejoice; again I say, rejoice."

We also know he did have an old complaint. He calls it "the thorn in the flesh." Nobody knows what it was, but there was speculation. Except it had to be a physical ailment, it was chronic, and it knocked him out for a season. We know that from time to time he had to stop what he was doing to recuperate. So how's the old complaint?

He mentions it only once, and that is when he is telling the Corinthians that he has the credentials to be an apostle. You see, that is another thing that he has a right to complain about. His friends back in Jerusalem, the Judaizers, organized to follow him around the Mediterranean world. As soon as he leaves some place, they come in and tell everybody there, "You know, Paul really isn't an apostle. He is an imposter."

An "apostle," by definition, was somebody who had seen the resurrected Lord. Paul claimed that he heard Jesus's voice on the Road to Damascus. That was sufficient. But he tells the Corinthians, "You want to see my credentials? Look at my wounds. Look at my suffering." Because the real test of an apostle is not that he has seen the resurrected Lord, but that he follows the crucified Christ. The real test is that he carries Christ's cross. That is what makes his authority as an apostle believable.

Then to the Corinthians he lists his credentials: the shipwrecks, the imprisonments, the beatings, the starvations, the betrayals, which he accepts as par for the course. These are the working conditions for being an apostle. You follow Jesus, he says, you expect a cross.

Then he mentions one more thing. This is something different than the above. This is not something that has happened to him because he's a disciple. This is "the thorn in the flesh," something he has to bear. Three times, he says, he asked the Lord to relieve him of this. Three times he asked. Only silence, except this word. "My grace is sufficient for you."

That's it. That was the end of it. He never mentions it again. How's the old complaint, Paul? He never mentions it. Instead he says, "Rejoice; again I say, rejoice."

Farther on in the letter as you heard read to us this morning, he thanks the Philippians for their concern. They send a gift along with Epaphroditus because they are concerned about him. He says, "It was nice of you to be concerned about me, but it was really unnecessary, for I am all right." Then this famous passage. "For I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things in him who strengthens me. I have learned the secret."

What's the secret, Paul? I think it is to be found in that phrase, "My grace is sufficient for you." That is what those covenants with Noah and Moses way back there were all about. That is what they promised. Not that life would be easy, but when it is not easy, when life is hard, grace will be there.

That is what the Pilgrims in New England discovered. Not that life was easy, but that "God our Maker doth provide all our wants to be supplied." That is why sitting in prison, awaiting his execution, Paul can tell the Philippians, "I have found the secret. it is the dependability of God's grace in any circumstance. So rejoice; again I say, rejoice."

Help us to be masters of ourselves,
that we might be servants of others,
through Christ our Lord. Amen.