Thanksgiving is gone

The official day of Thanksgiving has come with a little fanfare (mostly at places where food is sold!). What if every day were a day of giving thanks:

• for the anxiety that sometimes finds us, because it reminds us that we are human, and something needs our attention
• for the annoying neighbor or relative, without whom we wouldn't be able to practice forgiveness
• for illness that keeps us humble, asking for assistance from total strangers
• for the rain, in the midst of drought, either spiritual or temporal

Today practice giving thanks for something that perks up your complacency and shows you a new face of God.

Samuel Seabury

This week we remember the consecration of Samuel Seabury.
The portion of the gospel of Matthew appointed for the commemoration of the consecration of Samuel Seabury is familiar to us:

Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every
sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were
harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Every year at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Samuel Seabury’s day is celebrated by the Boar’s Head Dinner, held one week after the General Ordination Exam (GOE) is finished. If you don’t know about it, the GOE is a four-day written exam of 7 substantial essay questions covering the 7 canonical areas of study required of all seminary students for ordination. To say the least, it is a grueling ordeal, especially for some of us older, less physically-resilient students. The Boar’s Head Dinner, a take-off on medieval baronial feasts, complete with Elizabethan liturgy beforehand, was therefore a time of raucous partying for students.

During the exam we certainly felt “harassed and helpless.” However, at the dinner, we garnered the support and compassion of the entire seminary community, as all of the seminary community, faculty and students alike, we expected to attend the liturgy and dinner following. First and second-year students would watch us closely, and begin their own time of anxiety about the exam. Faculty would commiserate with us about unfair questions asked in their areas of expertise. We knew we were not alone, that compassion abounded for us, like the compassion of Jesus for the crowds.

We are all like the crowds Jesus encountered, harassed and helpless in some area of life, all in need of the compassion of our communities. When you remember the compassion you have received, you become more able to pass that compassion on to others in your midst. I hope this week you can be part of a compassionate presence in your own workplace/dorm/classroom of the “harassed and helpless.”

Willibrord

This week we commemorate Willibrord, the first Archbishop of Utrecht, missioner from England to The Netherlands in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. He was born in Northumbria, where Celtic influences were prominent. He studied in France and Ireland, then was sent with 9 companions to Frisia in 690. We know these details of his life from The Venerable Bede’s History of the Church in England, and having no other sources, are unable to say much more about his life and work, except that it was interrupted by wars in the regions he served.

The See of Utrecht today is in full communion with the Church of England, testifying to the importance of Willibrord’s bringing Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Christianity to this region of Europe.

The collect for Willibrord, from Lesser Feasts and Fasts:
O Lord our God, who call whom you will and send them where you choose: We thank you for sending your servant Willibrord to be an apostle to the Low Countries, to turn them from the worship of idols to serve you, the living God; and we entreat you to preserve us from the temptation to exchange the perfect freedom of your service for servitude to false gods and to idols of our own devising; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The language of this collect seems quaint to us in its use of the phrase “worship of idols”, as we now understand idolatry to be as rampant among modern Christians as among any group of “pagans” of history. However, we do serve the living God, and try to keep mindful of God’s presence in our midst, providing guidance in confusion, grace in our moments of need, and mercy when we fall. We continue to pray that God would deliver us from our penchant of serving false gods in our lives. Maybe Willibrord will help us even now, interceding on our behalf.

Have a blessed week.