11-18-2018 “Our Holy Day”

Thanksgiving Sunday, November 18, 2018

Sermon: “Our Holy Day”

Dr. John Tamilio III

A friend of mine, who is a rabbi in Kansas City, often says that Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday, because it is the only interfaith religious holiday that we have. Now to some extent, he is absolutely correct. Americans of every religion — and Americans of no religion — celebrate Thanksgiving. It isn’t just for Christians.

But, on the other hand, this is our holiday. By “our” I do not mean we as Christian; I mean we as Congregationalists. We are the heirs of the Pilgrims and Puritans who came to America from Europe almost 400 years ago to escape religious persecution. According to legend, these Colonists, having survived their first, brutal winter, celebrated the harvest with one another and some of the Native Americans. Some of these legends are just that (unsubstantiated legends), while some of them are based on fact, on historical records that we have. Either way, Thanksgiving is uniquely (though not exclusively) a Congregationalist holy day.

The history of Congregationalism is rich and varied. It began (in America anyway) when a small band of Separatists, who were part of the Leyden Congregational Church in England, “sailed in the Mayflower across the Atlantic to plant Congregationalism in the New World” (Rouner 16). This is the story you learned as a youth in history class. Of course, there is more to the story than this. For those interested, I have several books I can lend you for your intellectual edification. For our purposes today, though, I want us to delve into what Thanksgiving means to us specifically as members of a Congregationalist church.

We are, first and foremost, giving thanks to God for all of the blessings that God has poured (and continues to pour) into our lives. Those blessings, of course, are too numerous to possibly list. Many of them are about our being free — free to believe and to worship as we wish. This was what led our Congregationalist forbears to these shores in the first place.

In her recent book, The Art and Practice of the Congregational Way, the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Mauro outlines some of the pillars of our tradition under three headings: Faith, Freedom, and Fellowship. Unpacking those terms as they have existed in our tradition, we really find out what we are all about as a Thanksgiving people.

Faith. First, Congregational churches are organized around covenants. Covenants unite us with one another and with God. Covenants mean that we are a relational people. Think about why you love this church. We’ve been talking about this throughout our stewardship campaign. I’d like to think, as I’ve said before, that it’s because you think your pastor looks like a cross between Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, but I think it has more to do with the people that are part of this congregation — people who have become some of your closest friends. Drew Kemalian Sr. once told me how he and Bunny would get together for dinners, parties, and various social events with the Samsels, the Pinkhams, and the Strandskovs back in the day. I have seen photographs of all of you working hard at the Harvest Fair and various fundraisers generations ago. This is not just nostalgia. When I look at those pictures, I see something specific. Friendship. Love. Faith. It’s what binds us together.

That working together, like you saw at yesterday’s Church Fair, is part of what it means to be a church. In fact, another principle of faith that is a defining aspect of Congregationalism is that all of us (clergy and lay people) have spiritual gifts that we are to use for the up-building of the church; we are to use them in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Dr. Mauro writes that “The phrase ‘priesthood of all believers’ was used by later Congregationalists to express this equality among all members” (13). Christ is the sole head of the Church. “Congregationalists [believe] that no one [stands] between the believer and Christ” (Mauro 13). All of us can approach God directly — and all of us are called into Christ’s service.

Freedom. When I was in seminary, I used the title “the Congregational Church” to speak of Congregationalism and was quickly corrected by Prof. Elizabeth Nordbeck, a distinguished Congregationalist historian. “There is no such thing as the Congregational Church,” she said, schooling me. “They are Congregational Churches” plural. She’s right. There is no Congregational Church. We are Congregational churches. We love our independence. We are united in covenant, but, as Mauro reminds us, it is a voluntary covenant, meaning individual members decide which local churches they want to belong to. We are not assigned to a parish based on geographical location, which was a practice in sixteenth century England, nor are we governed by some ecclesial authority, such as the papacy. We are autonomous — we are self-governing. Issues of doctrine and practice lie within our hands. We call our own clergy; we ordain and install them.

But let’s not be too quick to see that freedom as a license to do whatever we wish. Although we do not answer to a Vatican, we are still accountable to God. In his book The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, Williston Walker speaks of the Burial Hill Declaration of Faith “whose first statement of congregational principles reads, ‘…the local or Congregational church derives its power and authority directly from Christ, and is not subject to any ecclesiastical government exterior or superior to itself’” (Mauro 25, Walker 567-568). Again, we focus on the second part of this statement an awful lot (we are “not subject to any ecclesiastical government”), but we are subject to Jesus Christ. Our life together must reflect the Gospel. Ours is not some renegade faith.

Fellowship. We spoke of this a bit in terms of relationships, but the koinonia of which I am speaking here is about more than friendships. Congregational churches fellowship both internally and externally. We have “always valued fellowship with other churches and have depended upon these churches for advice and guidance on important matters” (Mauro 46). The Holy Spirit does not work exclusively with just some of us. The Spirit works in and through all of us.

When we decided as a church to leave the United Church of Christ we had the option of being an independent church with no denomination affiliation. I warned us against that for the sole reason that (theologically) being a church unto oneself is a contradiction of what it means to be a Congregational church. We need to work with and listen to other churches. Otherwise, we risk becoming insular. This is dangerous. It is neither healthy nor faithful if you do everything unto yourself, and only talk amongst yourselves.

III

In The Congregational Way of Life, Arthur Rouner, Jr. writes, “We Congregationalists of modern American are heirs of a heritage that has long been forgotten. We live with a memory of a great tradition and yet we are no longer sure just what it is. A word here and a word there have come down to us and we carry them as little banners; but they are not the whole truth, they are not the glorious fullness of Christ’s banner ‘floating o’er us’” (170).

But we, my friends, we remember our heritage simply because we live it every day. It’s not just a story that we read — something we learned about Pilgrims and Puritans and Thanksgiving when we were in junior high and high school. We live this story — and it’s about faith, it’s about freedom, it’s about fellowship.

As we approach this Thanksgiving, our holy day, may we give heart-filled thanks and adoration to the Lord our God for the boundless blessings that he has given to us and continues to do so. Amen.