Thanksgiving sermon

Thanksgiving for the Sense of Taste and Smell

            I am the mother of two young children, so my life is saturated with Disney movies and children’s story books.  My girls have one particular Winnie the Pooh book about the senses that we read quite often.  It starts off with Rabbit needing help harvesting all of the apples in his orchard.  The whole crew pitches in and helps pick apples.  Once they are finished, they marvel at the different colors: there are red, and yellow, and green.  They then decide that they need to have a party to celebrate this great harvest, so Rabbit gives them permission to take whatever they need from his garden and off they go to make various items for their harvest celebration. 

            Eeyore takes his apples and makes apple cider.  Pooh bear takes his apples and dips them in honey.  Kanga takes her apples and makes pie.  Owl takes his apples and makes candles.  And Rabbit takes his and makes jam.  But poor Tigger, he has no idea what to make.  He is all confused and feeling rather inadequate.  As he visits each of his friends, learning about what they are making, he finally has an idea.  He will turn all of their creations into a game of the senses.  Some of the items smell good, others are sticky and gooey to the touch, others can be sampled and identified through taste.  And even little Roo  made maracas to join in the fun, so his creation connected to the sense of sound.  

            The Winnie the Pooh characters all participated in bringing in the harvest and they all contributed to the harvest festival.  Together, they took the same items, and yet they each contributed something unique and different.  No one item was better than another, and each character, whether young or old, skilled or not, had a way to share of themselves as they celebrated together.  Apple Cider, apple pie, apple candles, honey covered apples, apple jam, so many ways to take one fruit, one item of the harvest and enjoy its tastes, and smells. 

            This is just a children’s book, but it makes my mouth water.  I would really like to taste one of Pooh’s honey covered apples.  And apples, fresh off the tree are just so much better than buying them in the store.  Reading the book, conjures up memories of apple picking, fresh apple cider, and I can almost feel the juice running down my cheek. 

Our senses are powerful things.  They stir up our brain, they trigger emotions, they can even evoke memories.  Have you ever smelled something and suddenly you almost feel transported back in time to a specific place and time?  Our senses can trigger memories of things we haven’t thought of in forever, such as a meal at grandma’s house when you were a young child.   

            As we prepare for our upcoming Thanksgiving meal, are there any special dishes that you plan on having?  For so many, the foods have become a part of our heritage, a part of our psyche, a part of our memory engrained within us because of our senses. I could be wrong, but I don’t think they had stuffing or marshmellows on their sweet potatoes on that first Thanksgiving, but I can’t imagine a Thanksgiving without it.  Over time, meal after meal, we remember but we also add on, alter, change, and re-create.   As we prepare our meals, are there dishes at the table that are there because they have an ingrained memory within us, connecting us to our past, to our own heritage of a grandparent or great grandparent?  That when we eat it, we can’t help but think of Thanksgivings of our past, and how through food, we are able to bring our past into our present and on into our future? 

            There is such a sacredness in doing this.  Many of our faith traditions use food as a way to continue a story.  There are both the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, that for time longer than any of us can really fathom, have been passed along from generation to generation reminding us to remember, remember what God has done.  I love how the Psalmist uses the sense of taste to symbolically call us to connect to God:  O taste, and know that the Lord is good.  This is not a literal taste, taste the pumpkin pie and know God is good, but spiritually taste God.  Taste your faith, engage in it, engage in the scriptures of your faith, engage in how our senses speak to our memories and the moments of life where we remember what God has done for us.  Our senses are more than just a part of the physical design of our bodies.  They are more than just our nerve endings telling our brain how to react.  They are a part of our spiritual design.  It is through food and our sense of taste, our sense of smell, and our sense of sight that creates the whole moment, that creates one whole memory.  Our senses connect us to every day living, but they also connect us to the sacred, when we pay attention, when we listen to those memories stirred up within us, when we remember that the pumpkin pie is not just grandma’s recipe, but we remember how grandma sought to live her life as faithfully as she could. 

            Our senses, our memories, our sacred stories and meals in our lives, are very Biblical.  In the passage read today from Deuteronomy, the people have been living in the wilderness for forty years.  Although God has provided for them, they have had a rather limited diet.  As they prepare to enter the Promised Land, they are given this command.  They are to take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket.  Can you image?  Take the first fruits of the ground and dedicate them to God.  I’m sorry, but I am I would be like the little child that takes a nibble before the food is served.  Did any of you ever get shooed out of the kitchen, I remember those hand smacks and the scolding, get your fingers off of that and wait until dinner is served.  But it smells so good, it looks amazing, can’t I just have a taste? 

            That would be me, once I arrived in the Promised Land, I would need to have a nibble, I am sure my mouth would be watering as these new foods connected with my senses and I would want to devour them.  But God asks first for the food to be dedicated before the priests.  No matter how strong our senses are, to touch, smell, and taste these foods, first we must remember. 

            The people are to remember, once they are in the Promised Land that life was not always so blessed.  They are to remember being a people in Egypt and they are to remember that God liberated them from their affliction.  They are to remember that God brought them into this land and they are to dedicate the first fruits before they celebrate the harvest. 

            Many years ago, my family started remembering.  We did not remember all the way back to our Biblical history, but we started remembering that the pilgrims did not always have an abundant harvest.  We began to remember that there was a time when there just was not enough.  We began to remember that Thanksgiving was not just about grandma’s apple pie, and turkey and stuffing.  But it was about a courageous people that came to a new land to live in a new way and that many of them did not survive.  We began to remember the importance of the friendship between the pilgrims and the Native Americans and we starting to give thanks in a new way.  Five kernels of corn were placed by each persons plate reminding us of hard times, of times when there is just not enough and we prayed for those in the world today that still do not have enough: for the homeless, for refugees, for the underemployed and unemployed, for those whose medical bills have drained them dry.  We remember not just the past but we remember the present and we give thanks for our abundance.  This Thanksgiving, spend time allowing your senses to invoke memories among you.  As you smell taste your food, celebrate those that have come before and give thanks for the ways in which God’s sacred story continues to live out in our lives, in new and creative ways.  O Taste and know the Lord is good.  Amen.