Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Do you remember a magazine called Mad Magazine? It is still around and it still has a character whose name is Alfred E. Neuman. Alfred's stock line for decades, even when running for president (a gag campaign), has been "What, me worry?" I never saw the humor of that particular line when I was young, I guess because maybe I related to it. I did not especially worry except maybe just before a test, and since I seldom if ever studied, I suppose I had reason to worry. There was always prayer in school when I was around, but maybe that is why I did not worry. Of course, my mom did most of my worrying for me. For me, for my dad, for my brother and sister, for the president, for Mother Nature... She used to tell me that if she worried about something, that meant that God did not have to worry about it. At the time I thought she was kidding, but looking back on it, maybe she was serious. She grew up in a small farming community in North Dakota with relatives who farmed. In fact, she worked on farms when she was younger, so she knew how important it was that the crops had ample rain. She also knew how important it was that it did not rain too much. So she became an equal opportunity worrier. She knew that I did not study so I think she did my worrying for me. If we were going to Bemidji for Christmas, she would worry that there might be too much snow. If it had not snowed by Christmas, she would worry about that. Now I am intentionally using a bit of hyperbole here, but you get the idea.

So let us fast-forward a bit. You might think that I might have grown up to be a worrier because of what I was exposed to when I was young. Now it might be that I made a conscious decision to go the other way, but I do not remember doing so. At any rate, worry has usually seemed somewhat pointless to me, although I have a few moments here and there over the years. I suppose if I worry about anything, it is the rather insignificant and pointless things that really are not worth worrying about. I do not worry about the big things in life, and there is a good reason for that.

My lack of worry about big things in life came home to me when I was doing chaplaincy a few years back. Once a week we chaplains would gather together with our supervisors for a form of peer supervision. It was supposed to be a constructive time, but there were times when the process seemed to me to be more one of mutually assured destruction than anything else. I generally managed to stay out of the fray, but there came a point when I was going to have to miss a session because I was having outpatient surgery to fix a hiatus hernia. I mentioned it to the group so I immediately had to do a check-in statement, examining my feelings, and especially, my fears. Well I did not have any feelings one way or another, and I really did not have any fears. The way I saw it, I would feel much better when it was over, at least after a period of discomfort as I healed. I was asked about my fears. I said I did not have any. I was told that I was obviously in denial of some sort. Of course, I had fears, what if the surgery failed, what if something went terribly wrong and I did not wake up? Well, I responded, what if I do not wake up? I said I was not sure I would be in a position to know it, and if I was, I certainly could not do anything about it. My family was provided for, and I would be with God. I was hammered on for about 15 minutes until the supervisors cut it off, then they started on me. Of course, I was worried; of course, I had fears, why was I pretending to be so blasé about it all? I said again that I was a Christian, that in line with my calling to pastoral ministry, that I had confidence God would be with me no matter what, that he would enable the surgeons to use the skills he had given them, along with the rest of the medical staff, and that my wife and son felt the same way I did. What was there to worry about? I would be glad when it was over because one way or another, I would feel better. A Catholic priest who was there felt the same way I did, but since I was the target of opportunity, he stayed pretty much out of the fray, but he shared with me afterwards that he completely understood how I felt, that after a major accident when he was younger, he had felt the same way.

And in our Thanksgiving text, Jesus tells us not to worry, that God will provide for our needs. Notice he said for our "needs," not for our "wants." Many of us have been richly blessed. Oh, we might not always think so, but the truth of the matter is, we have been blessed. We might have concerns about the direction of our country, our church, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the situations in Pakistan and Iran, North Korea, our trade situation with China, the H1N1 virus, aging, broken bones, our retirement and stock market accounts, our 401Ks, giving or lack of giving at LCC, whether we got enough snow, too much snow, when the lake is going to freeze over, the list goes on. And you get the idea. We might be worried about our health, the health of a loved one, loved ones who are traveling, football games and turkey tomorrow, getting our Christmas shopping done Friday, and maybe Saturday. We might even be worried about the state of fishing for cod in the Atlantic and whether there will be lutefisk for Christmas. Well I can maybe reassure you on that score, the lutefisk you eat this holiday season has been in bricks for a while, maybe years, maybe decades. If you are really worried about it, you can stock up now, build a house or an outbuilding of lutefisk bricks and eat it piecemeal over the next score or two, or three, of years.

Notice that I used "Thanksgiving" as a noun earlier. I want to suggest to you that we should use it as a verb. Think of the list that I enumerated a moment ago, all the things I mentioned, the myriads that I did not mention, that perhaps you think should have been included on those lists of things to worry about. Got 'em all? Now, I will not suggest to you that you should throw the list away, burn it, or never think of anything on it again. We are humans, and doing something like that seems to go against the grain. After all, worry is part and parcel of the human existence, it probably has been ever since we were "hunter gatherers" or whatever our ancestors were once they had to leave Eden. But maybe we can put it all in perspective, in a healthier context. Maybe if we think of Thanksgiving more as a verb, and less as a noun, it will help.

Maybe we should be thankful to God for all we have been given. Maybe we should show in our daily lives that we have been blessed, that we have been given much, a free country, opportunities to excel, to earn, to do more than just gather the necessities of life. Perhaps we should consider that Thanksgiving to God as a verb is part and parcel of Christian existence, of Lutheran existence, of our existence, together as individuals, as a community as part of a larger community. We are about to enter the church year season of Advent, a time of preparation for the coming of Christ, first coming as well as second coming. We need to be thankful in our lives, actions, words, all of it, of all that we have been given.

We need to be thankful of the daily opportunity to witness Emmanuel - God with us! The greatest gift of all, the greatest reason in the world for thanksgiving every day, the real reason we do not have to worry.

AMEN.