Forgotten Gravy

And we urge you, brothers and sisters, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.

Brothers and sisters, pray for us.
~ 1 Thessalonians 5:14-25 (NRSVUE)

It’s Thanksgiving! A time when we’re called to think of all the things that we’re thankful for in our lives. Folks, many times, when we think of things we’re thankful for, we think of the good things, the things that make us happy, the accomplishments we’ve made, and the positive relationships we have.

Some families have the tradition of sitting around the Thanksgiving table and sharing the things they’re thankful for. This is a wonderful idea because even though we might feel like we struggle and face difficulty day in and day out, our lives really are filled with good things—things to be thankful for, things that fill us to overflowing, things that remind us that we are loved.

During our sharing time today, I invited you to share something that you were thankful for with the person standing next to you, and I heard all kinds of different responses. But I wonder why we put such pressure on ourselves when we think about what we’re thankful for. It’s like, if you’re going to be thankful for something it must be really good, right? Why do we always look for such perfection in our lives?

Think back with me for just a minute to Thanksgivings in years past. Think about the people that sat around the table with you. Think about the food that you ate and the conversations that you had. Think about things that happened when you were together and the emotions that you felt. Thinking back, it’s not often the perfectly browned turkey and the mashed potatoes without lumps that we think of or the fancy tablecloths, table decorations, and napkins folded just so, is it? No! Thinking back, it’s not often the perfect things that meant the most; it was the real-life things that mattered.

Sure, if you were to look in a magazine or watch a show on TV, you might think that Thanksgiving is all about perfection. But to be honest, some of my favorite Thanksgiving memories are far from perfect. And when I think back over the years, those memories are the things that I am truly thankful for because they weren’t pictures in a magazine or clips of a Hallmark movie; they were my family, and they were real.

When I was a kid, we always had Thanksgiving at my grandmother’s house. We would get all dressed up. I would always pick out brown, tan, and orange clothes because those felt like Thanksgiving colors, and I would wear a special pin with a turkey, a pilgrim, or a cornucopia on it. It was 1.4 miles from my parents’ house to my grandparents’, and the good news was that we passed by water and woods. So when I sang at the top of my lungs, “Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go,” it all made sense.

At my grandmother’s house, when we sat down to eat dinner, there was always a children’s table and an adult’s table. Whichever table you were assigned to, everyone was expected to be on their best behavior. It was Thanksgiving, after all. But here’s my question: if you’re looking for perfection, proper behavior, and good manners, why in the world would you put all the children at one table and all the adults at the other?

Thanksgiving was perfect in our eyes as kids because we had the whole kids’ table to ourselves with no adults there telling us what to do. Growing up, I was one of those kids who would do anything to avoid trouble. Believe it or not, I was a people pleaser as a kid and always tried to keep everyone happy. But my cousin Diane would always come to Thanksgiving, and she didn’t have that same people-pleasing attribute. She was the youngest of the four cousins and the one that would always get us in trouble.

Thanksgiving dinner always started with my grandma’s fruit cup, served in fancy little dishes that Diane would fill with her 7up and then mix as fast as she could until it bubbled over onto the tablecloth. Then, she would put olives on all of her fingers. And if that weren’t enough, she tossed olives across the table into everyone’s drinks. When the olives were eventually removed from the kid’s table because we couldn’t handle them, she would go up into my grandmother’s bathroom, find her band-aids, and cover her body with them. And that never went over well with my grandmother, though it did seem to happen year after year.

When you think of a perfect Thanksgiving, you probably don’t often think of bubbling fruit cups, olives, and band-aids, but when I think of a perfect Thanksgiving, that is exactly what comes to mind for me. Those years were fun; they were all about family, and they were real. I’m sure you remember your own family stories. Maybe it was the Thanksgiving when the turkey platter got broken, or there were special unexpected guests, or Uncle Jim made all the kids laugh so hard they got belly aches, or the gravy was so thick you couldn’t use it, or all the dinner rolls burned. The stories I remember fondly about Thanksgiving had nothing to do with lump-less potatoes or perfectly cooked turkey. Perfection wasn’t what mattered because it was often the imperfections that filled my heart to overflow with true thanksgiving.

In our scripture reading today, the Apostle Paul encourages the church to make good choices and follow in Jesus’ footsteps. He says to “never repay evil for evil but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in ALL circumstances.”

Did you hear that last line, my friends? Give thanks in ALL circumstances—in good times and in bad, in times of perfection, and especially in times when things are imperfect and nothing goes the way we plan it.

I recently read a poem by Donna Ashworth that speaks to being thankful for the imperfections in our lives. She said that she wrote the poem just before New Year’s when she was thinking back over the time she spent with her family that year. She said that Thanksgiving and Christmas both had stumbling blocks, mistakes, and lots of imperfections but looking back she realized that sometimes those were the things that she was most thankful for.

Friends, I invite you to hear these words from Donna Ashworth’s poem titled “Forgotten Gravy.”

I love imperfectly mismatched
Christmas trees
homemade decorations
and trinkets that tell stories of the past

I treasure impromptu gatherings
with food rustled up from nowhere
when there is always just enough

I see the beauty in gifts handed over
with words of ‘Oh it’s nothing.’
for that simply means the giver
cannot begin to convey
how they really feel about you

I value both the quiet moments
when the lights twinkle privately
and the raucous occasions
when laughter fills the room

And I can’t get enough burnt carrots
forgotten gravy
and failed attempts at dessert

Because my friends
that’s where the love lives
in the imperfect
in the messy
in the real
So Look for it, and give thanks.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as you go out into your busy week ahead and as you sit at your Thanksgiving tables this week, don’t worry about perfection. Instead, be in the moment and treasure the imperfect, the messy, and the real. Put some black olives on your fingers. Savor the lumps in your potatoes. Appreciate Auntie Jean’s Jello salad, which she has brought for generations. Listen for the giggles from the children’s table and smile at the pile of dishes in the kitchen. Because then you’ll be ready to give thanks for the truly amazing gifts that are right in front of you.

My friends, may it be so. Thanks be to God. Amen!