“As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
October 30th, 1978 WKRP in Cincinnati, the old TV sitcom.
The infamous “Turkey Drop Episode.” I was ten years old. The whole world laughed. It was a great day.
If you haven’t seen it or don’t remember, look it up. A radio station decides to do a Thanksgiving promotional stunt by dropping turkeys from a helicopter, and chaos ensues, the surviving turkeys organize and fight back.
Mostly I remember my Dad laughing so hard I thought he ruptured multiple internal organs. The whole world laughing together. What a great thing. What a gift.
The things we do for Thanksgiving. We all have stories. It might not be as dramatic as a turkey drop, but we have stories. Like frying the turkey until it becomes the world’s biggest pork rind. Or the leaf on the table flopping over and all four pies plopping to the floor. Or having a surprise wedding in the living room. The things we do. The things that bring us together. What a gift.
Thanksgiving. It takes preparation. Logistics. Planning. Gathering. Cleaning. Cooking. Traveling. It is easy to get preoccupied with pulling it together.
We begin the Christian year today, the season of Advent. Happy new year! We also begin Matthew’s Gospel. We will be spending a lot of time together with Matthew for the next year.
Both Matthew and Advent have the same message of preparation as Thanksgiving requires of us.
Get ready. Something amazing is about to happen.
There are those who are ready and those who are not.
So be busy with the right things.
Isaiah and Romans also bid us to prepare for the arrival, for the day, for the gathering, for the suddenness of peace breaking out, sword into plow share, spears into pruning hooks, no more learning war, “I ain’t goin to study war no more.”
The Advent of the kingdom of God, the advent of peace, of waking up to the day, of the great gathering at God’s holy mountain.
Something wonderful is about to happen.
Be ready for it.
Prepare for it, like Noah preparing for the flood.
It will be a surprise. Like Turkeys falling from the sky.
For Matthew, the way of preparation, the way of Noah, the way of thanksgiving is all about walking with Jesus, doing as Jesus does and as Jesus says.
Believing in Jesus and walking with Jesus in the way of peace are the same thing. There is no separation between belief and action. Action tells us what we really believe.
And to believe in Jesus is to walk the way of peace, of love, of caring for the poor.
To meet Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel is to serve the poor and forgotten, those who are thirsty, and hungry. They are the sacrament for Matthew.
The question for Matthew isn’t so much whether we know Jesus as it is, “Do we know the name of a homeless person?” The question isn’t whether Jesus knows us, it is “Does a homeless person know our name?”
In Matthew Jesus is literally a refugee, an immigrant, chased by the government that literally separates children from their families, killing all the newborn sons, the holy innocents.
It is an uncomfortable gospel for these days. The implications are disturbing. To ignore them is to not be prepared for the big surprise.
The Advent of the kingdom. It is many things. We begin today with anxiety, watchfulness, wakefulness, preparation, ruining our weapons, our swords and spears and turning them into the tools that make life grow, plows and pruning hooks. What takes life away suddenly makes life grow. Flowers bloom from the gun barrels.
Getting ready for the big surprise that gathers us together while at the same time separating us between those who live the way of God and those who don’t. What is the difference? Be busy with that.
Gathering, separating, watching for the Day’s arrival.
The things we do to get ready.
Imagine the whole world laughing together. What a great day.
What would it take to make that happen?
Let us walk in the light of the Lord.