“Give Thanks for Tomorrow”

What gift can we bring,

what present, what token?

What words can convey it,

the joy of this day?

When grateful we come,

remembering, rejoicing,

what song can we offer

in honor and praise?

“There’s always this year” said one of the banners which hung over Progressive Field last Tuesday night as the Chicago Cubs did battle with our beloved Cleveland Indians to put an end to each team’s long drought of championships, the Indians since 1948, 68 long years ago, and the Cubs since 1908, since William Sianis, owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, angry at the presence of an animal in his fine establishment, swore that “then Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more.”

Well, we know how that turned out, don’t we? And yet we still have faith, faith that tomorrow will brighter, that next year will be our year, that even in the face of the doom and gloom of a late-night, extra-inning loss, next year will certainly be our year, or the next, or the next!

“Give thanks for tomorrow,” Jane Marshall says in the third verse of the hymn which serves as the centerpiece for our Stewardship Campaign this year, a campaign that concludes next Sunday with the presentation of our Estimate of Giving cards for 2017 during morning services of worship and the joy of the Feast of Thanks at 4:30 in Wesley Hall.

Give thanks for tomorrow,

full of surprises,

for knowing whatever

tomorrow may bring,

the Word is our promise

always, forever;

we rest in God’s keeping

and live in God’s love.

I hope that you’ll join me, and those among us who have already turned in our Estimates, in giving thanks for a God who holds past, present, and future firmly in the divine arms, gently in the divine hands, just as God holds our saints, our beloved ones, just as God holds us.