A Homily for Thanksgiving Sunday

by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, November 21, 2010

Welcome to our special service of Thanksgiving, our annual Bread Communion. This is not a new ceremony to Unitarian Universalism; a service similar to this one was first held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kirkwood, Missouri, in 1976. Other UU churches hold Bread Communions around this time of year, but not all do. Part of the rich tapestry of our pluralistic religious heritage is that each UU church makes its own decisions about such things as annual rituals and holidays.

We are a gathered community within a gathered community. Few of us were lucky enough to be born into this church or into Unitarian Universalism. We did not merely find ourselves here, we choose to come. We choose to commit ourselves, we choose to make this our spiritual and religious home (however we might differently define those words). For the first time in the history of religion, a people have come together bound not by shared blood or beliefs or even shared traditions, but by shared values and a respect for each other’s journey. We are, as are all UU congregations, working and struggling and celebrating together to build a disparate group into one church community. A lot of the time we succeed, in ways that are a mystery.

We live in a gathered nation. Few of the people living in the United States today were born of pure Native American heritage -- and if we go back enough thousands of years, even their ancestors came from somewhere else. Some of our ancestors chose to come here, and came eagerly, full of hope and promise. Others of our ancestors came not of their own volition. Some came against their will altogether, dragged here in chains from their homelands. Others came in order to escape terrible conditions at home – famine, war, torture, political oppression, lack of economic opportunity, leaving behind shattered families and shattered dreams.

However they got here, they were Pilgrims all. For the first time in the history of civilization, people have come together to build a nation bound not by shared ethnicity or background or culture or religion, but by a democratic ideal of equality and freedom. Our country, more than 300 years after that first Thanksgiving, is still struggling and working together to blend these disparate peoples into one diverse rainbow tribe.

On our Thanksgiving Communion Table are breads from many cultures and nations: the French baguette, New Orleans French bread (which is really Alsation), Jewish challah, Mexican tortilla, Italian foccaccio, nan from India, pita from Greece, pumpernickel from Germany, cornbread from the American South, sourdough from the American West. White bread, brown bread, yellow bread, dark bread and light bread. Different tastes, different smells, different traditions -- but it’s all bread.

The bread represents the people of Greater New Orleans; it represents this church; it represents America; it represents the peoples of the earth. It is a table of bounty -- and yet we are aware that not everyone enjoys such bounty. It is a table of fulfillment and satisfaction -- and yet we know that not everyone feels fulfilled and satisfied. It represents our hopes and dreams and all the gifts for which we feel such overflowing gratitude -- and yet we recognize that not everyone is able to hold onto their dreams and hopes, nor does everyone receive the gifts that we do.

When we look at the breads of many nations on this table, we think of everything involved to bring them here this morning: the sweet richness of the earth itself, the sun shining, the wind blowing, the rain falling, the hard work of planting and caring for and harvesting the grain, the labor of grinding the grain into flour, bringing the ingredients together and making the bread, transporting it, cutting it, arranging the trays, and decorating this table. Elements were transformed, money changed hands, work was done -- and now we see before us a table laden with goodness.
We all have associations with bread, times of family, times of sweetness, times of feeling nourished.

One of the favorite bread stories in my family comes from my mother's childhood, when she and her best friend, my Aunt Faye, came into the kitchen and found a fresh loaf of bread cooling on a rack on the table. They both loved the taste of warm, crusty bread, with butter melting on it, and they thought nobody would mind if they cut off one end slice. But after they shared that slice, they were not satisfied, so they cut off the other end and ate that too. But still they wanted more, and they figured no one would care if they ate the bottom crust, so they turned the loaf over and cut off the bottom. But after eating that, they STILL wanted more. The upshot is, when my Grandmother walked in to check on her loaf, she found a sorry naked white rectangle on the rack, since Mama and Aunt Faye had taken ALL the crusts off.

Looking at this bread, we are reminded that always we are nourished and sustained by the hard work and sacrifices of others; we confess once again that we are interdependent, unable to get along without the help and support of others. Looking at the bread, smelling it, we feel a kinship with all those human beings throughout the milennia in all parts of the Earth who have loved the homey smell of bread baking, who have savored the wonderful taste of fresh bread, who have been nourished in soul as well as body by the eating of good bread. We are one with them; they are one with us. Looking at the bread, we acknowledge our unity horizontally and vertically with all human beings in all times and places; we recognize our interconnection and interdependence with each other, and with people all over the country and around the world we will never know.

When we eat bread when we are hungry, we know ourselves blessed by the bread, our bodies becoming one with the nutrients of the bread, the bread transformed by our eating of it. Yes, oh yes, bread blesses us.

Let us then bless this bread before we partake of it. Let us say together our unison words for the Blessing of this bread:

Blessing Over the Bread by Mark Belletini

In a world where the wheat & the weeds grow in the same field,
where suffering & greed often seem to us
to be as plentiful as joy & justice,
where mere desire is often mistaken for dire need --
the call to bless comes to us, swelling in our hearts,
the promptings of gratitude,
the urge to single out the graciousness of this life
with words of thanksgiving & beauty.
We bless this bread & this cider,
symbols of harvest, symbols of our gratitude.
We are glad to share them together.