A Good Smell

TITLE: A Good Smell
DATE:  November 22, 2018 – Thanksgiving Day
TEXT: Ephesians 5:1-2 - Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

To the best of my knowledge, in 1621, when the Pilgrims sat down with the Indians to celebrate the first dedicated Christian Thanksgiving, on what would someday become American soil, they did not use a microwave oven.

•  nor did they have a six burner gas stove with convection oven and
•  their food didn’t come prepackaged, dehydrated, homogenized, pasteurized or government inspected.

Of course, that first Thanksgiving had some things we do not.

For example, venison, a featured dish in 1621, is not being served up at the Klaushaus, this Thanksgiving. Nor are we going to be having eels and shellfish, clams and mussels. And although passenger pigeon could have been on the Pilgrim’s menu, the extinction of that once common bird keeps it from being placed on ours.

Thankfully, there is one shared food which has managed to bridge the centuries separating us and that food is turkey.
Today 92% of Americans are eating turkey.

Of course, any time you have that many people doing something, you can be sure some of them will get confused. To prevent such confusion is why Butterball Turkeys have set up a hotline. In recent years they have dealt with questions like the

•  …man who had cut his turkey in half with a chain saw. He wanted to know if the oil from the chain would adversely affect the taste of the turkey.
• …the woman who wondered why her turkey had no breast meat. (her bird was upside down.)
• …the individual who found a turkey dated 1969 in his father’s freezer. He wanted to know the best way to cook the 40+ year-old bird. (He was told, “Don’t. Go buy a new bird.”)

Truly, there are a great many foolish and silly calls which come to the Butterball hotline on Thanksgiving Day. But there is one call I would like you to think about for a few moments.

• This call was made by a mother whose daughter had asked if they could “slow roast” the turkey for three or four days. The reason: they both liked the way the turkey made the house smell.  (They were told it wouldn’t be a good idea to cook a turkey that long.)

I understood what that little girl and her mother were trying to do.

They were looking for a smell which was long lasting, which permeated every spot in the house. Their question got me to wondering…. Does the Bible say anything about God desiring such a thing?”Does our loving Lord wish for an odor which reaches into the most remote corners of heaven?

The answer is an emphatic, “Yes….. but maybe not what or where a person might expect. For example Psalm 51:6 tells us that the worship God really, wants is not going to be found in the making of many offerings. That s why David could say “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.”

If sacrifices aren’t what God wants, what is?  Paul lets us know in Ephesians 5:1. There he tells us that when we children of God do our best to imitate the sacrificing love, the gracious love, the complete love of Christ we, ourselves become a fragrant offering and a God-pleasing sacrifice.

It sounds like an idea which needs to be tried.

THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, the devil would very much love to see us confine our thanks giving to one day in November. Forgive us when we fall for such a foolish suggestion. Recognizing that every good gift comes from you, may we live our lives in love and offer You our never ending thanks and praise. In Jesus’ Name I ask it. Amen.
 
The music which introduces and concludes our devotions was written by Guy Baumann, one of my long-ago  confirmands. He is singing with three brothers. This song comes from the album: The Baumann Brothers which may be ordered here: http://thebaumannbrothers.com/index.html