Modern-day Deuteronomy

I preached on Thanksgiving, if you could call it preaching.

I basically re-wrote a Deuteronomy text (8:7-18) for a modern context. The original is addressed to the people of Israel. God reminds them that he has rescued them from slavery in Egypt and provided for them through wilderness journeys and into Canann. Now that they live in relative comfort and prospertiy, it seems they've forgotten God.

Does that ever happen in our world?

Thanksgiving is for remembering what God has done and for giving thanks. My re-write is below. Thanks for reading it :)

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land flowing with glacier-fed streams, with alpine lakes and hot springs near Fairbanks, a land of moose and caribou, of blueberries and cranberries, of salmon, halibut and lingcod, a land where you may eat without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land where gold is found and from whose plains you may drill oil. You shall eat and hunt and fish your fill (or at least 25 dip-netted salmon per person per season) and bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

But take care that you do not forget the Lord your God by failing to keep his commandments, remembering those less fortunate or congratulating yourself for being so smart. When you have shot and quartered a moose this season and filled up shelves with Costco bargains, when you have built a 3,000-foot house on the Hillside and a deck with new patio furniture, and when your stocks soared and your PFD got bigger, and you even find the perfect parking spaces, don’t become full of yourself and your things that you forget God.

For this God through Christ delivered you from slavery to sin and self-centeredness so that all people could live in hope. This God led our nation through world wars and the Great Depression, present in suffering, near at times of death.

This God walked with Alaskans through the journey from territory to statehood, through the terrible earthquake of 1964, through pipeline prosperity and the 1980s crash. Through oil prices high and low, through winter storms, deaths of loved ones, rising costs of living and summer bear attacks, God has been very near. God has fed you with his Word and through the love of others. Even when times were tough, God intended good for you.

So do not say to yourself, “My power and college degree and sound investment strategies and hard work have gained me all that I have. I’m rich! It’s all mine!” Think again! Remember that the Lord our God gave you the strength and persistence to create this wealth and, as we’ve seen in the stock market, it will not last nor will it save you. If you forget God and start worshipping gods of your own design (including the gods of fear, hoarding, scarce-thinking and blaming), then consider this your warning, this will be the end of you. I mean to say that when you forget to thank God, you’re pulling away from your source of life and healing, your center, your well-spring, your foundation. You lose the you you’re meant to be. So remember and give thanks!