Thanksgiving is coming. We think about turkey, about sweet potatoes, about pumpkin pie, about Pilgrims.
We think about how the Pilgrims were fleeing from a country that had made style of worship a political issue. We think about the great fights that were going on at this time in Europe between Catholic and Protestant, the fights in England between the High Church of England and the dour Puritans. Every time the Crown changed, the acceptable religion changed. Imagine being put into jail because you believed in praise bands and they were outlawed. Or five years later they were required by law and choirs were outlawed. And it all gets confusing, for the Pilgrims were none of the above. They were neither Catholic, nor Anglican Church of England, nor Puritan. They were Separatists, a tiny group with no political power, but only a half-dozen or so small congregations in their denomination.
We know that they left England in 1609 and moved to the very tolerant country of Holland. It was the same year that Captain John Smith and others founded the Jamestown colony in Virginia, Just like the Israelites who crossed the Red Sea, the Pilgrims had crossed the English Channel. And they were happy, for they could worship as they thought best. Just as Moses and Miriam sang in Exodus 15, the Pilgrims were happy and thankful, filled with gratitude!
“I will sing to the LORD,
for he is highly exalted.
But after a few years, they saw that their children were becoming Dutch – and they did not want that. They were English and they wanted to stay English. They faced a problem much like the Amish do in Ohio today. But because they were so small, and because they remembered the problems that happened to the Israelites who settled next to the Canaanites, they chose a different solution – they decided to move as a group - to Virginia, where a new colony was getting started.
“The LORD is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
You know that they sailed from Holland to England, where they picked up remnants of another congregation, and that they started for America in two small ships in September, very late in the year for such a journey. And when the Speedwell sprung a leak and the two ships were forced to return to England, they decided to crowd everyone on the tiny Mayflower and continue onward to Virginia.
Well, as we know, God made the winds blow them farther north than they expected and they found themselves off of Cape Cod in early December, in the snow, where they landed, explored a bit, and finally found a clearing and built a small village of tiny huts for the winter. And they began to die from cold, from starvation, and from scurvy sickness because they did not know about the necessity of consuming Vitamin C in their diet, and they had no preserved fruits. It had been a long journey from England, and most of the Pilgrims died that winter. More than 4 out of 5 Pilgrims died that winter.
And once in a while in this story, we remember a guy named Squanto.
You remember Squanto. He was the Native American Indian who walked out of the woods one day in March of 1621, after that first terrible winter had killed most of the Pilgrims. He was the guy who taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, by putting minnows in the hills with the corn seeds during planting. He spoke English!
Did you ever wonder how it came to be that an Indian in that country spoke English? And did you ever wonder why he chose to help the Pilgrims, instead of simply letting them die like most of his countrymen were willing to do? Have you ever wondered where God was in all of this?
Let me tell you his miraculous story today. It is another story of a journey – a long, long journey with God at each step, a journey much longer than that of the Israelites or the Pilgrims.
He was born around 1590. In those days, many Europeans ships were coming to fish off the coast of New England. After fishing, they would often dry and salt their catches on the beaches and trade for furs and food with the Indians, who in those days were very numerous in Massachusetts, a population of perhaps a half-million people.
In 1604, when Squanto was about 14, looking for adventure, he voluntarily sailed with an English vessel that came calling, to England, where he lived for a few years.
Enter Captain John Smith, of Pocahontas fame, Captain John Smith who had been at the Virginia colony. Smith met Squanto in England and took him back to Newfoundland, in Canada to assist with a new colony there. There, Squanto learned the problems with establishing English colonies in the New World. He learned how much trouble the English had with the winter – and the lack of Vitamin C containing fruit – and the troubles they had with growing food. He saw mistakes made and he saw what fixed the mistakes.
11 Who among the gods
is like you, LORD?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?
Captain Smith got the bright idea of using Squanto to set up trading relationships with his village back in Massachusetts. So Smith arranged for Squanto and another man, Captain John Hunt, to visit the Cape Code area.
In 1614, when Hunt and Squanto reached the area, Hunt showed what a greedy, nasty man he was. Hunt lured about 27 Indian men on board his ship (including Squanto) and kidnapped them. He sailed to Malaga, Spain, where he began to sell the men as slaves. One story tells us that a group of Catholic Dominican friars found out what was going on and broke up the slave selling, taking the Indians (including Squanto) into their monastery. There, Squanto became a Christian.
2 “The LORD is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
After a couple of years, Squanto was able to leave Spain and catch a ship for London, where he lived for a few years with a man named John Slaney. Squanto was Slaney’s servant and walking, talking, museum piece. Slaney showed off Squanto at dinner parties. Meanwhile, Squanto improved his English skills.
Meanwhile, in America, things were happening.
When Squanto was born, there were over 100,000 Native American Indians who lived in New England, perhaps as many as a million. His village had over 2000 people. Europeans had thought about establishing colonies there, but there were far too many people already living there. However, that all changed when a French ship wrecked at Cape Cod in 1616. There were five survivors of the wreck – and one had smallpox. Within three years, the population of Massachusetts had dropped to about 10,000 Indians. Entire villages had been destroyed, including one large town that formerly had over 20,000 inhabitants. Southeastern Massachusetts lost almost all its inhabitants in the great plague. And the Indians blamed the power and the wrath of the English God:
15 The chiefs of Edom will be terrified,
the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling,
the people of Canaan will melt away;
16 terror and dread will fall on them.
By the power of your arm
they will be as still as a stone—
until your people pass by, LORD,
until the people you bought pass by.
17 You will bring them in and plant them
on the mountain of your inheritance—
the place, LORD, you made for your dwelling,
the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established.
Squanto once again came back to America with another English captain, John Dermer in the late spring of 1620. This time, after arriving in Massachusetts, Squanto and Dermer discovered that his home village was gone. Completely. 2000 people had died. There were skeletons all over the place. The homes were still there, the grain was still where they had stashed the corn. But stillness. A great stillness. No one remained alive.
Imagine coming home to discover that the entire Parkersburg area had been wiped out. Homes empty. Bones glistening in the sun where people had died and not been buried. Weeds growing over everything. Food still in pantry cupboards.
Squanto was devastated. After all his journeys, crossing the ocean repeatedly, he had arrived home and there was no home to come to. He must have hurt deeply. But despite this, God was not through with Squanto. God had a plan and a purpose for Squanto.
Squanto spent the summer and fall living with a neighboring tribe, the most powerful one remaining in the area. He told them of what he had learned in his travels, including the God-man Jesus who had died and rose again. Squanto became friendly with the chief of the tribe and with other tribes in the area.
In early December, members of the tribe watched Englishmen and women land and settle close to Squanto’s old village. The English had a bad winter. They did not have enough food, nor the right kinds of food, such as fruit.
And so, in March of the next spring, after a hard winter that killed all but one of the women and all but 19 of the men, when everyone was sick and starving, when there was serious question whether or not the strength could be found to even begin farming - imagine the blessings when Squanto, speaking fluent cultured English from his years in England, understanding the problems of colony planting from his time in Newfoundland, and understanding Christianity from his time with the Dominicans in Spain, imagine when Squanto walked out of the woods to teach the Pilgrims how to survive and to negotiate a peace treaty with the Massachusetts Indians that lasted for 50 years. He even brought them a basket of eels as a present and taught the Pilgrims how to catch eels in abundance.
13 In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.
For you see, God had been involved all along with Squanto’s journey and the Pilgrims’ journey:
· He had cleared the way for the Pilgrims by removing the previous inhabitants and putting a literal fear of God in those who remained.
· He had provided a clearing – Squanto’s old village - with good, cleared land ready for planting corn. Those of us that have lived in Marietta, OH know the story of how the first corn crop at Marietta failed because it took too long to clear the huge trees, and the crop failed for lack of sunlight.
· God had provided a stock of seed corn and seed beans in the old village.
· God had provided Squanto to be a teacher, with the perfect background.
· God had also provided Squanto as an interpreter who had the connections to be a diplomat.
· God had used Captain Hunt, the would-be slaver to accomplish good even though Hunt had intended evil.
· God had used Captain John Smith from Jamestown.
· God had used the Catholic Dominican friars in Spain.
· God used unknown sailors who gave Squanto passage from Spain to England.
· God used John Slaney, at whose home Squanto lived for those years in England.
And God used even the smallpox germ. I do not claim that God caused the plague, but I do know that God took advantage of it. You see, we know that the land was already cleared – we see that. But do we also see that the tragedy which took Squanto’s friends and family from him also set him free to serve God completely and gave him a purpose for all those wanderings?
Well, we know the story of the next few hundred years. We know how the Pilgrims were soon overshadowed by a huge number of Puritans who moved to America. We know how New England became the most populous part of America – and the part that led the rebellion against England. We know how the descendants of those rebels eventually went back to Europe and saved England in a huge, devastating war with Germany. Twice.
And we know that the descendants of those Pilgrims and Puritans spread throughout the colonies, preaching and teaching and making America a Christian nation. It was a descendent of those people, by the name of Jonathan Edwards, who preached a great sermon in Connecticut which was written down that caused people to wail and moan and beg for God’s mercy. A man back in England, John Wesley, heard and read about the sermon and asked why the church in England couldn’t be half as excited about the salvation of God and so he began a movement that eventually became the Methodist Church. And those Methodists and their German-speaking friends, the United Evangelical Brethren established small churches in nice little hollows between the hills in West Virginia, one of which is the place we are meeting at today. And someone heard this story today and historians of the future will record that he or she did great things on behalf of the same God who brought Miriam and Moses through the water, who brought the Pilgrims over the water, and who brought Squanto on a long, long journey back and forth across the Atlantic, to walk into the village of Plymouth in March of 1621.
18 “The LORD reigns
for ever and ever.”
As for Squanto, he lived with the Pilgrims for about a year and a half. Then, while on a trade mission with the Pilgrims to the Rhode Island area, he died of a fever, most likely the same disease that had killed the other members of his village a few years earlier. Captain John Bradford, head of the colony, wrote that Squanto asked that prayers be said to the God of the English to allow Squanto into the English Heaven as he lay dying.
But Squanto did not die until a year after the Pilgrims celebrated their great thanksgiving feast – which they shared with their new friends, the Native American Indians and their joint friend, Squanto. Each person in the colony now had three bushels of shelled corn to survive the next winter. A week of wild birds could be shot in a day. They now knew which plants were edible and which were poisonous. They knew the good cranberries that would provide the needed Vitamin C to prevent scurvy And they had a peace treaty with their neighbors, a peace treaty that lasted 50 years. They had much to be thankful for.
· They had crossed the great sea and left their enemies behind, just like the Israelites.
· They had found that God had gone before them, just like the Israelites.
· And they had found food and peace in a new land, provided by God, just like the Israelites.
I ask you – what do you have to be thankful about this year, a year of impeachment, of COVID, of riots, of murder hornets, of election tension? What do you have to be thankful for in this long, long journey called life?
How has God strengthened you, blessed you, tested you, loved you, held you, been proclaimed by you?
And when you look back over your lives, do you see God’s hand in work in your past, leading you to where you are today?
Perhaps God led you to certain people, away from a course of action that seemed so GOOD at the time but wasn’t right for you. Perhaps God put obstacles in your path that cause you to change direction, like a huge boulder in the middle of the road. Perhaps God showed you the way to walk down hill, gave you an easy path because you were in the center of His Will. Perhaps you made a decision that looked good at the time, but put you into slavery – to a job, a relationship, a chemical, a debt?
What did you learn while you were in slavery?
Perhaps you learned how to be persistent. Perhaps you learned a skill. Perhaps you learned to make do with little. Perhaps you learned how to “shut your mouth.” Perhaps you learned it is okay to cry. Perhaps you learned how to plan for the future. Perhaps you were forced to move away from your home.
What did you learn while you were away from your home?
You may have learned new ideas, you may have learned to be more dependent on God and less on your family, you may have learned that home is actually a nicer place than you once thought. Perhaps you found tragedies which chained your priorities in life.
What tragedies in your life have set you free to be of service to God?
Perhaps you have a lost a job, lost a friend, lost a wife or husband because of COVID. Perhaps you have lost money, a retirement account, a car. Perhaps your tragedy meant that you lost a bad habit. Perhaps COVID has given you a chance to change your life for the better, time for learning, time for new things closer to God to replace the old things in your life.
Perhaps COVID has been a blessing for you, a blessing that you don’t recognize – yet, but a blessing still the same, for God wants to bless you eternally, and sometimes that takes a hard change before we can move closer to Him. We need to trust that God is right beside us in our long, long journey of life – even when the events in our life hurt. Our most wise God is ready – if we will trust Him – to replace our old life with one even better. For God who loves us has a purpose in everywhere He leads us to along this long, long journey.
So when you set down to Thanksgiving dinner or just an evening together this year, consider the story of Squanto that we have heard today. This sermon can be found in written and video form on the Cedar Grove UMC website or Facebook page online if you want to tell Squanto’s story to your children or grandchildren.
Consider your life’s journey and the blessings where God has led you.
Consider the words of Paul to the Ephesians:
16 I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.
Oh, that the eyes of our heart may be opened so that we can have peace knowing that God has the wisdom and power and strength to protect us!
What peace! Remember that peace of God when the turkey is burning and the gravy is lumpy, when the rolls catch on fire and the Kool Whip is frozen, when the something is left in the microwave and the vinegar bottle is empty, when the house is a mess and your mother-in-law’s feet are on the steps. Remember these verses from Philippians Chapter 4:
6Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Do you want peace in your home? Follow this prescription. Peace followed Jesus wherever He walked. Peace follows those who follow Jesus and speak to His Father. Squanto followed Jesus and ensured peace for his country for 50 years.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father,
Thank you for the lessons about life that you teach us about yourself. Thank you for your consistent, perfect love that was with us even when we did not know you. Thank you for sending your Son, the peace maker – Jesus Christ. Show us the next step in our long, long journey to learn about you. Please grow each one of us in Your ways. Help us to Praise your Son to our family, friends, and neighbors. We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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