Honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce;
then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Proverbs 3:9-10

 “Honor the Lord . . .” Those words caught my eyes as I sat at my desk praying about Thanksgiving and our preparation for the seasons of Advent and Christmas.

Honor: 1. strong moral character or strength, and adherence to ethical principles.
Honor: 2. great respect and admiration.
Honor: 3. personal dignity that sometimes leads to recognition and glory.

Let me introduce you to a friend of mine, Alonzo Williams.

Alonzo was, perhaps, one of the kindest, most faithful people I have ever known. He grew up poor, the oldest of several children whose father worked the coal-mine hills of Kentucky while their mother worked whatever work she could find (besides caring for all the children). Alonzo went to school for a ‘few years’, but his formal education was a life-long journey through the school of hard knocks. When still a young teenager, Alonzo heard of a job opportunity in Northern Indiana at the Culver Military Academy . . . working in the kitchen. He sought out that job as a way of helping his family with expenses, of giving his younger sisters and brothers a chance for an education, and as a way to experience the world beyond the hatred, prejudice and bigotry of a Kentucky mining town in the midst of the 20^th Century.

Alonzo never left the Academy. He worked in the kitchen, in the laundry, and occasionally helped with maintenance. In the latter years of his service there, Alonzo was the primary dishwasher for an institution which cared for thousands of students each year, year-round. He didn’t know the meaning of ‘lazy’ for he didn’t have time to experience it. He was too busy helping his family. Alonzo’s sisters and brothers all have undergraduate college degrees, some have graduate degrees: all were paid for by Alonzo as he washed dishes and did laundry and helped with maintenance on the barest of minimum salary.

When asked how he did what he did, Alonzo responded, “It’s what the Lord has given me to do, so I do it well.” Alonzo never married, he just never found the right person with the same values and work ethic, besides, as Alonzo said it, “If I would have married there would have been less money to send home.” So he lived alone in a sparsely decorated home, few amenities other than lights, heat and indoor plumbing, he supported his family, and he went to church . . . and he honored the God who saved him. Yes, that is how Alonzo said it always, “I honor the God who saves me” which is why I am thinking about him today.

One other Alonzo story: after attending a meeting at the church one evening, I came home to find Nancy nearly in tears. She told me that she had heard the doorbell late that evening and went to see who it was. It was Alonzo, freshly showered and in the best of clothes he had to wear, and as Nancy opened the door to invite him in, he haltingly declined the invitation recognizing that I was not home and fearing what the neighbors might say. Still, he handed Nancy a brown grocery bag with four apples and a package of ‘store-bought’ cookies, saying to her, “I heard your family was going back home for a vacation and I know how long those trips can be, so I brought you some food for the kids to help them on the way.” And he turned and went home, having fed our hearts with undeserved love and care, leaving Nancy with tears in her eyes and me with awe in my soul. “I honor the God who saves me.”

Those words were powerfully present just a few short months later when Alonzo didn’t report to work one morning and was found dead of a massive stroke. In the days which quickly followed I met an attorney, a nurse, a businessperson and a doctor: all of them Alonzo’s sisters and brothers, the first fruits of many years of washing dishes, doing laundry and helping with maintenance . . . and I kept hearing his voice in my ears, “I honor the God who saves me.” As we gathered on the steep hillside of a Kentucky cemetery, in what was formerly called, “The Colored Section’, and laid Alonzo along-side his mother and father and repeated the oft-spoken phrases, I couldn’t help but recall and share that old Confirmation prayer that, in this moment, seemed so, so fitting: “Lord Jesus, for thee I live, for thee I suffer, and for thee I die. Lord Jesus, thine will I be in life and in death. Grant me, O Lord, eternal salvation. Amen.”

His humility, love and gentleness carried him through a lifetime of honoring the God who saved him. His work ethic, values and faith strengthened him for a lifetime of providing for others. To me and so many others, Alonzo Williams was a living, breathing embodiment of honoring the Lord with the first fruits of his substance. To outsiders Alonzo may have appeared to have a substandard level of comfort and to some he may have appeared to be simple, awkward and sad in his demeanor, but to those who knew him . . . and I hope to you who now have come to know him . . . Alonzo’s barns are now filled with plenty and his vat’s are bursting with new wine for his life was spent honoring, with everything that he had and was, “ . . . the God who saves me.”

The world may know the names of George Bush, John Kerry, Colin Powell, Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, Hillary Clinton and Katherine Hepburn, but the heavens above and the angels who dwell therein know the names of those, like Alonzo, who honors the God who saves them. These may not have had state funerals with military honors and bands to send them on their way, and these may not have even been known in their local communities for having done much at all, but these are the ones whom God knows and loves by name, these are the ones who inherit the Kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of time, that Kingdom of which Jesus teaches us.

This Thanksgiving take a lesson from the Gospel according to Alonzo: Remember to honor the God who saves you. Give as abundantly as you have received. Share as generously as you have been blessed. Believe as deeply as God believes in you . . . and to you, too, shall belong the fullness of barns and the richness of vats. To you shall belong the Kingdom . . . this is God’s promise. This is the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is true and can be trusted. Thanks be to God!