Happy
Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, I really like stuffing and
gravy, the football, and the family. It is a joy to spend part of this day with
you as we celebrate the Eucharist. As you may know, Eucharist is a word which means
“good thanks” in Greek. There is no better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than
gathering in the name of God to give thanks for the grace, love, and salvation
with which God blesses us.
Thanksgiving, of course, is one type
of prayer, and the early European immigrants to this land were prayerful
people. Services of thanksgiving were commonplace. The formalizing of
Thanksgiving began in Jamestown in 1607, where their charter mandated that on
the anniversary of their ship’s safe arrival, they would have a yearly service
of thanksgiving. What we have come to call the “first Thanksgiving” happened in
Plymouth in 1621 and really was more of a harvest celebration than a
thanksgiving meal. The European settlers had insufficient food supplies to make
it, and with the help of the native Americans, they were able to have a successful
harvest, for which they were thankful. In 1777, George Washington declared a
day of Thanksgiving in December after a victory at the Battle of Saratoga. And
days of thanksgiving were called for every handful of years thereafter. In
1863, Abraham Lincoln declared that the final Thursday in November should be a
yearly day of thanks, and hence the modern tradition began. Roosevelt in 1942
then made the holiday an official and legal US holiday. And slowly the
traditions of feasts, football, and parades became hallmarks of this annual day
of thanks.
I
give you this history to put into perspective the reasons why we are gathered
here today. Thanksgiving is a largely secular holiday; most people will only
devote 15 seconds in a pre-meal prayer to actually giving thanks to God. But as
Christians, it is our duty and honor to put more thought and meaning into this
day. I'd like to reflect on the two necessary movements for this day-
remembering and giving thanks.
In
our reading from Deuteronomy, we see the seeds of a religious thanksgiving.
Moses is speaking to the Hebrew people, they are on the precipice of entering
the Holy Land, the land to which they have been journeying for a generation, a
land that they have been promised, a land which they will finally be able to
call home. He recounts what God has done for them and how God has blessed them.
Moses then says “But remember the Lord
your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may
confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing
today." The operative word here is “remember.”
“Remember”
is a rich word. It means to consider, to bring to mind, to reflect on, and in the
Hebrew language, it means to make present; to remember is to recall the past to
be present again in the now. November, I think, is a great time for
Thanksgiving. We have had the harvest, we have just about finished up another
year, and we are preparing to enter the season of Advent on Sunday- the season
of hope. We began this month with the Feast of All Saints', a day in which we call
into presence all the saints who have gone before us, where we remember those
loved ones who have died. In England, November is the time when Remembrance Day
is celebrated; the day when World War I ended and the bombs stopped dropping.
So
let us take some time today to remember, to recollect, to ponder. Between the
parades and the touchdowns, take a few moments to think. Maybe take some time
at dinner, whether you eat alone or at a large gathering, and remember. Talk
about the year- its blessings and its disappointments; I’m serious, do this.
Remembering
is important because it is so easy to not. It is too easy to let the past stay
in the past. It is too easy to not think about how we have been loved, how we
have been kept in God’s hand, how we have been supported. And in remembering,
we gain perspective. We can stop and breathe, we can be not anxious about the
global economy or politics; we can refocus on our attention on what truly
matters, we can relax and take the higher view of life to gain some
perspective. But you have to slow down and be intentional about doing this.
Take some time today to remember.
A writer once said that the hardest
arithmetic is that which allows us to count our blessings. In counting our
blessings, we must remember. And you and I know, sometimes remembering is a
painful process. When we remember, we do recall those good things- but we will
also remember the bad. We will remember the pains of rejection, of sickness, of
job loss, of the reality of the economic downturn, of betrayal, of
disappointment, of death. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating today:
what God offers us is maximum support, with minimum protection. Being thankful
does not protect us from the hard facts of life, but it allows us to frame them
within the context of blessings instead of curses.
We
are also here to give thanks. One theologian said that the language of thanks
is not natural for us, it is learned behavior. That's why you hear so many
parents reminding their children to say “thank you.” Being thankful is a habit,
something we must practice.
In
giving thanks, it is important also to remember the object of our thanks- God.
Pick up a newspaper and read some of the columns about today. You’ll find
history lessons, notions of how we are blessed to be Americans, and other nice
reflections on thanks. But you won’t find as much about God. I'm not sure if
has to do with being politically correct, or what the reason is, but people are
trying to be thankful in the abstract, without an object. And we all know that
just won’t work. It's like trying to be loving without dealing with other
people; it can’t happen. If we are to be thankful, we must give thanks to
someone, and as Christians, to God.
It’s
what is going on in our reading from Luke today. Nine are healed, one is
thankful. Now, I don't want to condemn the nine, they did what they were told,
and there were likely ecstatic to be healed. But one gave thanks. And in giving
thanks, he received an even greater blessing. When I was in seminary, about a
month into my first semester both my friend and I received a care package from
a church in this diocese. Neither of us had any connections to this church, but
this church made it part of their mission to support seminarians by sending
care packages. I immediately wrote a thank you note to the church; my friend
never got around to it. It was the last package he received from them in his
three years of seminary; for me, it was the first of nearly a dozen more. I
tell this story not to toot my own thankful horn, but instead to say that often
in being thankful, we set ourselves up for greater joy and continued blessings.
In giving thanks, we enter more fully into the relationship.
It
was easy for me to give thanks, after all, I got a gift. But we are called, as
people of faith, to give thanks to God in all things. So do we give God thanks
for losing a job? For a fight with a loved one? For the death of a close
relative? For the things in our life that we would give anything to change? I
find it interesting that Lincoln began the tradition of a yearly day of
Thanksgiving during the Civil War. How in the world could he be thankful?
For
one, Lincoln counted his blessings. He said that though we were in the midst of
a bitter war, the rest of life was good.
He didn't let the cloud of darkness, even if it was a huge cloud, overshadow
the whole sky. He wrote “[these gifts] are the gracious gifts of the Most High
God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless
remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be
solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by
the whole American people.”
He
might not have known it, but Lincoln was expressing the idea of living a
Eucharistic life. Eucharist is the Greek word for thanks, so when the one leper
gave thanks, he eucharist-ed. This is what today is all about- the Eucharist; the
Eucharist we will share here, around this altar, as we remember and give thanks
to the giver and redeemer of all things; the Eucharist we will share over meals
today; the Eucharist we will share in smiles; in giving money to charity, in
stopping and recalling that we are loved.
The
Eucharist is both about blessedness and brokenness. One of the things about
this church that is the most striking to me is the window above the altar,
based on Raphael’s Madonna in the Chair
painting. In the Eucharist, we remember the love and glory of God, but we also
remember the pain of betrayal and death. And as we remember, we give thanks.
Thanks for the salvation of glory of God made manifest in the life of Jesus,
but also thanks for the fact that when we walk through the dark valleys of
life, that we are not alone. Having the mother Mary holding her child above the
very altar at which we break the bread as a symbol of Christ’s own body being
broken is a deeply powerful metaphor for the Eucharist.
Take
some time today to remember- remember that you are the beloved child of God,
nothing can change that. Remember the ways that you have been blessed and
nourished. Remember the lessons you have learned from falling down. Remember
the hope to which we have been called. And having called them to mind, give
thanks- live the Eucharist by thanking God in words, in actions, in love, in
dedication. Spend some time at dinner tonight remembering and giving
thanks. A very blessed and happy thanksgiving to you all.
