Thursday, November 26, 2020

November 26, 2020 - Thanksgiving Day


Lectionary Readings

Blessed are you, God of Israel, for ever and ever,  for yours is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendor, and the majesty. And now we give you thanks, our God, and praise your glorious name. For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. Amen.

            Well, this is certainly a different sort of Thanksgiving. I imagine that many of you are home instead of traveling to be with family and friends. Thank you for making that sacrifice for the good of us all. What a year this has been – one of the most active hurricane seasons in recent memory, raging wildfires in the West, struggles for racial justice, a nasty election that is still dividing us, and, of course, a pandemic that has taken the lives of over 250,000 Americans, isolated us from one another, and wreaked havoc on our economy. Yet, even in the midst of all this, we say, “thanks be to God.”

            While there is much to lament this year, there remains much to rejoice in. St. Luke’s has weathered this storm admirably – to my knowledge, the political rancor and division hasn’t seeped into our community. And I can’t tell you how thankful I am for that. I’ve spoken with many colleagues in ministry who have told me that they’ve had church members leave their congregations to find churches that better align with their political beliefs. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. But thanks be to God that, to my knowledge, that hasn’t happened at St. Luke’s. We’re still wrapping up our stewardship campaign for next year, but things look like we’re going to be able to at least match pledge income from this year. And this year’s budget is mostly on track – which is miraculous given that most of you haven’t set foot in the church in 8 months. We’ve made a transition to online worship and have people joining us who weren’t a member of this church before March. These are wonderful blessings for which we say, “Thanks be to God.”

            Personally, though I’ve had moments of lament throughout all of this, it has been a year in which my wife made the career change she’s been working towards for several years and she absolutely loves her new job. I continue to love and be blessed in serving St. Luke’s as your priest. Our kids have adapted well to the changes of the year – and because I’m working from home with them, I’ve had time with them that I would have otherwise never had. Not to mention the extra bonding they’ve had as sisters. It sort of gets lost in the craziness of this year, but back in January the Salisbury Post honored the work that we’ve done around Becoming the Beloved Community by naming me “One to Watch in 2020.” In February, Tyler and I spent an amazing 10 days in Jerusalem. In May, I graduated, from a distance, from Sewanee with a Doctorate in Ministry. Indeed, there is much that I give thanks for this year.

            Towards the end of today’s liturgy, instead of praying the typical Post Communion Prayer, we’re going to use A General Thanksgiving, which thanks God for the splendor of creation, the beauty of the world, the wonder of life, and the mystery of love, as well as thanking God for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on God. In all things, we give thanks to God. St. Paul in 1 Thessalonians would have us to “give thanks in all circumstances” and Job questions whether or not is reasonable to “receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” Yes, even in 2020, a year that seems more like a curse-word than a number, we give thanks to God.

            Now, though it is quite appropriate for Christians to give thanks to God, we do have to acknowledge that the reason why we’re gathering, even if digitally, on a Thursday to do so because today is a civic holiday. And for all the ways in which Thanksgiving has been cheapened by parades, sales, and football – the beating heart of this day remains thankfulness. Yes, the idea of Thanksgiving is rooted in a harvest festival shared between the indigenous peoples of the land and those who immigrated here, but you may know that it was Abraham Lincoln that really cemented a national day of thanksgiving as a part of American culture. In 1863, he issued a Presidential Proclamation which called for the last Thursday in November to be set apart as a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

            Lincoln understood the need to given thanks, even when it seemed like there was little to be thankful for. In the opening of his Proclamation, he writes “In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity… peace has preserved with other nations, order has been maintained, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict.” He goes on to note the blessings of industry and harvest. In the midst of the Civil War, just three months after the bloody battle at Gettysburg, Lincoln opens his Proclamation by writing, “The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies… These bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed, that we are prone to forget the source from which they come… No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God.”

            What Lincoln is describing, which is rooted in Scripture, is the idea that gratitude is a way of life, not something we do after sitting down and balancing the good and the bad to see if we have more to be grateful for than ungrateful. Consider the reading we heard from Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people that they are about to enter into a good land with flowing streams, wheat and barley, figs and pomegranates, olives and honey. But Moses himself knows that he will never enter into the Promised Land – and yet he tells the people to “remember the Lord.” Moses certainly could have refused to be thankful given the fact that he won’t enter into the land that he’s spent his entire life journeying towards. But no, he recognizes that we do not give thanks because that is the polite thing to do, rather we give thanks because it is the human thing to do.

            The great theologian Karl Barth noted that “gratitude is the creaturely counterpart to grace.” What it means to be a creature is to be grateful to our Creator for our creation. The fact of our being is pure grace – there is nothing to do but to enjoy the abundant life we have been given, and gratitude is the means by which we do that. Gratitude keeps us in proper relationship with God – one where it is clear that we are recipient, that we are dependent, that are we are blessed. Gratefulness, not for things, but for life itself is what puts us in right relationship with God. That’s what the one healed leper in the Gospel text from Luke experienced. Sure, all ten were healed, but through gratefulness, one came into a closer relationship with Jesus and received grace upon grace.

            When we are not grateful, it’s not so much an issue of bad manners, but we actually become less human, less like the people God intends us to be. The poet Dante, in describing hell, mentions that the ungrateful are those who constantly go around saying “mine.” When that is our attitude, we end up being contorted, curved in on ourselves, unable to see the abundance that surrounds us. We end up constantly looking over our shoulders to compare ourselves to others, making sure no one is coming to take what we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking really belongs to us, when the truth is that all things come and belong to God. And if we get that wrong, we’ll get the whole of our lives wrong. It’s all grace. Thanksgiving helps us recognize and enter into that grace. That’s what Lincoln was attempting to do – heal a divided nation not by trying to hash things out or work together, but by reminding us of our blessings. That’s what Moses wanted the people to understand before they entered into a land that might fool them into thinking they were self-made and self-sufficient. And this is what the Holy Eucharist does for us and why it, not the turkey, is the most important meal today.

            It’s been said that humans are created to be homo eucharisticus – a Eucharistic humanity, a people of thanksgiving. The Eucharist is that great sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving in which the love of God is presented to us, nourishing our hearts and minds, and eliciting a response of gratitude from us. The Eucharist is a sign of who we are created to be – the people of God who thankfully receive the gifts of God. No, maybe this year hasn’t gone according to plan. Maybe life hasn’t gone according to plan. Yet we are lavished with the grace of being called, redeemed, and love by the God from whom all blessings flow. Thank you to all of you, for you have been a blessing to me this year. Most of all, thanks be to our gracious and loving God.