“Thanksgiving affirms many of the most important impulses of our faith.”
Thanks Without Ceasing
A Sermon by Jeffrey K. Krehbiel
Christ the King Sunday
November 23, 2008
“I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.” (vs. 16)
Church of the Pilgrims
2201 P Street NW
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 387-6612
www.ChurchOfThePilgrims.org
I ’ve never been a big fan of celebrating national holidays in church– Veteran’s Day and Columbus Day and Memorial Day and President’s Day and Fourth of July. I think it’s certainly appropriate to mention them on Sunday morning, but planning the whole worship service around them smacks too much of civil religion to me, and mixes Christianity and nationalism in ways that make me uncomfortable. From time to time I know that makes some people unhappy, but I’m a enough of a traditionalist to stick to the lectionary instead of following the secular calendar. I’m proud to be a U. S. citizen, and unapologetic about being a Christian, but I think it is important to make distinctions between the two. That’s why we have stained glass in the sanctuary, but no flag.
So we had an interesting conversation at our Session meeting last week over whether Thanksgiving is a religious holiday or a secular one. It certainly started out as a religious holiday, though it’s not clear that most people really view it that way any more. Mitch said he asked a colleague how he celebrated the day, and he responded that he didn’t really do much since Thanksgiving was sort of a food holiday and he wasn’t really that “in” to food.
That’s too bad, really. If there is one national holiday that is worth marking in church it would be Thanksgiving. While not explicitly Christian, Thanksgiving affirms many of the most important impulses of our faith, impulses that at its best Christianity shares with people of other faiths and no faith at all. I am particularly struck by the way in which the practice of Thanksgiving echoes the ancient practice of sabbath common to both Christians and Jews. There are several ways in which the celebration of Thanksgiving and the practice of sabbath keeping overlap.
F irst, sabbath keeping at its very root is about pausing and giving thanks. Like the Pilgrims after that first arduous winter, the Israelites were exhorted on the sabbath to pause from all labor and give thanks to the Lord. In Deuteronomy, marking the sabbath is explicitly linked to remembering their escape from bondage:
“Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.”
Perhaps not all people are prepared specifically to give thanks to God on Thursday, but pausing to acknowledging that the goodness of life comes from a source outside ourselves is surely the beginning of faith. There is no question that producing the harvest requires an abundance of hard work. But the produce of the ground is a gift beyond our own resources. A posture of thanksgiving is subversive to a culture of self-sufficiency.
S econdly, the sabbath is a day to rest from labor. In the biblical tradition, it is not just we ourselves who should rest from labor, but all those who work for us as well:
“You shall not do any work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.”
In the western world, we have long ceased the practice of a weekly sabbath in which those who work for us are also given a day of rest. In our culture leisure often involves the labor of others, from dinners out to trips to Disney World. Which makes Thanksgiving perhaps the most egalitarian of all the holidays. On Thanksgiving, we mark a day in which all but the most essential work comes to a stop, and spending time with family and loved ones is expected and celebrated, no matter what your walk in life.
Which also makes Thanksgiving a time of social solidarity unlike any other national holiday. There is certainly reason to criticize the practice of remembering the poor only in the six weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yet at what other national holiday do we explicitly remember those who do not have food on their tables? The ancient Jews marked the sabbath by requiring all to cease from their labors, remembering that they too had once been slaves in Egypt. The first Pilgrims celebrated the harvest by acknowledging that they would not have survived the winter without the aid of the Native Americans who joined them in Thanksgiving celebration. In the same way, millions of Americans take time around their own Thanksgiving table to remember those who live in poverty, and to acknowledge that we each bear some responsibility toward those who are without, including those that we might experience as “the other.”
W hile there is little that is explicitly Christian in any of this, it seems to me that these impulses– pausing, giving thanks, acknowledging a source of goodness beyond ourselves; acting in solidarity with others across the economic spectrum; remembering the least, the lost, the left-out, the forgotten– are close to the center of what it means to live in God’s way as Christians. That we can lift up these virtues with other people of faith or with no faith at all is not something to be resisted by the church but celebrated. There are so many ways in which the gospel compels us to resist the values of our culture and all of its “isms”– consumerism, individualism, militarism, nationalism. Thanksgiving is an opportunity to recognize values that we hold in common, and that is a good thing.
T he medieval mystic Meister Ekhart said, “If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘Thank you,’ that would be enough.”
So I am thankful today.
I am thankful for this community. I am struck that almost all of Paul’s letters begin with these words: “I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.” I am thankful for this community of faith that strives to live out the values of the gospel every week, and give me the privilege of serving among you.
I am thankful for meaningful work. Most who labor in the world can derive satisfaction from a hard day’s work, but do not necessarily enjoy the work that they do. While even in the ministry there is work that I would just as soon not do, I am extremely privileged to be paid to do work that most days brings me great joy.
I am thankful for wonderful colleagues. Being pastor of a small urban church can at times be very difficult. Sometimes it feels like we’re pushing a rock up a hill. It’s important to like the people who are pushing that rock with you. I can’t imagine a better group of colleagues than those who labor with me here.
I am thankful to be an American. I won’t repeat Michelle Obama’s comment that for the first time in her adult life she is proud to be an American, but I know what she means. It hasn’t always been easy to be proud of America these past few years. But I am grateful that we have the collective capacity to throw the bums out without taking to the streets in violence, something that is not true in many parts of the world.
Most of importantly, of course, I am grateful for my family. They say that home is that place where, when you have no place left to go, they have to take you in. My family not only acknowledges my gifts, but knows my shadow, and yet loves me still. I watched a rerun this weekend of that movie “Love Actually.” It begins with the observation that despite all the hatred in the world that we see on the front pages of our newspapers everyday, if you want to be reminded of the prevalence of love in the world, all you have to do is go to the waiting area of your nearest airport and watch families greet their loved ones. I would say the same thing about the waiting rooms of hospitals that I have spent time in. Love, actually, is all around us.
None of these are gifts of my own making; these and so much more come to us each day as gifts of God our creator. It is right that we give God thanks and praise. ✞
© 2008 Jeffrey K. Krehbiel