“Now Thank We All Our God”
by Bruce J. Johnson
Thanksgiving Day,
I
was thinking the other day that my favorite Thanksgiving hymn is # 715 in our
Chalice Hymnal- “Now thank we are our God.”
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and
voices
Who wondrous things hath done, in whom
the world rejoices
Who from our mother’s arms has blessed
us on our way
With countless gifts of love and still is our today.
Thanksgiving is a national holiday that struggles with its focus. Although not a religious holiday, it certainly has a religious dimension. As we all know, harvest festivals are present in just about all cultures but Thanksgiving is uniquely American. As such, in this time and place, in a nation such as ours, which professes to a deep and abiding religiosity at that the same time that it is seemingly on a path intent on removing the mention of God in public gatherings, I wonder if, while we express our gratitude for the gifts of hearth and home, health and happiness, for country, constitution and freedom, for family, friendship, community and church, for the blessings of earth and spirit, sea and sky, we will remember to acknowledge and thank the Giver. Thanksgiving is not just about counting created blessings but blessing the Creator.
Back in September, Edward Bleier, a top executive for
Warner Bros. and ABC, published, to great reviews I might add, a book titled
The Thanksgiving Ceremony: New Traditions for America’s Family Feast. It
really is a wonderful little book! William Safire, the columnist for the New
York Times, wrote the Forward. And in it, he acknowledges that Thanksgiving in
“… Thanksgiving is not only a family holiday but is a holiday of families. The Americans and their guests who come together on the fourth Thursday of November may be related by blood, or by marriage, by friendship, by common interest or perhaps just by neighborliness or ethnicity or some combination of all associations. Although some members of the feast may be bound by habit or driven by hunger, what brings almost all together at a time of harvest is the longing to be a part of a family, real, virtual, or amalgamated by remarriage…”
As true and as good as that may be, it saddens me to hear that God may not be the guest of honor at so many of our tables.
In fact, I was somewhat astounded by our Governor’s proclamation, eloquently written and just as smoothly read by our House Representative, Joan Lewis. It certainly focused on the need and necessity of giving thanks and addressing the needs of others but it is also a proclamation without any mention of God! Did anyone notice that?
President Bush, known and often criticized, if not mocked, for his public piety, on the other hand, issued a proclamation that is fundamentally religious in focus and predictably patriotic in tone:
(The President’s Proclamation, 2003)
The opening paragraph makes it very clear:
“Each year on Thanksgiving, we gather with family and friends to thank God for the many blessings he has given us, and we ask God to continue to guide and watch over our country.”
(Thanksgiving 2003)
Last Thursday, in the ‘FLAVOR” section of the Hartford Courant, there was an entertaining and informative article about ‘The Original Thanksgiving’ which happened in 1621 when the English of Plimoth Plantation feasted with the Wampanoag. There was some neat stuff in the article. First, in all likelihood, the menu did not include ‘turkey and all the trimmings’ but most likely presented “seethed (boiled) mussels and roasted goose and duck as the main dishes. Cranberries dotted the sauce for the fowl. I sweetish corn pudding, boiled cabbage and stewed pompion (pumpkin) rounded out the meal.
(I can’t imagine a Thanksgiving without creamed onions and Brussels sprouts!)
Here’s another thing. That first celebration in 1621 was not a single meal as we celebrate it today. They didn’t have to get things done and over with to make way for the biggest Christmas shopping day of the year! Rather, it was a series of gatherings over the course of three days. Interestingly, the English settlers probably considered the event a harvest festival rather than an observance of thanksgiving… this because for the Puritan English ‘thanksgiving’ was something you did in church. As a matter of fact they observed regular days of thanksgiving, marked by morning and afternoon religious services rather than feasting. In other words, for them the focus of thanksgiving was on God as the Giver and not the gifts, whereas the focus of the feast was on the harvest. As we all know, the Puritans were not famous for their ‘parties.” We’ve got that blood in us and that’s why we are all here this morning for religious services first --- before the feasting! For the Wampanoags, who were in many ways much more religious than the Puritan English, the idea of giving thanks to the creator for the earth and its gifts was part of daily life and the underlying theme of every ceremony or feast.
And my guess is that it was the same way for Jesus, who was always trying to awaken the people not only to the goodness and generosity of God but also to the need to give thanks to God.
Paul was the one who said it well. While advising the Ephesians to get drunk on the spirit rather than wine, he tells them:
“…always and for everything, give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ to God the Father.”
Today’s lesson from the Gospel according to Mark is somewhat unique in that unlike most other occasions when he is trying to awaken and enlighten with a parable, parables that are not often understood by the disciples, and usually he lets them stew, Jesus in this case explains it after they complain. We all know the parable well and often our focus on the seed and soil.
The most compelling thing about the parable, I think, is not so much what happens to the seed, although that is important enough. But the most intriguing thing about this parable is the generosity of the sower, the sheer undisciplined abundance with which the sower sows the seed. Palestinians who listened to Jesus at those times were just poor and many were farmers, scratching out a living on only small parcels of arable land. Rainfall would scarce and they would have had to be very careful with their seed. No waste here because there was little money around to go buy more seed. Those farmers who sat there listening to Jesus on that day would never think of doing with their seed what this Sower did with his.
And so these farmers were really puzzled as they listened to the story with Jesus telling about the sower. Why is he so undisciplined? Why so generous? Why is he so incautious? Why so silly?
Why? Because that’s just the way it is with God--- out of love, sowing anywhere, anytime, in all places, among all people… so that all may be blessed--- in every way--- and the only thing that might limit the yield is how rich the soil of our hearts and homes, our lives and our spirits!
The story is told of a monk who in his travels found a precious stone and kept it. One day he met a traveler, and when the monk opened his bag to share his provisions with him, the traveler saw the jewel. He asked the monk to give it to him. The monk did so readily. The traveler departed, overjoyed with the unexpected gift of the precious stone, a stone worth enough to give him wealth and security for the rest of his life. However, a few days later he came back in search of the monk. When he found him, he gave him back the precious stone, but then he had one more request.
“Now give me,” he asked, “something more precious
than this stone. “Give me that which enabled you give the stone to me.”
And we all know what that is, don’t we?
The gifts simply manifest the Giver—who such a spirit of generosity has sown the seeds of blessing all over the place and today, on this family holiday and this holiday of families-- we gather in gratitude--- in a spirit of true thanksgiving…
SO, LET THIS BE OUR THEME TODAY:
“Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices
Who wondrous things hath done, in who the world rejoices
Who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love and still is ours today!
Amen