Let Us Give Thanks

Thanksgiving Day, 2018

St. Paul’s, Kansas City

Joel 2:21-27

Matthew 6:25-33

Thanksgiving has come around once again; a holiday for gathering with distant loved ones and rediscovering all the reasons for not seeing them more often.  We gorge ourselves on turkeys and all the products of a bountiful harvest, and then settle in for the real reason for the celebration, football.

Football on Thanksgiving Day has been around almost as long as the sport itself.  The first intercollegiate championship game took place on Thanksgiving Day 1876, and by the 1890s more than 5,000 club, college, and high school football games were taking place on Thanksgiving.  Major games, such Yale vs. Princeton, could draw crowds of 40,000.  The NFL took up the tradition in 1934, when the Detroit Lions took on the Chicago Bears.  They are recreating that game today, but I personally recommend Washington at Dallas, followed by Atlanta at New Orleans this evening.

Curiously, today’s readings from the Revised Common Lectionary have nothing to do with football, but deal, instead, with abundance, and with giving thanks to the source of that abundance.

The reading from Joel comes in the wake of an apocalyptic plague of locusts which had devastated the land of Judah.  So thick were the locusts, they blacked out the sun and consumed everything in their path, much like Walmart shoppers will tomorrow morning.  What can this be, but a punishment from God for the sins of the people?  But the prophet foresees a return to prosperity, with well-timed rains and bumper crops.  The people shall once again eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of God who has provided this abundance.  For this will be a sign that God is in the midst of Israel, that God dwells with his people.

This concept that prosperity is a sign of God’s favor is one that the Puritans in Plymouth Colony shared.  They were convinced, like Joel, that only a faithful remnant, only a few, would be justified by God and granted admission into the Kingdom of Heaven.  The trick was, who were the ones destined to be justified by God?  Very obviously, since God punished sinners, those falling victim to life’s misfortunes had brought it upon themselves by sin.  And just as obviously, the prosperous, those succeeding in life, were the ones who would end up justified by God. 

The harvest following that first awful winter in the colony was seen as a sign of God’s favor, and was a cause for celebration, and thanksgiving.  Governor William Bradford proclaimed a three-day festival, to be marked with feasting and games, presumably not football.  The puritans sent out hunters to gather game, and the gunshots attracted the attention of the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit, who came with 90 warriors to find out what the commotion was about.  When he saw it was a party, Massasoit sent his warriors out to join the hunt, and they provided five deer for the feast.  The puritans later thanked the Wampanoag by wiping them out.  Needless to say, the Native American spin on the first Thanksgiving is a bit different than our own.

In the reading from Matthew, Jesus presents a different picture of how God's grace works.  Jesus tells those gathered on the Mount not to worry about your life, what you will eat and drink, or wear.  God knows that you need all these things.  Rather, strive for the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness and they will be provided to you as a result.

These are hard words to hear in the wake of the greatest worldwide recession since the Great Depression.  People saw everything they worked for disappear virtually overnight.  Home foreclosures skyrocketed, and unemployment rose to over 10 percent.   People who planned for their retirement came to the realization that they may never be able to retire. In 2017, an estimated one in eight Americans were food insecure, equating to forty million Americans, and including twelve million children. Food insecurity is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food to ensure an active lifestyle.[1]

But the problems in the United States diminishes when you put them in a global perspective. The 2018 Global Report on Food Crises reports that an estimated 124 million people in 51 countries are facing crisis food insecurity or worse.[2] Five million children in Yemen face starvation due to the continuing civil war, and an estimated 82,000 children under age 5 have died since the Saudi interference in that conflict.[3]

How do we give thanks to God for the abundance God has given us?

The Rev. Steve Kelsey has written that, as practicing Christians, we are called to move beyond “feeling” thankful; we are called to give thanks by taking very specific spiritual actions:

We practice hospitality.

We practice generosity.

We practice stewardship.

We practice compassion.

Giving thanks is a verb, a spiritual practice that runs like a golden thread through all we do and all we are as Christians.[4]

I would submit to you that, instead of the readings we heard today, the proper readings for Thanksgiving are the ones we heard on November 11^th.

Jesus, sitting opposite the Temple treasury in Jerusalem observes a widow putting in two copper coins.  “Truly I tell you,” he says, “this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.  For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”[5]

Jesus tells us to, “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” not seek, but “strive.”  Work to bring about the kingdom of God, not in the future when are all in the presence of God, but in the here and now.   

We thank God for the abundance God has given us by doing what Jesus did, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, proclaiming good news to the poor.  We thank God for the abundance granted to us by sharing that abundance with those who have little and helping to bring about the universal prosperity God wants for all of us.

Think of the poor and hungry this day, and go in peace to give thanks to the Lord, not just this day, but every day.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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[1] https://hungerandhealth.feedingamerica.org/understand-food-insecurity/

[2] https://sway.office.com/lUKJJqCJlNB4wkvt?ref=Link

[3] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/19/five-million-children-yemen-risk-starving-death-food-fuel-prices/

[4]The Rev. Steve Kelsey, “Sermons that Work – November 26,2009 – Thanksgiving Day” at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermons_that_work_116709_ENG_HTM.htm

[5] Mark 12:43-44.