This sermon was preached by Dr. Green in November of 2007 on the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day. Read a brief history of our National Day of Thanksgiving as you consider that, as Christians, thanksgiving is a part of our everyday life. Unleash its power.
I Am Thankful for Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite national holidays.
I like Thanksgiving because it is the calm before the storm. The accent is not buying and giving gifts, but on worship and family.
It has been more than 30 years since I sat with my wife at a Christmas Eve Lovefeast. I love sitting with Elayne and other family members at our Thanksgiving Eve Lovefeast while John or David conducts the service. Then, on the great day, I will usually watch a parade as I nibble at pecan tarts made with genuine Kayro syrup. By 11 o’clock the remnants of our families have started to gather. Lots of faces are missing around our table, some because of death and some because of distance, but that does not totally diminish the joys of the day. Those of us who still gather talk about those who do not, and that draws them closer, in mind and memory, if not in body. Then we eat. In the old days, we had real stuffed turkey and dressing, with gravy. Nowadays we substitute a turkey breast, and a honey baked ham. We still have dressing and gravy, though the dressing is not as good because Annie never wrote down her recipe. We also have green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, a green salad, sweat potato casserole, pineapple casserole, bread, ice tea, coffee, and pumpkin pie. All in all Thanksgiving is a great day.
Most of us associate Thanksgiving in America with the 102 Pilgrims who left Plymouth, England on September 6th, 1620 in the little ship named The Mayflower. They landed on at Plymouth Rock in the Colony of Massachusetts on December 11th, of the same year.
Their first winter in America was devastating to the Pilgrims. By the fall of 1621 they had lost 46 of the persons who first sailed for the New World. Things got better as the year wore on. The harvest of 1621 was a bountiful one, and the survivors decided to celebrate their survival with a feast. They were so thankful, that they even invited the friendly Indians who had helped them make it through that first horrible winter to join them. Ninety-one Indians showed-up, almost twice the number of the 56 surviving colonists. It was the last time this ration was in effect.
The festival lasted three days. They sent out hunters. There were wild turkeys in the area. It is at least possible that turkey was a part of their feast. We know for a fact they ate wild ducks, geese, and venison. The feast also included fish, lobster, clams, berries, dried fruit, and plums. They ate boiled pumpkin, but no pumpkin pie and no bread of any kind for they had long since exhausted their flour. Their Indian friends did teach them to make corn bread fried with animal fat.
This first thanksgiving feast was not repeated the following year. Indeed, it was not until June of 1676 that another Day of thanksgiving was proclaimed. On June 20 of that year the governing council of Charleston, Massachusetts proclaimed June 29 as a day of thanksgiving. It was not a harvest festival. I don’t know what was on the menu. I can tell you that the guest list did not include the Indians, as the people of Charlestown were celebrating recent victories over a people they now called “the heathen natives.” It was not a good chapter in our history.
It was George Washington who proclaimed the first national day of Thanksgiving. The proclamation was published from New York on October 2nd, of 1789. Washington expressly stated that Thursday the 26th day of November in that same year was to be day of prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God “the beneficent author of all good,” whose providential care, and protection, had enabled the fledging nation not only to survive the late war, but to establish a constitutional government beneficial to all her people. Washington also urged our citizens to take the time to ask God to pardon our national and other (personal?) transgressions. Unfortunately, some colonies and individuals resisted the declaration of a National Day of Thanksgiving, and under Thomas Jefferson, it disappeared from the calendar.
Abraham Lincoln reestablished Thanksgiving Day as we know it in 1863, and the day was fixed as the last Thursday in November. In his proclamation Lincoln acknowledged the Civil War, and thanked God for the survival of our nation. He called the survival of the nation one of “the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, (had) nevertheless remembered mercy.” There are times when I think of Lincoln as not just a president, but a prophet. What politician today would dare imply that one of our nation’s wars, or economic downturns, or droughts was the result of national sin?
Since the time of Lincoln our national Day of Thanksgiving has continued with but one noticeable change. Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved the day to the next to last Thursday in November, so as to lengthen the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This was a popular move among the retailers of the nation. I can tell you with authority that Black Friday—or Black Ink Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving, is the most profitable day in the retail year. This year, there are thirty-two shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
For a Christian, thanksgiving is not just a day on the calendar. The word thank and its derivatives occur more than 200 times in the 66 books of the Canon. The word thanksgiving, which we will concentrate on, in honor of the occasion, occurs 32 times in the Old Testament, and 11 times in the New Testament.
The book of Leviticus introduces a special offering of thanksgiving. It is a freewill offering, offered simply for the joy of offering it. It is usually an offering of unleavened bread, and was eaten by the priests on the day it was given. (Lev. Chs. 7 & 22) I suppose this offering of thanksgiving resulted in what people in farm congregations used to call “pounding the preacher.” When my dad served at Enterprise, in Davidson County, and at Hope, in Hope Indiana, he was really pounded. He received more vegetables and meat than he could eat, cakes and pies, too. More importantly, I can tell you that no offering is a sweet as an offering one makes simply for the joy of offering it.
According to I and II Chronicles, King David appointed songs of thanksgiving to be sung to the praise of God. These songs were to be accompanied by the lyre, the timbrel, the harp, and other musical instruments. Ten of the one hundred and fifty Psalms specifically mention thanksgiving, 35 mention thanks, and many more have a tone of thanksgiving. Our Moravian Hymnal contains a number of songs of thanksgiving. And, of course, we even have a Thanksgiving Liturgy.
In chapter 30 of the book that bears his name, Jeremiah the prophet spoke of songs of thanksgiving and coupled them with making merry. At a dark time in the history of Israel, God promised through Jeremiah that those who sing songs of thanksgiving and make merry “shall not be few. He promises to multiply their numbers, and make sure that they will be honored and not be demeaned.
That is still true to day. A thankful person is fun to be around. Most of us dread the arrival of a person that only gripes and groans.
Isaiah goes Jeremiah one better. He looks across a land that has been devastated and a small group of people that have survived the killing and the kidnapping, and he anticipates a time of future thanksgiving. He says:
3 For the LORD will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song. Isaiah 51:3
In the New Testament Jesus gave thanks at every meal. He also thanked God for those who were looking for the salvation of Israel. He also thanked God for revealing himself to babes and the simple, while hiding himself from the wise and sophisticated (Luke 10:21). It is a shame when people become so sophisticated that all the mystery is pushed out of life, and there is no room for God.
St. Paul talks about those things, which produce thanksgiving in Christians.
In 1st Thessalonians chapter 3 Paul renders thanksgiving for people. He thanks God for the joy he feels when he remembers the members of the church in Thessalonica, and he earnestly prays that his steps might be directed to them once again.
This past Tuesday I hosted a pastor’s Tea. One of our guests had recently moved here from her church in another city. As she listened to the other ladies speak in glowing terms about this church, and considered the quality of our fellowship, she remembered with thankfulness the church she had recently left. It was a bitter sweet moment. I told her I knew exactly how she felt. I have served three churches. I love New Philadelphia, but each of the other churches I have served are still very much a part of me, and I continue to thank God for their members, whether they are a part of the church militant (the church in this world), or the church triumphant (the church in God’s more immediate presence).
In 1st Timothy chapter 4 the apostle warns against those who preach abstinence from certain foods, and he clearly states that “…everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.” (1st Tim. 4:4) I do not think this statement is a license to pig out on Thursday! It is an injunction to make every meal, meager or grand, a thanksgiving meal.
In 2nd Corinthians 4, St. Paul says that a major reason for thanksgiving is God’s grace. He says that as it extends to more and more people, “it increases thanksgiving to the glory of God.” People often ask me about the salvation of non-Christian peoples. They want to know the fate of those who lived before Christ, those who have never heard the gospel, and, increasingly, those who live in the death grip of the Islamic states, where a declaration for Christ would result in one’s death, and often the death of one’s family. I am not God. I am glad that I am not the judge of all the earth. I will simply say that the New Testament considers some similar questions, and, in 1st Peter and 1st Corinthians 15, Matthew 25 and the like, it holds out a hope for them, although many judge it a slim one. In this regard, I trust to God’s mercy and goodness. Concurrently, I am reminded that to whom much is given, much is required. We will be judged in the light we have. Therefore, it is with gravity that I confess that the absoluteness of my particular is Jesus Christ. Indeed, given the immensity of human suffering, if God is not like Jesus Christ, I can’t even believe in him. I am like Paul before Festus, “I wish all men were as I am…a disciple of Christ.” And I wish I knew him better.
We have recently completed our annual stewardship campaign. Did you notice? I hope you did. I hope that you take the opportunity that Paul speaks about in 2nd Corinthians chapter 9. He says that God has “…enriched us in every way for great generosity…which will…. produce thanksgiving to God.”
I recently watched a movie based on a true story about a woman who went to teach in an inner city school. She was an ex-Marine, and it took all her training for her to survive. In one scene she has taken one of her students, an impoverished emigrant boy, to a restaurant to celebrate his winning a poetry contest. He is wearing a leather coat he recently bought for $200.00. He bought it on credit. He tells her if he does not pay for it by Friday he will be killed, and that he must get out of school to get the money. He implies that he must do anything it takes to get the money. She does not want him to miss school, or to steal the money, so she makes him a loan, saying he can pay it back only if he graduates. He is overwhelmed. He says it is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for him. He says, “No one else would trust a Mexican boy with so much.” It is a grand gesture on her part, but in the end, that boy gives the teacher far more than she can give him. He gives her respect that is soon shared by her whole class. She becomes their teacher not just in title, but in truth.
When the church is generous, when we as individuals are generous with the gifts that God has given, our generosity produces “thanksgiving to God,” and the blessing of giving comes back to us many times over.
In Philippians chapter 4 St. Paul makes thanksgiving an essential part of our emotional well being. He writes:
6 Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
There are two kinds of people in the world – those who see the glass half-empty, and those who see it half-full. What kind are you? Christians are those who see it half-full, for we practice thanksgiving, and our emotional health benefits greatly by it.
On Thursday we celebrate a National Day of Thanksgiving, and it is right that we should. It ought to be a National Day of Thanksgiving to God and a day of repentance, and confession, for the sins of nation, and other, personal sins, too. As Americans we have much to be thankful for, and I am quite sure, much to confess. We are not yet the great nation that God would have us to be. More importantly, as Christians, we remember thanksgiving every single day. For every single day, we have ample opportunity to thank God for his inexpressible gift, the gift of Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, rose again to give us a future and a hope, and called us into being as the Church, to announce God’s grace to all who are willing to hear, whether far, or near.
Finis
Worth Green, Th.M., D.Min.
EverydayCounselor©
New Philadelphia Moravian Church
4440 Country Club Road
Winston-Salem, N.C. 27104