Thanksgiving Eve
Do any of you like board games? I really enjoy them: my family and friends play a lot of them, especially during the holidays. And I was imagining recently how a Thanksgiving game might work. You could have different colored turkey meeples as your playing pieces, moving around the board and trying to fill their baskets with food items: meat, potatoes, pecan pies, chocolate — you know, all the essentials. Along the way, they could land on special tiles that give them extra cash, like you got a bonus at work or you cleaned your daughter’s room while she was at college and found $300. And then there would be special event cards you could collect, like your favorite football team won or your family made it through dinner without having an argument. And at the end of this turkey trot, you would convert all the food, cash, and special event cards int0 Thanksgiving victory points. And whoever has the most victory points wins. Put simply, the more good stuff you have, the more thankful you are. And the most thankful person comes out on top.
I don’t know if such a game would be any fun, but I do know it would completely miss the point of thanksgiving, at least from a Gospel perspective. Now, I know we’re supposed to focus on abundance. The collect we prayed at the beginning of this service emphasizes it, the prophet Joel talks about it in our first reading, our altar embodies it. And our society says as much. It’s like our civic duty to indulge in copious amounts of food and drink, and just in the plenitude we enjoy. And certainly most of us here have an abundance of material goods. And of course we should be grateful for what we have, but that is really not what giving thanks is primarily about. Because that would just be too transactional: I get good stuff, I say thank you. I don’t get good stuff, I don’t say thank you. Such an approach does not account for Jesus, who teaches even the poorest people to be thankful and who himself gives thanks on the night before he knows they will torture him and crucify him. Such an approach does not account for the Apostle Paul, who having been beaten, starved, shipwrecked, vilified, and imprisoned, tells the Thessalonians to give thanks in all circumstances.
What’s that about? Well, you know what it’s about. In our heart of hearts, we all do. What I am about to say is the simplest thing in the world, a truth we swim in as a fish swims in the sea. It’s like the air we breathe: the very source of life and yet so easily taken for granted and ignored. Here’s the truth: we are created by and for a God of infinite love, a God who cherishes us and will hold us close forever. In the light of Christ, we know that thanksgiving is not transactional at all, it’s not a response that some circumstances call for and others do not. Thanksgiving is a way of life; no more than that, thanksgiving is a state of being. Our very existence is — or can be — a continuous act of thanksgiving. We could look to great saints like Julian of Norwich or Fancis of Assisi who demonstrate this, but we don’t need to. I am guessing, I’m hoping, that most of us here have seen this for ourselves, or at least glimpsed it in moments of being fully alive.
I had one such moment just recently. After a hard and challenging day, I was out walking our dog and looked up and saw Jupiter, brilliant in the darkening sky; and I felt a surge of joy and gratitude that seemingly came out of nowhere. I knew God’s love enfolded me and all of creation, and that was enough. In such moments we realize that all the good things we enjoy do not actually cause us to feel thankful; they simply unlock and give expression to a deeper gratitude that is always there. I exist, and wow, God, I also have food! I have family and friends! I have a church! I can listen to beautiful music, read good books, look up in awe at the night sky. And it’s not just positive things that can channel this gratitude energy. Wow, God, I failed miserably and yet here I am, the apple of your eye. There is so much anger and animosity around us, and yet here we are, awash in your love, which is stronger than any hatred. I’m sick, but there you are, right with me to strengthen and heal me. I’m dying, but I will rise to new life and be with you and all whom I love forever. Thank you. God’s love and goodness are infinite: there is literally no end to thanksgiving.
And we don’t have to make ourselves feel this; we don’t have to force it. To experience the kingdom of God is to be thankful, and that kingdom is within each one of us. When Jesus tells us, as he does in the Gospel tonight, to seek that kingdom, doing so begins by simply opening our eyes and our hearts and saying yes to its presence. That kingdom, like our existence, is a gift, and all the magnificent beauty of God comes with it. We have it all, or at least as much as we can bear, right now.
In a few moments, Mother Kathleen will stand at the altar and, on behalf of all of us, she will say, “It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.” And that great preface to the Eucharistic prayer will not continue by saying, “Because you give us all this really good food” or “Because you bestow on us lots of money, houses, and cars.” No, the Preface appointed for Thanksgiving will go on to say this: “For with your co-eternal Son and Holy Spirit, you are one God, one Lord, in Trinity of Persons and in Unity of Being; and we celebrate the one and equal glory of you, O Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” God is a perfect community of unending love, and we share in that divine life. Every genuine act of thanksgiving flows from that wondrous reality.
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