Brett Blair and Staff
It is interesting to note that it wasn’t until we were at war, the Civil War to be exact, that our Thanksgiving holiday was officially recognized by Congress. It had started in the small Plymouth Colony in 1621 when the English Pilgrims feasted with members of the Wampanoag (Wam·pa·no·ag) Indians who brought gifts of food as a gesture of goodwill. The custom grew in various colonies as a means of celebrating the harvest. In 1777, over 100 years later, the continental congress proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving after the American Revolution victory at the Battle of Saratoga. But it was twelve years later that George Washington proclaimed another national day of thanksgiving in honor of the ratification of the Constitution and requested that the congress finally make it an annual event. They declined and it would be another 100 years and the end of a bloody civil war before President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving. The year was 1863. It might surprise you to learn that it took still another 40 years, the early 1900’s, before the tradition really caught on. For you see Lincoln’s official Thanksgiving was sanctioned in order to bolster the Union's morale. Many Southerners saw the new holiday as an attempt to impose Northern customs on their conquered land.
Thanksgiving today is a mild-mannered holiday full of football, hot apple pie, and family reunions. But that’s not a realistic historical picture of Thanksgiving. It is more often born of adversity and difficult times. So many of the greatest expressions of thanksgiving have occurred under circumstances so debilitating one wonders why people give thanks. It would seem a more reasonable response would be bitterness and ingratitude.
It is a paradox. In times of plenty we become indifferent. The smallest gifts are overlooked and unappreciated. We might even regard the basic pleasures of life with contempt. But, let hard times come and the threat that these gifts will be taken from us and we are jolted into sudden recognition and gratitude. What are the characteristics of a truly grateful people? I would like to offer three observations in answer to that question.
I
The first characteristic of a truly grateful people is remembrance. When we are truly grateful we are slow to forget what made us grateful. Our reading this morning is from the book of Psalms. In all there are 150 psalms, which can be categorized into prayers of help, hymns, royal hymns and songs of thanksgiving. Psalm 100 falls into the last category. It is a song of thanksgiving, but there is no mention of deliverance from nay hardships. Most of the Thanksgiving Psalms give an account of some great distress but not Psalm 100. Might I suggest that there is a reason for this omission. The author wishes for the worshiper, in a spirit of giving thanks, to remember their own distress and trials. Let’s do that right now.
Monday morning as I began to prepare for another week I was horrified when the news broke, another plane had crashed into the city of New York. A national collective “Oh no, not again!” could be heard through out the country. As the tragedy unfolded we learned this was an accident and the cruel coincidence of timing and location—in New York of all places—was just too much to bear. In my life there are few events, which have kept me emotionally effected beyond a few days. September 11th is one of them. We have all been on the verge weeping for two months.
If you are in the stores this week look at the cover of Newsweek. Three college age youth are standing upright, the caption underneath reads “Generation 9-11.” This will be for us a long time. In the context of this distress and hardship we gather this Thursday with family and friends to remind ourselves of all that we have been given and perhaps have forgotten. Did you read the email that made the rounds the week of September 11th? It was called “What a Difference a Day Makes." It is a good reminder:
On Monday, we e-mailed jokes.
On Tuesday, we did not.
On Monday, we were fussing about prayer in school.
On Tuesday, we would have been hard pressed to find a school where someone was not praying.
On Monday, our heroes were athletes.
On Tuesday, we relearned who heroes are.
On Monday, there were people trying to separate us by race, sex, color, and creed.
On Tuesday, we were all holding hands.
On Monday, we were irritated that our rebate checks had not arrived.
On Tuesday, we gave money away gladly to people we had never met.
On Monday, we were upset that we had to wait 5 minutes in a fast food line.
On Tuesday, we stood in line for 3 to 5 hours to give blood for the dying.
On Monday, we argued with our kids to clean up their rooms.
On Tuesday, we couldn’t get home fast enough to hug our kids.
On Monday, we went to work as usual.
On Tuesday, we went to work, but some of us didn’t come home.
On Monday, we had families.
On Tuesday, we had orphans.
On Monday, September 10th, life felt routine.
On Tuesday, September 11th, it did not.
What a difference a day makes. I say to you this morning that when we are truly grateful we never forget what made us grateful. Hardships stay with us. They are reminders that though we travel into valleys of death, God enables us to go through them.
II
The second characteristic of a truly grateful people is humility. When we are truly grateful we humbly confess that we are indebted to God, that we belong to him and that we are not our own. Look at the Psalm again. In the first two verses there is call gone out to all the earth to come and worship, worship the Lord with Gladness. In the next two verses the psalmist calls upon the world to recognize that it is God who has made us. That we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
It is an undeniable truth in life that suffering reminds us that we are mortal. Think of Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and the number of firefighter’s and policeman’s funerals he has attended and officiated in these past 10 weeks. Now think about having to do that for 40 years and you begin to understand a minister’s life. I don’t know about other ministers but for me the poignant line of the funeral comes at graveside when I read the words “we are dust and to dust we shall return.” It is a sobering moment, one that should cause us all to pause and recognize God’s sovereignty over us.
III
The third characteristic of truly grateful people is their recognition of the goodness of God. When we are truly grateful we come to understand that God’s mercies endure forever. This is the central focus of Psalm 100. When the congregation enters the gates of the temple and comes into the sanctuary together they confess that there will be no end to the love of God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor imprisoned in 1943 for his political and Christian opposition to the Nazi regime, understood thanksgiving. For two years he was imprisoned at times the war raging all around him. His cell wall was struck by collateral damage, the window was blown out and he endured the miserable could German winter for days on end. On the day of sentencing he conducted a service for the other prisoners. One of those prisoners, an English officer who survived, wrote these words:
Bonhoeffer always seemed to me to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident, and profound gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive... He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real and always near... On Sunday, April 8, 1945, Pastor Bonhoeffer conducted a little service of worship and spoke to us in a way that went to the heart of all of us. He found just the right words to express the spirit of our imprisonment, and the thoughts and resolutions it had brought us. He had hardly ended his last prayer when the door opened and two civilians entered. They said, "Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us." That had only one meaning for all prisoners--the gallows. We said good-bye to him. He took me aside [and whispered in my ear]: "This is the end; but for me it is the beginning of life." The next day he was hanged in Flossenburg.
The beginning of life. How is it that Bonhoeffer worshiped God in a Gestapo prison with the gallows in view? I will tell you. He understood the meaning of thanksgiving.
Out of great suffering have come the greatest expressions of gratitude. And so I suggest to you this morning that in the wake of the terrorist attacks, the immeasurable loss of civilian life, the Afghan war, the anthrax attacks, the economic turmoil, the economic uncertainties, and the crash of flight 587 we have all the more reason to celebrate Thanksgiving in remembrance, humility, and understanding that God is good, his mercies endure forever! Amen.
It is interesting to note that it wasn’t until we were at war, the Civil War to be exact, that our Thanksgiving holiday was officially recognized by Congress. It had started in the small Plymouth Colony in 1621 when the English Pilgrims feasted with members of the Wampanoag (Wam·pa·no·ag) Indians who brought gifts of food as a gesture of goodwill. The custom grew in various colonies as a means of celebrating the harvest. In 1777, over 100 years later, the continental congress proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving after the American Revolution victory at the Battle of Saratoga. But it was twelve years later that George Washington proclaimed another national day of thanksgiving in honor of the ratification of the Constitution and requested that the congress finally make it an annual event. They declined and it would be another 100 years and the end of a bloody civil war before President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving. The year was 1863. It might surprise you to learn that it took still another 40 years, the early 1900’s, before the tradition really caught on. For you see Lincoln’s official Thanksgiving was sanctioned in order to bolster the Union's morale. Many Southerners saw the new holiday as an attempt to impose Northern customs on their conquered land.
Thanksgiving today is a mild-mannered holiday full of football, hot apple pie, and family reunions. But that’s not a realistic historical picture of Thanksgiving. It is more often born of adversity and difficult times. So many of the greatest expressions of thanksgiving have occurred under circumstances so debilitating one wonders why people give thanks. It would seem a more reasonable response would be bitterness and ingratitude.
It is a paradox. In times of plenty we become indifferent. The smallest gifts are overlooked and unappreciated. We might even regard the basic pleasures of life with contempt. But, let hard times come and the threat that these gifts will be taken from us and we are jolted into sudden recognition and gratitude. What are the characteristics of a truly grateful people? I would like to offer three observations in answer to that question.
I
The first characteristic of a truly grateful people is remembrance. When we are truly grateful we are slow to forget what made us grateful. Our reading this morning is from the book of Psalms. In all there are 150 psalms, which can be categorized into prayers of help, hymns, royal hymns and songs of thanksgiving. Psalm 100 falls into the last category. It is a song of thanksgiving, but there is no mention of deliverance from nay hardships. Most of the Thanksgiving Psalms give an account of some great distress but not Psalm 100. Might I suggest that there is a reason for this omission. The author wishes for the worshiper, in a spirit of giving thanks, to remember their own distress and trials. Let’s do that right now.
Monday morning as I began to prepare for another week I was horrified when the news broke, another plane had crashed into the city of New York. A national collective “Oh no, not again!” could be heard through out the country. As the tragedy unfolded we learned this was an accident and the cruel coincidence of timing and location—in New York of all places—was just too much to bear. In my life there are few events, which have kept me emotionally effected beyond a few days. September 11th is one of them. We have all been on the verge weeping for two months.
If you are in the stores this week look at the cover of Newsweek. Three college age youth are standing upright, the caption underneath reads “Generation 9-11.” This will be for us a long time. In the context of this distress and hardship we gather this Thursday with family and friends to remind ourselves of all that we have been given and perhaps have forgotten. Did you read the email that made the rounds the week of September 11th? It was called “What a Difference a Day Makes." It is a good reminder:
On Monday, we e-mailed jokes.
On Tuesday, we did not.
On Monday, we were fussing about prayer in school.
On Tuesday, we would have been hard pressed to find a school where someone was not praying.
On Monday, our heroes were athletes.
On Tuesday, we relearned who heroes are.
On Monday, there were people trying to separate us by race, sex, color, and creed.
On Tuesday, we were all holding hands.
On Monday, we were irritated that our rebate checks had not arrived.
On Tuesday, we gave money away gladly to people we had never met.
On Monday, we were upset that we had to wait 5 minutes in a fast food line.
On Tuesday, we stood in line for 3 to 5 hours to give blood for the dying.
On Monday, we argued with our kids to clean up their rooms.
On Tuesday, we couldn’t get home fast enough to hug our kids.
On Monday, we went to work as usual.
On Tuesday, we went to work, but some of us didn’t come home.
On Monday, we had families.
On Tuesday, we had orphans.
On Monday, September 10th, life felt routine.
On Tuesday, September 11th, it did not.
What a difference a day makes. I say to you this morning that when we are truly grateful we never forget what made us grateful. Hardships stay with us. They are reminders that though we travel into valleys of death, God enables us to go through them.
II
The second characteristic of a truly grateful people is humility. When we are truly grateful we humbly confess that we are indebted to God, that we belong to him and that we are not our own. Look at the Psalm again. In the first two verses there is call gone out to all the earth to come and worship, worship the Lord with Gladness. In the next two verses the psalmist calls upon the world to recognize that it is God who has made us. That we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
It is an undeniable truth in life that suffering reminds us that we are mortal. Think of Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and the number of firefighter’s and policeman’s funerals he has attended and officiated in these past 10 weeks. Now think about having to do that for 40 years and you begin to understand a minister’s life. I don’t know about other ministers but for me the poignant line of the funeral comes at graveside when I read the words “we are dust and to dust we shall return.” It is a sobering moment, one that should cause us all to pause and recognize God’s sovereignty over us.
III
The third characteristic of truly grateful people is their recognition of the goodness of God. When we are truly grateful we come to understand that God’s mercies endure forever. This is the central focus of Psalm 100. When the congregation enters the gates of the temple and comes into the sanctuary together they confess that there will be no end to the love of God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor imprisoned in 1943 for his political and Christian opposition to the Nazi regime, understood thanksgiving. For two years he was imprisoned at times the war raging all around him. His cell wall was struck by collateral damage, the window was blown out and he endured the miserable could German winter for days on end. On the day of sentencing he conducted a service for the other prisoners. One of those prisoners, an English officer who survived, wrote these words:
Bonhoeffer always seemed to me to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident, and profound gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive... He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real and always near... On Sunday, April 8, 1945, Pastor Bonhoeffer conducted a little service of worship and spoke to us in a way that went to the heart of all of us. He found just the right words to express the spirit of our imprisonment, and the thoughts and resolutions it had brought us. He had hardly ended his last prayer when the door opened and two civilians entered. They said, "Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us." That had only one meaning for all prisoners--the gallows. We said good-bye to him. He took me aside [and whispered in my ear]: "This is the end; but for me it is the beginning of life." The next day he was hanged in Flossenburg.
The beginning of life. How is it that Bonhoeffer worshiped God in a Gestapo prison with the gallows in view? I will tell you. He understood the meaning of thanksgiving.
Out of great suffering have come the greatest expressions of gratitude. And so I suggest to you this morning that in the wake of the terrorist attacks, the immeasurable loss of civilian life, the Afghan war, the anthrax attacks, the economic turmoil, the economic uncertainties, and the crash of flight 587 we have all the more reason to celebrate Thanksgiving in remembrance, humility, and understanding that God is good, his mercies endure forever! Amen.
