11-19-23

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
November 19, 2023
Today, we begin a two-week look at Thanksgiving Beyond The Feast. Though I am a person who celebrates and encourages the notion of gratitude, I do struggle with the holiday we call Thanksgiving. It’s that strange tension between believing in the human need to give thanks while also acknowledging the deeply painful history of what is behind the holiday. I am becoming more of a person who believes we can hold two contrary ideas in tension, naming both without diminishing the other… though some would call me naive as they believe it is impossible. And maybe they are right, but I hope not. I love the command out of Deuteronomy 24, where we read:

Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this. When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings (vs. 18-19).

You cannot live faithfully in the moment without fully understanding the past, yet in understanding the past, you are able to act as a person of gratitude who ends up blessing others. 

Continue to speak your truth to me, O Gracious God, about the past, the present, and what is possible in the future through a well-informed faith. Amen.