A Reflection for Thanksgiving All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern
Shores, N.C.
November 23, 2017 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Thanksgiving Day 2017
My father had been a major in
the Marine Corps during World War II. He and his fellow officers used to joke
that they were made an Officer and a Gentleman by an act of Congress. He used
to remind his children that, while he was no longer an officer, he took the
title of gentleman seriously, and he expected his sons to be, or act like,
gentlemen.
Today is a Day of
Thanksgiving by an act of Congress and by the Proclamation of the President of
the United States. Under the 1662 Prayer Book of the Church of England there
were services that could be used when the Civil Authority (Parliament or King)
of the nation called for a Day of Thanksgiving. The Second Continental Congress
in 1777 declared the first National day of Thanksgiving on December 17 for victory
of the American Forces after the Battle of Saratoga in October that year. The
Prayer Book of 1789 of the newly-formed American Episcopal Church followed the
Church of England’s practice of waiting for the civil authorities to call for a
Day of Thanksgiving, which George Washington did at the request of Congress in
1789. Other Presidents would do so sporadically until President Abraham Lincoln,
in the middle of the Civil War, set a date that continued until1941 when
President Franklin Roosevelt, at the urging of congress, changed the date to
help the economy by adding more shopping days before Christmas.
The Book of Deuteronomy is a
series of addresses the re-interprets the law based on the experience of the
people in the Promised Land. The story is this book was discovered when the
Temple was being cleaned out during a period of reform under King Josiah. This
Book so fit the program for reform that it was immediately published as a
“lost” or misplaced Book of Moses, as a companion to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus
and Numbers.
The setting of this book is
that the people of the Exodus have now arrived at the Jordan River and will
cross it to enter the Promised Land, the end of the journey in the Wilderness
and a revisit to why they started this journey 40 years before - to remind them
of how God was with them on their journey and to give God thanks. Moses is not
going into the land and he begins the addresses knowing that his life has been
devoted to getting them to this point. He had been with them when they
challenged the power of the Pharaoh. He had been with them when God had
delivered them from their enemy at the Red Sea. He had been with them when he
realized that the job was too great and he brought in helpers from among the
people to share the leadership role, sort of a modern day Vestry or Cabinet. He
had been with them when it looked like they would disintegrate as a people and
called them back to unity. He had been with them when they wanted to return to
Egypt out of nostalgia for the time of bondage when they had no responsibility
for being the people of God. He had been with them when they tried to embrace other
gods such as the Golden Calf. He had been with them when they wanted to sell
themselves out to other nations along the path. He underlines that God is here
with them, and they are to remember with thanksgiving that God was the one who
made their lives matter. Moses gives them his blessing as a way to hope that
they will be made whole. Thanksgiving for them was a way to underline their
faith and to enter the future of promise.
In the lesson from the Gospel
of Luke for today, Jesus is stopping on his way to Jerusalem where he will end
his ministry. The cries come out from the side of the road from a group of
lepers. They have decided to risk getting close enough to ask for help from the
Jesus whom they had heard had compassion and healing as part of his ministry.
The rules were strict. They, as lepers,
were never to presume to ask for help or even approach a person who was
healthy. Jesus does no mumbo jumbo or ritual; he simply speaks and tells them
to go to the priests to get the certificate that they are cured. They rush off
to the Priests, but one of them notices that the lesions on his arms, face, and
body are no longer there. He knows he has been healed and while all the others
want to get on with their lives and return to the life they had before the
disease hit them, he stops and decides that life as usual cannot happen until
he gives thanks. He returns to Jesus and enters into thanksgiving as a way to
underline his faith and to enter the future of promise. Jesus gives him his
blessing in the light that his faith has made him whole.
When I was a lay person, I
found it quite helpful to go to church, even if I wasn’t paid to show up. Even
now, when I am on vacation, I find it helpful to go to church because it is a
time for me to give thanks for God being with me on my journey and to underline
my faith and to enter the next week of promise. I go to receive a blessing in
the light that my faith can make me whole.
Each day at the morning and
at the end of the day, I stop to give thanks to God for being with me on my
journey of life that day. I stop to underline my faith and to ask for a
blessing on the day or night ahead.
Today is Thanksgiving Day by
an act of Congress, but every day is a day of thanksgiving by the loving acts
of God and the responses by faithful people.
Thanksgiving 2017
Paid work done doesn't need a
thank you
but opportunity and skill to
work does,
praying thanks for chance
given there is
and gifted times to develop skill
through.
Thanksgiving is time
accounting of gifts
around we as, fellow gifts
are counting,
beyond number, growing and
mounting,
unencumbered by worth; beyond
us shifts
to giving of gifts as deep
purpose of breath.
Knowing we lose everything as
time ends
we practice giving ourselves
away as friends
to the one who gives us both
birth and death.
The outward forms of gifts
will fade thereof,
but behind all the gifts,
undying lives a love.
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