Reclaiming Thanksgiving

For this week’s blog post, I’m putting up part of the sermon that I gave at the community Thanksgiving service at St. Mark’s UMC.

Thanksgiving, at its core, must be about God. We have ample reasons to give thanks to God: God has created us, God shepherds us, God extends God's steadfast love to us for all time.

Our culture has lost the centrality of God in Thanksgiving. Instead of focusing on God, we so often focus on the food and the fellowship. It is not a “successful” Thanksgiving if the meal is not perfect, or if we don't have the opportunity to fellowship with our families. These are important parts of Thanksgiving, but we must return to the core reason for Thanksgiving, which is giving thanks to God for all God has done for us.

In his proclamation of a day of Thanksgiving, Abraham Lincoln reminded the nation of “the watchful providence of Almighty God” and the “gracious gifts of the Most High God.”[1] We need to focus in on this part of Thanksgiving, treating it as the main course of the holiday, rather than a side dish or an oft-forgotten piece of the Thanksgiving day meal.

How, then, can we do this? In my family, one of our Thanksgiving traditions consists of each member of the family sharing something from the past year that he or she is thankful for. While this can be a worthwhile activity, at times it can also simply be a way of tacking on thanksgiving to the holiday. We ought to put this as a central part of our meals together.

I would urge all of us to do this as we gather at our respective Thanksgiving meals, but with a bit of a twist. Instead of merely thinking about this at the last minute, perhaps we could each take time to ponder on God's actions in our lives over the past year. This preparation will allow for deeper sharing about the activities of God.

As we gather around different tables this week to celebrate Thanksgiving, may we truly take the time to see the work of God in our lives and to share our gratitude for that work. May we move beyond the simplistic understanding of Thanksgiving as a holiday of food, to a holiday where we give thanks to God for his steadfast love that endures to all generations.

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[1] Kriston Moulton, “Thanksgiving: A Holiday for Believers and Non-Believers”, Huffington Post, www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/19/thanksgiving-a-holiday-for_n_786254.html, Accessed 20 Nov. 2010.