Deuteronomy 8:7-18 For God brings you to a good land, with flowing streams, waters in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, olive trees and honey; you eat bread whenever you wish, where you lack nothing. You shall eat and bless the good land. Take care that you do not forget God, or fail to keep God’s laws. When you have eaten, built your homes to live in, and you have all that you need each day, do not exalt yourself, forgetting God, who brought you out from Egypt, from slavery, led you through the terrible wilderness, made water flow, and fed you with manna that your ancestors did not know, to test you, and to do you good. Do not say to yourself, "My own power has got this for me.”
Luke 17:11-19 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus went through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." As they went, they were made clean. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He bowed at Jesus' feet and thanked him. This one was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
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God was out in the back yard of the summer home, Newfoundland, stretched out on a hammock, a tall cool something in one hand, and enjoying the fruits of creation - trees changing colour, asters and goldenrod blooming, beautiful sky and gently warm sunny afternoon, a bowl of bright red fall apples on the table. Life couldn’t be better, thought God - everything as it should be, and Thanksgiving coming up to boot.
Just as God was dozing off in the warm sunshine, there came a knock on the tree next to the hammock. “Yes?” said God.
“It’s me, God. Joe Scientist. I just wanted to let you know that now that humans can do what you can do, we won’t need you any more. So you can take a permanent holiday.”
“Really?” said God, off-handedly reaching down into the soil, bringing out a handful, and rather absent mindedly shaping it into a human. “So, you can create everything now, too?” said God.
“Sure” said Joe Scientist. “Watch”. - and he leaned down to pick up a handful of soil. “Um, what do you think you’re doing?” said God.
“Why, creating a human, just like you.”, said Joe Scientist.
“I see. Well, then”, said God, “you have to make your own dirt as well.”
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The Feast of Shavuot in the Jewish calendar follows Passover, but comes before Pentecost. On the day after Passover, a sheaf of new wheat or corn is waved over the altar, as a sign of gratitude to God for bestowing blessings. At Pentecost two loaves of leavened bread made from the new wheat are waved over the altar. It is clear that all the first fruits are to be offered to God - the law commands: “You shall bring the first fruits of your land to the house of Hashem, your God.”
When we think of the Exodus story, we usually think of the high points, the ones which bookend the time in the wilderness:
- the crossing of the Sea of Reeds and the defeat of the Egyptian armies.
- the triumph of crossing the Jordan and shouting till the walls of Jericho fell.
We tend to forget that they were in that wilderness for 40 long years. We forget the death by snakebite; the monotony of desert life; we forget that it was so bad at times some wanted to return to slavery, since it was a known quantity, and it was seen as “better than this”. We forget that not all of those people who left Egypt would actually make it to the land of promise, but their children and grandchildren would be the ones to see it. Moses didn’t get there, but died with the promised land within sight.
We forget that while we know how it turned out, they didn’t know. They were living in the uncertainty day to day! Their story was still being lived, and had not yet been written. So, in the establishing of the law, there was a command to bring the first fruits of the harvest, in thanksgiving to God for their very survival.
Leprosy in Jesus’ time was seen as a highly contagious disease, with little likelihood of a cure. Since the names for diseases weren’t known, any skin disorder which did not heal was labelled leprosy. Acne would have been considered leprosy. Lepers were required by law to keep a safe distance from other people, and they were forbidden by law to enter Jerusalem. They were outcasts, considered unclean, as a result of sin.
Ten lepers call to Jesus to have mercy on them. Jesus responds "Go and show yourselves to the priests." Now, that response may strike us as strange, but it was good news for the ten lepers. Since not everyone labeled as leper actually had leprosy, there were occasions when the skin disorder healed. To be healed meant that, once cleared by the priests, they were readmitted to mainstream society. But the way they went rushing off, you would think they had managed to heal themselves, and Jesus had little if anything to do with it.
So we have a group of ten rushing to be named as “acceptable”, and welcome to the temple again. Except that one of them, who is a foreigner and not of their faith, turns back to thank Jesus for the incredible gift of healing. Jesus asks, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And then he says , "Your faith has made you well." Only one recognised that his body had been healed, but more importantly, his spirit had been healed of its disease. Once again, Jesus holds up the person who is NOT of the common faith as the one who stops and thinks.
In the Konko Church of Japan, at about the same time we celebrate Thanksgiving, a fall harvest festival is celebrated. During the service, all the gifts - food, dance, music, scripture - everything is offered to God - called the Parent of the Universe - in gratitude for the gifts given in this life.
Canadian aboriginal peoples who practice traditional ways have a public thanksgiving ceremony every spring where everyone is invited. This is something done in the presence of the spiritual leaders. The people gather in order to give thanks for the land which produced the “first fruit”, which in the case of Canada is the wild strawberry. Everyone present receives the gift of the strawberry; no one is excluded.
Thanksgiving Day in Canada has only had its own date in the calendar since 1957. Yet long before Martin Frobisher became the first European to celebrate Thanksgiving in the new land in the 16th century, our first nations people celebrated the harvest and thanksgiving. Contrary to what many were raised and taught to believe, we didn’t get our Thanksgiving celebrations from the Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock in the United States. Thanksgiving gradually became a tradition - at the end of the summer people would give thanks for the harvest which would keep them through what was usually a harsh winter. In Canada, because our fall comes sooner and winter is longer, Thanksgiving comes that much earlier.
Unfortunately, our world tends to reflect more of Joe Scientist, and less of wonder and thanks for who we are. We are led to believe we have control of everything. Genetic sequence mapping, organ transplants, in-vitro fertilisation, cloning, space travel. We know how to do it all, no need to give thanks any more, God isn’t needed.
At the same time we behave this way, we will react in horror at the number of deaths in a nursing home from Legionnaire’s Disease; we are shocked at the numbers killed in earthquakes in Kashmir and Pakistan; SARS, bird flu, cancer; plane crashes, useless wars. At the same time we act as if we are God, as if we can do it all ourselves, we blame God if something goes wrong. We talk about God “letting people die”, or “taking them away” when they die. When something bad happens, we ask why “God would do this”. Do we ask why God does the good things?
I gave you several examples of thanksgiving practices. In virtually every faith, there is a time in the year set aside for offering thanks for blessings. In the story from Luke, it was not a Jew, but someone of another faith, who offered thanks. The nine were preoccupied with themselves and could only think about that; the one saw that his blessings came from God. His faith that God heals also provided him with something that the others didn’t take away - a healing of the leprosy of his soul. It was a blessing he would take with him the rest of his life, and share with others.
We tend to get sentimental at Thanksgiving; sentimentality is not bad sometimes, yet I think we confuse sentimentality with giving thanks. This weekend has become more of a rush to have a big dinner, get everyone together, get to the cottage, whatever - don’t get me wrong: I like the turkey, the food, the family, the grandchildren - and hopefully there is an element of Thanksgiving in these celebrations. I plan to have lots of food and lots of fun. But I wonder if perhaps we’ve forgotten the meaning of the word “holiday”. It doesn’t mean a day off from life, it doesn’t mean time to do all the things we want and forget about our blessings. The word “holiday” literally means a Holy Day - a day to celebrate and give thanks, *precisely* for all the blessings we have.
Thanksgiving literally comes from the words “thanks” and “giving”. In every culture, the thanks is also connected with sharing of the blessings with others. In those ‘thanksgivings’, it is recognised that the fruits of creation are there not only to be used, but to be shared with those who may be considered outcast - the lepers who must always stand at a distance, and who are denied life because of a mistaken perception about them, or a prejudice against them. The fruits of creation are far more than strawberries, grains or bread - the fruits of creation are everything we have. These things are *not* ours alone; we have been given these things from the bounty of the creation we experience, to be shared with the rest of creation from who it has been taken away. When we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, we are literally celebrating a Holy Day in the life of people - not just the life of the church. Because we are the recipients of such generosity in creation, it is required of us to be generous as well, in whatever way we can.
The late American author, Helen Keller, was the first deaf and blind person to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree. She wrote these words:
I, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough shaggy bark of a pine.... I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle
of Nature is revealed to me.
Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song.... At times my heart cries out with longing to see these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight.
Yet, those who have eyes apparently see little. The panorama of color and action which fills the world is taken for granted.... It is a great pity that, in the world of light, the gift of sight is used only as a mere convenience rather than as a means of adding fullness to life.
We often do not know what have - or we take what we have as our right, our entitlement. We forget that much of what we have is an accident of where we were born, and has come to us through the work of many hands, and the lives of many before us - who in their struggles learned to be thankful for the smallest of things.
May we learn how to give thanks, not only today, but throughout all our lives.
Sources:
1. Responding Abundantly to Abundance, a sermon by Rev. Beth Johnston October 9, 2011
2. First Fruits, a sermon by Rev. Fran Ota, October 2005.
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