Readings for Thanksgiving:
Deut. 26:1-11; Phil. 4:4-9; John 6:25-35
November 22, 2007
The Rev. Karen Faye Siegfriedt
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino, CA
Moses said: When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.” [Deut. 26] Thus began the first Thanksgiving Day, some 3200 years ago!
On Thanksgiving Day, I always like to remember our Puritan Brothers and Sisters who came to this country under extreme hardships in order to freely practice their religion. In spite of the fact that that over 50% of them had died during their first winter in the New World, they gladly held a feast of Thanksgiving following their first harvest. Over a period of three days, they gave thanks to God for what they did have.
Some of you may know that during the second year, their harvest was not as plentiful, and they experienced a shortage of food. So during the third year, during the hot and dry summer, they held a day of fasting and prayer, in hope for a decent harvest. The rains began! On November 29th, 1623, they celebrated the third harvest and thus began the tradition of Thanksgiving Day in America.
I often wonder how these struggling immigrants could spend so much time giving thanks when they had suffered such great losses. Just think about it! They had left their homeland to travel to an unknown land. They experienced the death of their love ones from hunger, cold, and disease. They suffered numerous hardships in trying to make a living during the first few years. And yet, they resisted the temptation to fall into self-pity, cynicism, and dejection by choosing to focus on their blessings instead.
Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending a “Women Touched by Grace” retreat at Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Indiana. The focus of the retreat was exploring and writing down our spiritual journey. One of the exercises began by having us make lists of both the blessings and sorrows in our lives. Then we were to make connections between the two lists.
For me, there was a connection in the blessing of having a wonderful mother and the sorrow that followed when she died unexpectedly. There was a sorrow in being dealt a substandard education in the Boston Public School System and yet because the educational bar was so low, my class rank was high. As a result of my high ranking, I received full scholarships to all of the colleges I applied to. What a great blessing that was! Then there was the great joy in becoming a priest in the Episcopal Church and yet there are many challenges that such a vocation presents both personally and professionally.
Our lives are shaped by our choices and by the blessings and sorrows we receive. We respond with gratitude and grief. It has been said that a mature spirituality integrates and accepts both conditions and both responses. Joy is not the absence of sorrow but the abiding confidence in the presence of God. I think it was because the Pilgrims were able to trust in God’s abiding presence that they were able to maintain a posture of thanksgiving in the midst of their many sorrows. They were able to see the connection between blessing and sorrow.
On the one hand, they had to leave their homeland because of religious persecution; but on the other hand, they were able to practice their religion without interference in the New World. On the one hand, they suffered many hardships by having to start over; but on the other hand, they were gifted with an abundance of new farmland. On the one hand, they experienced the sorrow of so many deaths during the first year; yet on the other hand, there was hope for a better life for the next generation.
Thanksgiving Day is wonderful opportunity to offer up all of the sorrows in our lives as well as to generously count the many blessings. I think St. Paul’s advice to the Philippians sets the tone for our prayers on this day of thanks. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things &#É;and the God of peace will be with you.” [Philippians 4]
| Updated November 26, 2007 |
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