“And one turned back … giving him thanks”
In returning and giving thanks, we are made whole. This text signals the profoundly spiritual nature of thanksgiving. In a way, today’s Gospel is the quintessential gospel of thanksgiving. At Harvest Thanksgiving, though, we usually read the lesson from Isaiah about the word of God in creation and the Gospel from St. John about Jesus as “the Bread of Life” (BCP, p. 620/1). This Gospel story from St. Luke we usually hear on The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (BCP, p. 240), but that Sunday happened to be The Feast of St. Matthew this year. Yet this Gospel is also the appointed Gospel reading for Thanksgiving Day (BCP, p. 308). It embraces and shapes all our thinking about thanksgiving. We need to ponder its essential meaning.
Pumpkins and prepositions. Both abound in the culture of the Maritimes, often in interesting ways, but I fear we probably take more notice of the pumpkins than we do of prepositions. Pumpkins, especially given the parade of pumpkins and the pumpkin regatta in the Pisiquid puddle, are part of our thanksgiving celebrations here in Windsor. But prepositions! You’ve got to be kidding. Grammar on a Sunday?! Yes. Why? Because we can’t make any sense of the concept of thanksgiving without giving serious consideration to prepositions, particularly three prepositions. Which prepositions? They are ‘for’, ‘to’, and ‘with’.
But what are prepositions? Prepositions are those little words which carry such a weight of meaning and are so hard to master when learning a new language. They position nouns and verbs in relation to one another to indicate meaning and purpose.
Thanksgiving is a profoundly spiritual activity. It is the freest thing that we can do. Like learning and religion, it can’t be forced. It has to come freely from our hearts and minds. We can constantly remind our children to say ‘thank-you’, but real thanksgiving cannot be coerced. It belongs to the intellectual and spiritual freedom of our humanity. It is the counter to all and every aspect of the entitlement culture, to the assumption that we are owed whatever we want and think we deserve. Its significance is captured in the power of these prepositions.
First, thanksgiving is for something or other that is recognised as being good. Rather than taking all the good things of life for granted and/or thinking that we deserve what we enjoy, we give thanks for the good things we have. Secondly, there can be no thanksgiving without the idea of giving thanks to someone; ultimately, in the religious and spiritual traditions, to God, the ultimate source of all and every good. We give thanks to God for what we recognise that we have received because of the labours, the care, the thought and the actions of others, but especially because of the providential care and love of the author of all that is, God. But what about that third preposition, ‘with’?
This, too, goes to the heart of our thanksgiving celebrations. Thanksgiving is a fundamental feature of religion. It is part of our liturgy. We give thanks to God together, with one another, as a community of spirit and purpose. But our thanksgivings with one another extend to the idea of sharing with one another the good things which we are privileged to enjoy. We share with others who do not have the things which we have. Thanksgiving ‘for’, ‘to’ and ‘with’.
The Gospel story of the one leper, himself a Samaritan, who returned and gave thanks to Jesus after he was healed, reveals the power of thanksgiving. It is a totally free act. There were ten that were cleansed. Only one returned to give thanks. About him, Jesus says, “Arise go your way. Your faith has made you whole.” Not just healed but whole, complete. In returning and giving thanks, we are made whole.
Voltaire, in his classic novel, Candide, takes us to El Dorado, an imaginary place, an utopia which, like all utopias, functions not just as an ideal place but as a critique of the status quo, the existing power dynamics in the cultures of the Europe of his day. The question is raised about the religion of El Dorado. It is entirely a religion of thanksgiving. They have all that they need for which they are profoundly grateful. A critique of the greed and exploitation of 18th century European culture, it stands as a counter to those same features in the contemporary world of global capitalism.
To be thankful is the freest action of our humanity. It is about our recognition of the things for which, and the one to whom, and those with whom we are thankful and with whom we share the good things of creation and human labour.
Harvest Thanksgiving is about the gathering in of the fruits of creation and human labour, God be willing, but it is also about the gathering of our souls to God in the realization that all that we have – both the fruits of creation through human labour and the healing of our wounded and sin-wracked humanity – comes from God, the fons et origo, the fount and source of all good things. Thanksgiving is, profoundly, about our participation in the goodness of God himself.
Ultimately, we participate in the great thanksgiving of the Son to the Father. We are gathered to him in prayer and praise. We are gathered to him in nothing less than “the sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving”, as our liturgy so profoundly and wonderfully puts it. What more can be said? What more can we do than to be thankful? “Come ye thankful people come!” Come to the great festival of thanksgiving where we are more than healed. We are made whole – but only in returning and giving thanks. Be with the one who “turned back, giving him thanks”! Be with God in Christ Jesus.
“And one turned back … giving him thanks”
(Rev’d) David Curry
Harvest Thanksgiving 2014