Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving
“For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven
and giveth life unto the world”
“The Lord God,” it is said, “walk[ed] in the garden in the cool of the day”. Jesus, we are told, walked through a corn field on the Sabbath. So here we are in the cool of a corn field giving thanks to God. We shall be most thankful, I am sure, when our new heating system is fully installed and operational!
Thanksgiving is all about giving; indeed, it is life-giving. As such it is the strong counter to the entitlement culture of our world and day – to the idea that we are endlessly owed whatever we think we should have and want. That is all about getting. Thanksgiving is all about giving. It is a profoundly spiritual and intellectual activity which belongs to the truth and dignity of our humanity.
Thanksgiving revolves around the power of prepositions, those little words which position words and ideas with other words and ideas, placing things in relation, as it were. The two prepositions essential to thanksgiving are ‘for’ and ‘to’. There are things for which to be thankful. Many, many things actually. But it takes a certain thoughtfulness, again a counter to the thoughtlessness of so much of our lives, to be thankful. Yet thanksgiving is also about giving thanks to others. It is especially about thanksgiving to God for all and everything. That perspective extends to our being thankful to others for whatever intermediate goods we have received from them. Yet, each and every good that we enjoy ultimately comes from God in and through the mediation of creation and human experience. Thanksgiving is our acknowledgement of that truth and understanding.
Thanksgiving cannot be forced. We can ask that people say ‘please and thank you’ and even require it as part and parcel of the courtesies of our lives together as a community but real thanksgiving can only come from the heart and the mind. Properly speaking it is a thoughtful and intentional act which extends from us towards God and others.
