by CCW | 9 October 2019 13:00
“There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger,” Jesus says in the classical Gospel thanksgiving story of the ten lepers who were healed of whom only one returned to give thanks. The story speaks to one of our current dilemmas: thanksgiving without thanksgiving.
We all like a good meal, to be sure. No one likes a bad meal but is thanksgiving simply an occasion for huge meal, for hedonistic self-indulgence and conspicuous consumption? Is it about celebrating our consumer selves? Something of the more radical nature of thanksgiving is shown in this Gospel story as highlighted by Jesus. More than a healing miracle, it is about the miracle of thanksgiving which is our participation in God’s grace, the true and only basis of gratitude. The root of gratitude is grace – what comes from God to us and in a myriad of ways.
True thanksgiving counters our complacency and our sense of entitlement. The harvest cannot be taken for granted; it cannot be said that we deserve a feast or that it is a right. There are times of famine and pestilence, times of drought and storm. Think only of the catastrophic humanitarian disaster that continues with the famine in Yemen. Here in Windsor, the annual Pumpkin Regatta will be a much diminished affair simply because there are far, far fewer pumpkins owing to the cold spring, the dryness of the summer, and, of course, Hurricane Dorian. Such things challenge our complacency and remind us that we can only work with God’s creation and that we do not have control of nature. They serve as a check upon our rather instrumental and utilitarian relation to the natural world and to one another.
Here and elsewhere, Thanksgiving refers to Harvest Thanksgiving, really a movable feast according to the time of harvest, but which has come to be celebrated on the weekend of our national thanksgiving day, our thanksgiving for political and social freedoms and order as we hope that they are and continue to be. In many of our churches, the fruits of the field are gathered into the churches. Why? Does God like gourds? Do you? Are you going to eat them? Or are they simply part of the beauty and delight of nature? As the Psalmist suggests, echoing Job, God made Leviathan for the fun of it! So too with gourds?! Maybe.
Such questions open us out to the great questions from Genesis and Job, the great questions that call us to account and awaken us to wonder at the goodness of God and the goodness of his creation which is always greater than our utilitarian approaches to nature and to one another. Such approaches often result in our making a mess of things, an ancient and contemporary problem.
We need the wisdom of Job as grasped by the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, the wisdom that makes us realize “the grandeur of God.” That kind of wisdom alone counters our fearfulness and anxiety and awakens us to thanksgiving and delight. As Hopkins observes the world “is seared with trade, bleared, smeared/ with toil;/ And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell.” He is commenting on the effects of the industrial revolution in the late 19th century, things which are very much with us. “The soil/ is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.” It is a telling indictment of our disconnect from nature and our misuse of the natural world. Yet Hopkins offers a freeing and wonderfully spiritual perspective that ultimately belongs to the radical nature of thanksgiving signalled in the Gospel.
“For all this,” he says, meaning all that belongs to human folly, human suffering, and human evil in the world, “nature is never spent.” Life is protean and greater than we think and far more complex than we realize. That should lead us to being more thoughtful and considerate about our relation to the world and not the opposite. It counters our fearful and cynical approach to our world and day. Hopkins has a hold of what Job comes to know about “the grandeur of God.” For “there lives the dearest freshness deep down things,” the world is more not less than what we can imagine and all “because the Holy Ghost over the bent/ World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” This is the grandeur of God in creation despite our folly.
This is similar to the insight of the one who returned to give thanks. Something greater is moving in him, something of the grandeur of God. He is thankful, full of gratitude for his healing and grateful to God as the healer and author of all life. The root of gratitude is gratia, the grace that moves in us. Thanksgiving is a free spiritual activity. It cannot be forced. It is about what moves freely in us through an awakening to God’ grandeur. The harvest reminds us that all and everything we enjoy depends upon God and his will in creation. We can only work with his will in creation. That is our freedom.
It is also the dignity and truth of our humanity. The stranger here is the outsider, in the context of the Gospel, a Samaritan, the outsider of the outsiders in the ancient Jewish culture. But he shows us what belongs to the real truth and worth of our humanity. He is not only healed but made whole. Thanksgiving is that freest of spiritual activities that grounds us in the life of God; it is grace moving in us, gathering us to God even as the fruits of creation are gathered into the churches. Such things signal our awareness of the goodness of God alive in us. Thanksgiving returns us to God in prayer and praise, in joy and delight.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2019/10/09/kes-chapel-reflection-week-of-9-october/
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