Let us shout for joy and sing!
Thanksgiving Day, 2020
Deuteronomy; 8:7-18 • 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 • Luke 17:11-19
We’ve all been rolling along with the stresses of this year as best we can: rarely thriving, more often lurching been surviving and struggling. Hopefully not being in crisis too often.
Today, we are given an opportunity to articulate our gratitude. We are here. We belong to a family of faith. We are here with friends. The day is beautiful, we live in a lovely part of the world, and we have our hope. We can be grateful for so much.
We are grateful to the work of so many that support our lives in this world. Healthcare workers, educators, all those growing our food and enabling it to reach our tables, all those who keep the systems going that we depend on for functioning. Each one of us is indebted to the labors of so many to maintain our comfort and safety.
Our collect for today begins:
Gracious One, reaching our need, overcoming our alienation:
give us a spirit of gratitude for the abundance of the earth,
the wildness of its creatures, the global threads that bind friend and foreigner.
We have so much! Our psalm today ends with the hills, meadows, and valley being clothed with joy and singing! And so might we! I hope you’re joining in with our lovely hymns of gratitude and praise: startling your neighbors with your enthusiastic singing!
And what shall we do with all of this gratitude? It undoubtedly feels good every time we notice something for which we can be grateful: when we take that quick intake of breath in pleasure. Remembering to give thanks is an easy next step: as easy as breathing out.
The second part of today’s collect helps us know how powerful our gratitude can be:
Gracious One, may our thanks be the soil in which a dream of justice grows.
‘A dream of justice’: that seems like a most apt vision for these days in which we live. Justice for all people, all animals, and our environment. It is by noticing the abundance, the gift, the blessing of all that God gives us. It is by recognizing that we have done nothing to deserve these gifts, they are God’s gifts to be shared with everyone, the whole planet. And it is by breathing and praying that gratitude that together we can nurture that dream of justice, the righteous sharing of God’s abundance with the world.
Through Jesus Christ, the Lord of the harvest. Amen.