Thanksgiving 1997 | Dueteronomy 28:1-6

I really didn't know what to talk about this Thanksgiving. Writing always comes difficult for me at first, so I thought I'd just sit down and draw up a list of things I was grateful for and see what happens.

What I didn't expect was the things which came to mind. They weren't particularly good things. In fact, I realized that I was really quite upset about a number of things which had happened this year, and I found that I wasn't particularly grateful at all!

At first I found this troubling, but then I decided to sit with it and figure out what God was trying to tell me in it. What is the link, I asked myself, between what I am feeling and the meaning of Thanksgiving?

My musings led me to consider the Pilgrims, those original Congregationalists who landed nearly four hundred years ago now on Plymouth Rock. Now you are all familiar with this story, perhaps ad nauseam. Worry not, I'll not go into much detail. Suffice it to say that those original Congregationalists didn't have a very easy time of it that first year. A significant number of their loved ones and friends were lost during that first harsh winter to illness or the elements, and by the time spring and summer rolled around their hard work had won them another year, but little security.

Still, Harvest time found them again cold, hungry, and tired. And yet, in the midst of great hardship, they chose to pause and give thanks. Looking back on this, it is easy for us to say how much they had to be thankful for. But I wonder if the little girl who had lost her mother to sickness during that first hard winter felt particularly grateful; or the man who lost his hand to gangrene, or any of the other men women and children whose first year was more loss than gain. I wonder how swollen their hearts were with thanks.

But then again, perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps it doesn't matter because even in the midst of their suffering they CHOSE to give thanks. Now I'd like to emphasize that word "chose." It doesn't mean that they were FEELING thankful, but that they made a conscious decision to give thanks in spite of their feelings.

This is a very important point, especially for those of us who are very emotional people. I heard a woman on the radio the other day asking the radio psychologist if she should leave her husband because she didn't feel "in love" with him any more. I don't remember what the psychologist told her, because by the time she got around to answering, I was already lost in my own daydream of what I would say to this woman. I would have told her that the feeling of being "in love" and real LOVE are two completely different things. Being "in love" is an emotional swell that rolls in like a wave and just as quickly rolls out again. But to love someone requires a conscious choice. You CHOOSE to love another person; the feelings ebb and flow, but your commitment to love is not based on those feelings. It is based on a number of much more solid factors, like trust, shared values, and mutual respect. It isn't something that happens to you; love is something you choose to do.

The pilgrims gave thanks, then, not because they FELT particularly grateful, but because it was the right thing to do. To give thanks to God for the lives of those who had survived, for a harvest that would keep most of them through the winter was their reasonable service, their religious duty, and like responsible Christians, they chose to do it.

This reveals in our ancestors a grain of spiritual maturity that we would do well to emulate. Spiritual growth isn't something that just "happens" to most people. Oh, perhaps people do grow with the bumps and barricades life throws at us, but real, meaty spiritual growth demands attention, intention, and work. It involves a commitment to the life of the spirit that perhaps does not come naturally to most of us. Spiritual growth demands that we pay attention to what God is whispering to us even in our most painful times; it means putting in effort to fulfill our religious responsibilities, and it means a certain degree of intentionality toward the well-being of our neighbors.

Through the ages, various systems of spiritual growth have developed in our traditions. This is only fitting, since there have always been people who have with intentionality sought after God and God's ways. In the medieval Christian tradition, spiritual maturity followed a threefold model of Purgation, Illumination, and Union. But this pattern is like a rocket ship, putting the spiritual seeker into nirvanic orbit where he or she becomes so heavenly minded they are no earthly good.

Meister Eckhardt in the thirteenth century suggested another model which is much more applicable for a life lived in the real world. His model is a spiral of four "paths" the fourth path leading right back to the first, each spiral revealing a deeper and yet deeper journey into God. The first of these paths he called the "via positiva." This, for Eckhardt, is the starting place of all spiritual growth. What is the "via positiva"? Gratitude.

The via positiva is the gratefulness we feel when we realize how richly we have been blessed; the positiva is the wonder we feel when we watch "Stephen Hawking's Universe." The via positiva is the awe we experience when a baby is born, or when real forgiveness happens before our very eyes. The via positiva is the astonishment at the power of grace, it is the sitting up and taking notice of every good thing in the world. This is the starting place for all spiritual growth.

This thanksgiving season. I do not ask you to FEEL thankful. Your feelings have very little to do with it. But for the health of your soul, I encourage you practice the spiritual discipline of BEING grateful. Scripture gives us a promise: "If you will only obey God, by diligently observing all these commandments...all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you."

I love the end of that phrase. For I am too fickle to want to WORK for my blessings. I am too weak to go in pursuit of them; I am too disheartened to hold out hope for them. But note what scripture says: even if you are running full speed in the other direction, THESE BLESSINGS SHALL COME UPON YOU AND OVERCOME YOU."

I don't know about you, but I do not want it to all be up to me. I want God's love and mercy to hunt me down, no matter where I have gone. But God wants something in return. God wants reciprocity, relationship. God want obedience, cooperation, collaboration. God wants us to be faithful.

We cannot be faithful with our feelings. They are our most fickle attribute. I swear if my hair or my face were as fickle as my feelings, you folks would never recognize me. Feelings ebb and flow, but God, and God's covenant with us are the solid ground upon which we can stand firm. God does not require us at this time of year to FEEL thankful; God only asks us to GIVE our thanks.

Perhaps this feels contrived or hypocritical to you, but modern psychology often tells victims of abuse or those who suffer from extreme anxiety that if they would only ACT brave, true courage will come. Likewise, we may not FEEL grateful, but giving thanks anyway, as our religious discipline, as our reasonable service, is sure to lead to genuine grace.

Let us pray.

Good and generous God,
It is difficult for us sometimes
to feel like we think we are SUPPOSED to feel.
Our hearts run to and fro, from elation to despair
and it is only the rock of faith to which we can cling
with any certainty.
Bless us this week, as we gather with those we love,
and even with some of those we would rather not love,
to share our lives, to renew our relationships
and to give thanks to you, our creator, and nurturer of our souls
through whom all blessings flow,
and from whose hand every good thing has been given to us.
Help us, even in our down days, to remember to give you thanks
For we know that gratitude is the beginning of our spiritual journey,
and we are all, always beginners.
For we ask this in the name that is above every name, Amen.