True Thanksgiving: Remembering And Sharing

Deuteronomy 26: 1-11

 In Deuteronomy 26, Moses gives instructions for individual offerings to the people of Israel. A worshiper comes into the sanctuary carrying a basket full of the first fruits of the harvest, and then tells a story before the altar of God: "My father was Jacob; he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there as an alien; and there he became a great and numerous nation. But there our people were enslaved by the Egyptians, and had to suffer through hard labor. So we cried out to the Lord, the God of our fathers. And the Lord heard our voice, and saw our affliction, toil and oppression. He brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with miraculous signs and wonders. He led us to this good land. And now I bring first fruits of this land that you, 0 Lord, have given me, to worship you, to rejoice in all that you have given me and my household, and to share them with the Levite, the alien, the orphan and the widow."

"It is clear that this offering is an act of response and gratitude, acknowledging that the land and all its rich benefits come from the Lord as a gift, undeserved and unearned." (Miller, 179). This story teaches us two elements of true thanksgiving: remembering and sharing.

Thanksgiving first should be rooted in remembering. It is to recall God's goodness and loving kindness concretely. That is, to acknowledge and confess that all good things have come from Him.. When we are thankful, we declare our belief in the creator of all the universe, who is the source of all goodness and blessing. Therefore, true thanksgiving implies our complete dependence upon God. Nothing has been achieved by our own power and strength, but everything by God's help and grace. All we have are gifts from God.

We should remember God not only in good times but also in trials and hardships. We may sometimes feel that God has abandoned or forgotten us, not being with us any longer. But in all circumstances we are not alone; God is in them with us. God is always near to uphold and comfort us, and to keep hope alive in our hearts. He has committed himself to taking care of us, seriously enough to sacrifice His only Son for us. The issue here is our trust in God. When we have trust in God, we can see Him beyond all our problems, and give thanks.

Those who participated in the first Thanksgiving in 1621 were the Pilgrims who were facing the second winter after having lost half of their people on the first winter. But they were able to give thanks to God for their first harvest, and for the promise of another year. The prayer of the early Pilgrims was very much like the prayer of Israelites. Our fathers came over the great ocean, and were to perish in the wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and he heard their voices and looked on their adversity. Let us, therefore, praise the Lord, because He is good, and His goodness endures forever.

Last year I received a letter in which an experience of a pastor in California was shared:

Reverend Welsh's congregation had a child subject to sudden seizures. These sudden seizures were violent and painful, not only for the child but also for the parents and those who witnessed the child's suffering. The father and child would come to church regularly and the father's practice was to hold the child. One Sunday morning in the midst of worship the child was seized and twisted his body painfully. The father lifted him caringly, carried him to the back of the sanctuary, where he stood still rocking the child, speaking to him gently until finally the seizure eased off. There was no sign of embarrassment or frustration on the father's face, only love for the hurting child. And then Reverend Walsh said, "In that moment, while I was preaching, in fact I was preached to. I heard God speak to my heart and say, 'That's the way I love you...I am not embarrassed to have people know that you are my child.'"

 That's how God loves us.

We Christians are a people of memory; we are called to remember. Remembering is very important in our present faith journey. Our memory of God's grace and faithfulness in the past continues to provide spiritual nourishment long after the event itself is over. Remembering becomes the source of our strength which sustains us in the midst of suffering; it "enables us to see our difficulty in a new context and thereby find the comfort and the courage to live it." (Kidd, 24) Remembrance "not only keeps us connected to our past but also allows for that connection to be a channel of grace in the present moment of life." (Swears, 33) We hear the psalmist saying, "I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds." (Ps 77:11-12)

Thanksgiving also means sharing. The worshiper is called to share all the good given by God with the Levite, the alien, the orphan, and the widow, those who did not have access to the land and its goods, and are likely to be weak, poor and oppressed. It was because the people of Israel themselves had been weak, poor and aliens. And it was because God has a special concern for those who are marginalized and deprived. If we accept everything as gifts from God, then we should be willing to share them with others who have less than we have.

As the former president Jimmy Carter once pointed out, "the greatest discrimination of all is the discrimination by the rich against the poor." Often we refuse to reach out to strangers who are different from us. We choose to be indifferent to or ignorant of the sufferings of the people near and around us in order not to disturb, but to protect our privileges, security and comfort. As a result, to many people, our Christianity is not representing the spirit and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We don't have to look to the countries afar. Even in this country there are four and a half million homeless people; every year 10,000 children die as the direct result of poverty; and every night 14 million people go to bed hungry. And worldwide, each minute of the day, 21 children and seven adults die of hunger and starvation; every twenty four hours, approximately 35,000 people die of hunger; and every year 15 to 20 million people die of hunger and hunger-related causes. And they all are our brothers and sisters; we are bound to one another.

One of my friends in the graduate program had spent one summer of his college years working for student missions in Bangladesh. One morning he passed by a suffering man on a street. Several hours later he returned by the same route and found that man dead on the sidewalk. He described his experience as this: "As I stared in helpless horror at his lifeless body, I had an overwhelming sense that I was being watched, judged guilty and condemned. I longed for another chance to act as a human; to be (a human)." Sharing is caring; and caring is to act and be a human. Or "it is the very purpose of life and not something we do in our spare time." (Edelman, 6).

If a Christian reaches out to another human being in need, if a church reaches out to a local community in need, it is not at all impossible to alleviate our next door sufferings. Prayerfully we have to search what we can do in our community as individual Christians, and as the community of faith to alleviate the sufferings of our neighbors.

Reformation brought Christianity the central insight: Salvation is by faith alone. According to Jim Wallis of Sojourners, the Second Reformation has begun, and its central message is that the gospel is good news to the poor. (Wallis, 2/16). We can truly express our thanksgiving to God by opening our hands to those in need and less fortunate, sharing the gifts given by God with them.

Joon-sik Park The Protestant Hour