11/20/66

Scripture: Read Deuteronomy 8: 11-20.

We need thanksgiving. We need, in the words of an old Sunday School song, to be able to “count our blessings,” and to be grateful for them. Without thanksgiving, life has some very serious lacks. We become too self-centered, too callous, too small of spirit unless we have the capacity to be grateful and to express our gratitude.

We need Thanksgiving Day in particular -- not just as a holiday from work; not alone a day for feasting and perhaps family reunion. We need the occasion for thanks as well as the attitude that makes us grateful. It is more than whim or caprice that validates our American Thanksgiving Day. It is a basic need. So I am talking about it today on Thanksgiving Sunday. And you will have a chance to hear Rev. Melven Vilhauer speak on the subject Wednesday evening or on the morning of Thanksgiving Day.

Lest we take the blessings, the joys and opportunities, that we have had for granted, and without gratitude, let us “count” a few. The person who has had sickness and is now well, or the person who has had a successful convalescence from surgery in the past year, wants to give thanks for restoration to health and fullness of life. He is grateful for the healing arts and for the doctors, technicians and nurses who are practicing this vocation of mercy. The man who had no job but now has steady employment; and the one who has had a merited promotion during the year, needs to give thanks for the good fortune that has come his way. Family circles that are reunited for a day or two, or even for a few hours, so that each seat at a Thanksgiving dinner table is filled, know the reason why we give thanks. All of us who ponder the tension spots of this nation and of the world and the problems in Vietnam may well give thanks that no nuclear war has broken out and that our world is thus far spared that devastation.

Deer hunters can be thankful for their outing; growers give thanks for the harvest. Householders in a chilly climate are grateful for a roof and walls within which to establish the comforts of home. If we had been Pilgrims of more than 3 centuries ago we would gladly have joined in a season of Thanksgiving for basic survival, as well as for the harvest that helped to assure future survival. Perhaps we can bring ourselves to gratitude for our own survival amidst the kind of threats under which we live in 1966.

Are not these a few of the reasons for giving thanks, and why we feel the need for a day of Thanksgiving? Isn’t this the reason for men, women, youth and children across the land giving thanks, both in the formal setting of their church services and in their homes? There will be hosts of households wherein people will bow their heads in a moment of “grace” before a big meal on Thursday. A lot of people will stand at reverent attention in some huge stadium while some minister offers an invocation before the big game begins. Isn’t this pretty much the spirit of Thanksgiving Day in 1966? It seems to be so.

But if this be the case, must we not thoughtfully face something beyond a tabulation of our blessings? Thus far, we make it sound like Thanksgiving Day is a “holiday for the privileged.” There are questions that should irritate the conscience of the fortunate and the privileged. What about the family circles that are not reunited this week; that know instead the awful emptiness of a chair that is not filled because some loved one is detained at a great distance, or at some post of duty and danger; or because some loved person will never again fill the chair? Does our kind of Thanksgiving just rule out these people from any joy of the day?

What about the man who didn’t get promoted and who is denied that measure of success? What about the people who are still unemployed in city areas? Are they ruled out from Thanksgiving? What about the person whose sickness of the past year has persisted and who may face further hospitalization or surgery? What of the family that didn’t escape the ravages of war and from whom a husband, father or son was lost in the encounter in Vietnam? Are they to be counted out from our “holiday for the privileged?”

Or do we count all these in to the holiday by the too-simple words: “Well, cheer up, my friend. It could be worse.” But is there any one of us who wants to say to the one who is suffering from an incurable disease, or to the mother whose grieving heart will never again be the same, or to the man who lost all that he had worked for: “Cheer up, Friend, it could be worse?”

Even if we could say it, we would know in our hearts that the possibility that things could be worse doesn’t make people really thankful and automatically a part of the season’s joy. To put more meaning into the season for them requires something more than surface cheerfulness. Perhaps it takes some empathy, or whatever it is that makes one a sharer with another.

Do you recall the Christian teaching in the New Testament: Matthew 6, the 22nd and 23rd verses? “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

If then the sensitivity in you is callousness, how great is the callousness!

If then the charity in you is selfishness, how great is the selfishness!

If then the service in you is irresponsibility, how great is the irresponsibility!

Thanksgiving Day is a time for counting one’s own blessings and being grateful for them --- even the blessings that have to be discerned in, and around, and through, life’s reverses and tragedies. It is also a time for some thoughtful lift to a downcast neighbor, an SOS offering for some who are farther away, a prayer for those in great loneliness or danger. But there must be even more meaning in the day if we care to look for it. It is not generous, nor altogether fair, only to be grateful for our own blessings.

A navy chaplain got to thinking about this as he prepared his Thanksgiving sermon. The more he thought of it the more he concluded that there is something to be discerned about thanksgiving in Thomas Gaddi’s book, The Birdman of Alcatraz. This book is the story of a hardened criminal - a convicted two-time murderer named Robert Stroud. He spent most of his 70 years behind prison bars and most of that in solitary confinement. For the first 20 years of his imprisonment he became increasingly bitter, withdrawn and steadily harder to handle. He was, as they say, a maximum-security risk.

Oddly enough, all of that was changed by a bird --- not a bird flying past his bars nor one whose chirping or singing reached his ears --- but a helpless birdling. From somewhere overhead, a young sparrow had fallen from its nest to the ground of the prison courtyard where Stroud was permitted to take his periodic exercise. He saw it and picked it up. His first impulse was probably to pinch out its life and throw it away --- just as he had snuffed out human life. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he carried the birdling back to his cell and cared for it and nursed it back to health. His interest was aroused. He borrowed books from the prison library and read everything he could find about birds. When other prisoners hears of his interest and knowledge they began sending their ill canaries to him. Often he could help by finding a cure. When he encountered some unknown malady that had no cure known to him, he would experiment, and often find a cure. It was not too long before Robert Stroud, the incorrigible convict, became a quiet, competent, respected authority on birds.

His rehabilitation from sullen and dangerous rebellion, to an interested kind of service, began shortly after he had found the sparrow and let his curiosity become aroused. For a long time he had refused even to speak to his prison guard. But now he asked the guard for the orange crate on which the guard sat so that he, Stroud, might make a cage for the sparrow. The guard was not impressed. His reply was something like this: “Why should I give you this crate, Stroud? For 20 years I’ve been trying to get through to you and be nice to you. But you have never so much as given me the time of day.” There was silence for a few moments. Then, having thought it over, the guard gave him the crate, slipping it carefully into the cell. When Stroud saw that, he mumbled, for the first time in 20 years, the words: “Thank you.”

Probably it is fair to say that his rehabilitation began when he could again say “thank you.” Only then could he begin to understand himself. There must have broken in on him the realization that he was not the isolated, self-sufficient, independent character that he had for so long pretended to be.

No one can be his true self alone. We are interdependent with a great many others for our well-being --- and theirs. And, like that bird man of Alcatraz, we begin to be our real selves only when we can say “thank you,” and mean it. It is then that we may realize that we are creatures more than creators -- receivers more than givers.

I once knew a man who talked quite frankly to me about this in his own experience. He had a great many interests and talents, and a lot of enthusiasm, which he gladly, even eagerly, shared with others. He had some money that he gladly shared in giving, too. But he told me, quite directly, that he had sometimes found it difficult to receive from others --- their compliments or commendation, their suggestions that they hoped he might find useful, and so on. At the same time that he felt awkward, or found it difficult to receive, he realized that, to be a real person, he must learn to be a gracious and grateful receiver, as well as a good sharer and giver. The late Paul Tillich put it this way: “A man who is able to give thanks, seriously, accepts that he is a creature, and acknowledges his finitude.” Only the thankful person knows himself for what he is --- one who is dependent upon another for his very being. This is the tragedy -- that man forgets God. The man who forgets the goodness of God also forgets who he, himself, is.

Something like this is what the ancient writer of Deuteronomy is talking about when he writes that Moses is telling his people: “Take heed lest you forget the Lord your God --- lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God ---you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’”

When we forget to give thanks, or refuse to do so, we forget who we are -- creatures of the living God, dependent on Him --- (that “other” than ourselves) --- for our very being; indeed, for our next breath! Moses prophesied sternly to his people: “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as at this day.”

This is why we need Thanksgiving: to remind us who we are and to whom we belong. And this makes everyone eligible for Thanksgiving at this season, or any season --- the fortunate and the unfortunate, the rich and the poor, the sick and the healthy. This is what makes it possible for all to give thanks to God; and, being grateful, to receive more of the grace of gratitude.

All of this can be seen in one of the experiences of Jesus. The story is told only by Dr. Luke [Luke 17: 11-19]; it does not appear in the other gospel accounts. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. On his way, he was passing between the provinces of Galilee and Samaria. When he entered a village, he was met by ten men who were victims of the dread disease, leprosy. As was required of them by the law of their time, they must cry out wherever they went, “Unclean! Unclean!” so that healthy persons would take warning and stay away from them. These ten lepers stood at a distance from Jesus and lifted up their voices, saying: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” They started out, and as the account goes, on the way they were cleansed of their disease -- of their uncleanness. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, practically shouting his thanks to God; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. The story says that he was a Samaritan --- practically a foreigner among Jews.

Jesus said, “Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

This story is usually referred to as one of Jesus’ miracles. It has a lot more to it that is worth our study. Of course it has its difficulties for us in the way the writer tells it. After all, according to the writer, Jesus had sent all ten of them to go and show themselves to the priests. Why shouldn’t the nine -- or even the ten of them -- have gone right on to the priests’ house as he had told them to do? Well, let the Biblical scholars wrestle with that problem.

The lesson that jumps out to our attention at this Thanksgiving season is that here was at least one who was genuinely, exuberantly thankful! His gratitude made his spirit whole, just as his healed body was whole. And if the other nine were really ungrateful, their souls remained as woefully diseased as had been their bodies. The grateful man had reached the normal for mankind, for it is natural for healthy people to be grateful. Praise is as native to mankind as is singing to the birds. Children are taught in their homes to say “thank you,” but probably they feel it even before they learn to say it.

Gratitude in us has to do some growing. Like a blooming plant, it may have known some sunlight and a lot of rain and some storms. Perhaps the rain is as much needed for gratitude as is the sun. We need not be slow to see this. Much of the New Testament, written by and about men facing persecution and death, is punctuated by fountainbursts of praise -- often in the phrase, “Thanks be to God.” The hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God,” was written by a minister who (more than 300 years ago) had just seen so much of war and famine and pestilence that he could have been morbid about it. Instead, he chose to praise God and give thanks.

Protestant Christianity probably has more outright thanksgiving than any other of the world’s religions. If that be true for any of its devotees, it is because we are constrained to remember God as the give of life and its blessings. And, sometimes, this recognition of Him as creator, once accepted, can turn even outward disaster into praise. This should be enough to win one’s response in worship and in work. Sometimes we try to summon thanksgiving with the plea: “See how much more fortunate you are than other people!” a praise that is nearer to selfishness than to gratitude. It is the practice of worship that fills the land with joy.

Consider, in terms of our personal experience, how much we have received for which we never bargained, and for which we can not pay. These things are a part of what the New Testament calls “grace” -- blessings that we receive, but that we have hardly earned, nor really deserved.

This is why we need thanksgiving. A season like this not only affords us a time to give thanks for all that we are, or may have achieved, but it also gives us a perspective of who we are -- creatures; to whom we belong -- the creator; and upon whom we depend --- the Eternal God.

And this admits all of us to some genuine thanksgiving.

Amen.

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November 20, 1966.