Remembering Thanksgiving

We are in the Season.  Thanksgiving has come and gone, I hope and pray that it was a time of meaningful gathering of family and friends.  The power of this holiday is that it crosses the divide of faith and nation.  As a national holiday, we look to all that we have as Americans, to remember and to give thanks.  As a religious observance, it looks back to the Pilgrims coming ashore, free to worship in a new land.  One of the great things we, as Christians, have to give thanks for is Christmas.


The Scriptures this week were from Isaiah 2.  Included were the words calling upon the people to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.  The call was that they learn war no more.  Those words are on a statue that stands in front of the United Nations, a call to the world from our faith as to what humans are seeking after as a race-when we are at our best.


But we are rarely at our best.  We are more often at war with one another, ‘hot wars’ of active violence and combat, ‘cold wars’ of words, of propaganda, of hidden violence and backroom assault, ‘cyber wars’ of computers versus computers.  We are after power, we are after sharing of power, we are after resources, we are after keeping this world of ours able to sustain us, we are after freedom, we are after our own beliefs.  It is like a pendulum that swings back and forth.  In these United States, the war of words, the tightening of positions in the political sphere, the steady drain on our ability to speak openly and debate in healthy discourse frankly sickens me at times.


What Christmas offers is a Season of Peace.  It gives us a few weeks every year to active practice what real peace looks like, through sharing, giving, loving, good wishes offered to all.  As we Christians gather at the manger, we have the opportunity to provide the Presence of Peace to the whole world, as we share the Prince of Peace. 


The wonder of Thanksgiving is how it has risen above being a sacred celebration to becoming a secular cornerstone of our nation’s holiday-making.  What began as a Christian response to God is now so much more.  It is not simply a day for those of us who identify as followers of Jesus Christ, but it is a moment for all God’s Children-for all humans are God’s children-to respond to that which we have been given.


As Christians, we believe the best is yet to come.  We believe in a life of perfection after this one.  But that does not mean this life is then effectively abandoned.  By no means.  It means we take the lessons of Jesus, the lessons of love and peace and joy and wonder, and we share them with the whole world. 


Peace,

Pastor Peter