Reflection: Thanksgiving

This week, we continue our series on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is predictably coming up this month, and predictably we’re going to talk about it.

It’s hard to argue with the idea of giving thanks, whether you’re secular or religious. No one wants to be ungrateful. But because giving thanks is so uncontroversial , it’s less thought out and more hazy—but good— warm fuzzy feelings. And the hazy-ness around giving thanks can leave us with some deep puzzles, and perhaps extra burdens.

One model of thanksgiving is based on reciprocity: someone has done something nice for you, and so you respond with thanks. This is one model of approaching giving thanks to God: we’re created, there’s lots of good parts of life, and we give thanks because God has been good to us. It’s worked ok for a long time.

The puzzles start when we begin to wonder: what if I don’t feel like God has been good to me? On the Thanksgiving holiday, I give thanks for this food, for this house, for harvest, for the family. If God’s been good to me because I’ve received these things, doesn’t that mean God’s mistreated someone who hasn’t had a good harvest, who’s lost their house, who’s lost their family. If those things happen to me, shouldn’t I be peeved at God, not thankful? And if I’ve really suffered, how dare you say I should be thankful—maybe God hasn’t been good to me.

I think there’s an alternative model for Thanksgiving, that of appreciation. When we give thanks, we rejoice in the good in our lives. Rejoice in the Lord always, Paul says. And why do we give thanks and rejoice? Not because we’ve been better treated than we expect or deserve, but because it is a discipline that improves our lives and our harmony with the world.

Paul provides the hint: whatever is good, just, pleasing, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. That’s what we do when we give thanks—we attend to the good things in life. That’s how the disciples could give thanks, even in prison. That’s how Jesus on the night he was to die could give thanks at the Lord’s supper.

Thanksgiving is for us: Keep on doing the things that you have learned, the practice of thanksgiving, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds.