Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Eve of Thanksgiving 2023
(Deut 8/Ps 65:1-8/James 1:1-17/Matt 6:25-33)

Collect for Thanksgiving
Most merciful Father, we humbly thank you for all your gifts so freely bestowed upon us: for life and health and safety, for strength to work and leisure to rest, for all that is beautiful in creation and in human life; but above all we thank you for our spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (James 1:17).

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Just in case you haven’t looked at your calendar recently, let me remind you that tomorrow is a holiday; it is the Eve of Black Friday, the Great Vigil of Christmas Shopping Season, sometimes known also, I understand, as Thanksgiving Day.

I’m not really as cynical about the day as that made me sound; I like Thanksgiving even if its observance sometimes seems a little off. It is good that our secular government acknowledges the human duty, right, and need to be thankful. It’s at least an implicit recognition that Someone has blessed us — God sneaking in through the back door of a government holiday. It may not be explicitly the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ, but it is at least “Nature’s God,” the Creator who has endowed all men with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And — pardon the double negative — that’s not nothing.

For Christians, not least for Anglican Christians, Thanksgiving should be a day like any other day, a day of business as usual. Except perhaps for the time off from work, the parades, and the football games, Thanksgiving Day should be just another Thursday. That’s true because we are, day in and day out, a thanksgiving people. Consider the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer. We begin the day with an Invitatory Psalm, usually the Venite, Psalm 95:

O come, let us sing unto the LORD;*
let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving*
and show ourselves glad in him with psalms (BCP 2019, p. 14).

We end the day with The General Thanksgiving:

Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made (BCP 2019, p. 51).

Our days, all our days, are bracketed with thanksgiving — morning and evening. But, it’s not just our days; it’s our weeks, as well. On the first day of each week we gather with God’s people for the principal service of Christian worship, the Holy Eucharist, which “is a chief means of grace for sustained and nurtured life in Christ” (BCP 201, p. 7). “Eucharist” — the name we often use for Holy Communion — comes to us directly from the Greek εύχαριστία which simply means “thanksgiving.” The Eucharistic Prayer itself is called The Great Thanksgiving. It begins with a dialogue between priest and people:

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give him thanks and praise (BCP 2019, p. 132)

before it turns to prayer to God himself:

It is right, our duty and our joy, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth (BCP 2019, p. 132).

Daily, weekly, always and everywhere the Christian life is bracketed by, punctuated by, and characterized by thanksgiving. That the government makes space for such thanksgiving one day each year is a good thing, but for us it is simply business as usual; we are a thanksgiving people.

Having the “official” day does give us cause and time to consider the nature and practices of thanksgiving, though, and that is what I’d like to do for just a moment. I’ll start with this general conviction:

What we are thankful for depends on and reveals what we value.

Let me give a trivial example. If someone were to bake a tray of fresh garlic knots for me, I would certainly be grateful for the thoughtfulness and the expression of hospitality, but I would not be thankful for the gift itself; I find garlic distasteful. To me it has no redeeming value. But, if someone were to pour me a fresh cup of coffee, I would be both grateful for the act and thankful for the gift. Coffee is proof that God exists and that he loves us; I value a good cup of coffee very highly. So, back to my conviction:

What we are thankful for depends on and reveals what we value.

Now, imagine we could go house to house tomorrow afternoon, interrupt people’s celebrations and ask this survey question: What are you especially thankful for today? What are some answers you would expect to receive?

Lifeway Research actually conducted such a survey in 2020. Here are the results in decreasing order of thankfulness: family, health, friends, memories, personal freedom, stability, fun experiences, opportunities, achievements, and wealth (https://research.lifeway.com/2020/11/17/americans-most-thankful-for-and-to-family-this-thanksgiving/, accessed 11/14/2023). The answers aren’t particularly surprising, though the order of a few are not what I would have predicted. I’ve tried to generalize and categorize the answers. What are Americans most thankful for? What do we most value?

Relationships: family and friends, memories

Security: health, stability,

Self-Fulfillment: personal freedom, fun experiences, achievements

Provision: wealth

Relationships, security, self-fulfillment, and wealth: these values are certainly reflected in how we celebrate Thanksgiving. We feast securely in our homes with family and friends. We tell stories and share memories and observe family traditions. We review the highlights of the year — all the fun experiences and achievements — and perhaps we grieve some losses, thankful that at least we’re still here and healthy: relationships, security, self-fulfillment, and provision.

This is an overly simplistic summary, I know, but we are thankful for those things that make us happy. We value happiness. How many times have you heard parents say about their children, “I just want them to be happy”?

And so, I am right back to this conviction:

What we are thankful for depends on and reveals what we value.

We — typical Americans — value relationships, security, self-fulfillment, and provision. We value happiness.

Here’s the question that brings to mind, a question I’d like to think about a bit with you. What if we valued holiness instead of happiness, or at least valued holiness more than happiness. How would that change what we are thankful for?

The lectionary for Thanksgiving Day appoints a reading from the Letter of St. James, beginning with the 1st chapter, the 17th verse. It takes verse 17 as the first verse of what follows. Today I would instead like to consider verse 17 as the last verse of what goes before and let the first sixteen verses spur our thinking on the question I proposed: what if we valued holiness more than happiness? How would that change what we are thankful for?

James 1:2–4, 12 (ESV): 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

If we value holiness more than happiness, we will be thankful for trials and testing and not just for ease and comfort. This notion is strictly counter-cultural in our society. Our culture today has a great affinity for “safe spaces,” for contexts and situations where people are always affirmed, always made comfortable, never challenged, never corrected, where everyone’s “truth” is considered equally valid even if those various truths are objectively false and contradictory. One of the many problems with such safe spaces is stagnation; no growth can happen there. Growth requires challenge, stretch/stress/tension. Growth — psychological, intellectual, physical, and yes, spiritual — requires trials and testing. Almost by definition trials aren’t pleasant in the moment; nor is testing. But, they do good work in us and on us and for us as we cooperate. If we pass the test, we grow in steadfastness, in the stability and strength of our faith “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13, ESV). And if we fail? Then we participate in the grace of repentance for the salvation of our souls. Either way — success or failure:

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness (Jame 1:2-3).

If we value holiness more than happiness, we will be thankful for our limitations.

James 1:5–8 (ESV): 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

St. James specifically mentions the limits of our wisdom and our need to pray God for it. But, this applies more generally, also, to our human limitations of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control —to all the fruit of the Spirit (see Gal 5:22-23). We cannot overcome our limitations of virtue on our own. We must pray, and pray with faith knowing that our good Father wants to give these generously. We can — and should — be thankful for all human limitations which make us recognize our utter dependence upon God and which drive us to him in prayer. As St. Paul instructs us, when we are weak — when we are limited — then we are strong.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him (James 1:5, ESV).

If we value holiness more than happiness, we will be thankful for the great kingdom reversal.

James 1:9–11 (ESV): 9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

Our fallen world is upside down, and the Gospel is the proclamation that the right side up Kingdom of God has dawned. It is right there in the Magnificat:

He has shown the strength of his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts.

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones,
and has exalted the humble and meek.

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent empty away (BCP 2019, p. 45).

It is right there in the Beatitudes where the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted and the reviled are the blessed ones. This world cannot be redeemed, cannot be put to rights unless it is turned on its head, unless there is a great, Gospel reversal. And we should be thankful whenever and wherever and however we see it happening in the name of Christ. Our churches should be models of the great reversal — costly models. Those who are privileged in this upside down world may well find the great reversal initially disorienting. But it will prove to be a blessing.

9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away.

If we value holiness more than happiness, we might even — and I think we would — come to value temptation; not sin, but temptation.

James 1:13–15 (ESV): 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Notice what makes temptation possible: our own disordered passions/desires. How many people today are tempted by and led into sin by pornography? It is a major spiritual epidemic even among Christians, men and women of all ages. Imagine showing a pornographic image or video to a saint. The result would not be lust, not the stirring of disordered passions but rather deep sorrow for all those dehumanized and degraded by such sin, deep sorrow which would move the saint to deep prayer. Having been purified of lust, there is nothing in the saint to resonate with the outward enticement, with the temptation. But the rest of us? Whatever tempts us reveals to us a passion in ourselves that has yet to be healed, has yet to be rightly ordered by the Spirit. And that provides us with the self-knowledge necessary for repentance. Consider temptation like a spiritual x-ray or MRI that reveals in us a previously undiagnosed illness that if left untreated will prove fatal. Wouldn’t you be thankful for that test?

14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (James 1:14-15, ESV).

Tomorrow, on the day our government has gracious provided us, we will be, and we should be, thankful for relationships, security, self-fulfillment, and provision. But, if we value holiness more than happiness, we might also want to make a start of thankfulness for trials, limitations, the great reversal, and even temptation — all good gifts.

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (James 1:17).

Amen.