Thanksgiving Day | Thursday, November 26, 2015

Of Course and Nevertheless

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Kent M. Organ
Interim Pastor, Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Psalm 116
Philippians 4:4–9

The God of laughter sends you out.
So we can share joy with everyone.
The Brother of the poor sends you out.
So we may bring hope and healing
to the broken and despairing.
The Spirit of wonder sends you out.
So we may join all creation in offering thanks.

Thom M. Shuman

Kent:
Thanksgiving conjures up for most of us an array of warm, delicious, bountiful images. Thanks-giving with turkey and dressing, several varieties of cranberry sauce, creamed onions, real mashed potatoes with gravy, pumpkin pie, and mincemeat pie. In the kaleidoscope of my memories of many Thanksgivings, I remember especially, decades back, when I was a child, and the meal was shared with my family of origin in the home where I grew up. Maybe you do too. Can you see the dining room? And who is there? And the table?

It was a time of overdoing it, with no regrets—and no heartburn or worries about what the bathroom scale would say the next morning. A celebration of abundance and well-being and contentment, with lots of love, lots of goodwill, and lots of food left over.

The feast of Thanksgiving’s symbol is the cornucopia, the horn of plenty, filled to overflowing with the good things of God’s good earth. Who could be anything but thankful?

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Vicky:
Then we grew up. And in growing up, we came to awareness that for many in this world life is never a banquet. We see television footage of thousands of refugees stranded with no place to settle, hungry for food as well as welcome and safety. We see homeless people panhandling on our own city’s sidewalks, sleeping on the streets. And there is hidden hunger, in homes where unemployed or underemployed parents go without food so their children have something to eat. We, with our Meals Ministry and food pantry, know that. We also know that the problem is much larger than domestic hunger centers and international relief agencies can solve, though seek to solve it we must and keep on caring, we shall.

Some years ago, when world hunger was at the top of the American religious agenda, congregations would host something that in a Presbyterian version was called “The Whole Earth” dinner. Tickets would be distributed at the door. Attendees might notice with mild curiosity that the tickets came in various colors, and people were seated at the table with the same color as their ticket. Those with blue tickets, sitting at the blue table, were served a roast beef dinner with vegetables and a salad and pie a la mode to follow. People at the yellow table got SpaghettiOs, potato chips, and a Coke. The green table had beans and tortillas. At the red table, it was rice. Imagine the reactions: surprise, amusement at first, growing irritation, and resentment. Some people would share. Others stayed with what they were given. Hungry red- and green-ticket holders might go over to the blue table to watch, or beg, or grab something.

Basic to the experience was the recognition that all those who participated were, in real life, blue-ticket holders—those who got the full meal. Most of us are blue-ticket holders, too. “Whole earth dinners” gave us overeaters—in a world of beans and rice and chitlins—a taste for what deprivation might feel like when you know that others have more than enough.

This meal begins to look different, given recent events in our world. It is hard for blue-ticket holders to celebrate in the aftermath of horrific terrorist attacks and an appalling killing by a Chicago policeman. It is difficult to enjoy abundance while knowing some people are not welcome to the table, either because of their race or their country of origin. The bounty itself is jeopardized by a national debt that is out of control and by severe gaps in the budgets for our city, county, and state. With the continuing economic turmoil—cutbacks in services and jobs, serious illnesses, medical indebtedness—it’s begun to dawn on us that not as many of us are blue-ticket holders.

Americans, historically, have been grateful for “amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesty above the fruited plain” in a country whose “alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human fears.” We have been so blessed by nature’s bounty and prosperity that we have usually viewed the giving of thanks to God in this season as an “of course.”

So, what now? What this year?

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Kent:
Here, I think we get help from Psalm 116—a rather unusual scripture for the Thanksgiving season, didn’t you think, when you heard it read? It’s full of distress and anguish. The writer is struggling with impending peril. But it is also full of gratitude and praise to God. How can these experiences go together?

The cords of death encompassed me. . . .
I called on the name of the Lord. . . .
When I was brought low,
God saved me. (Psalm 116: 3–6)

Or instead of “God saved me,” “God saves me.” The tense is not clear in the Hebrew. And so translations—and interpretations—differ. Some scholars think that the psalmist’s distress and thankfulness are sequential, that it is only after he is safe that the author gives thanks in the temple for his rescue.

But other commentators contend—and I am inclined to agree—that in Psalm 116 distress and gratitude go together, that even in anguish, the writer asserts a tenacious nevertheless.

I trusted my faith, even when I spoke:
I am greatly afflicted. (Psalm 116:10)

The psalmist seems to teeter on the brink of annihilation: “The pangs of the netherworld laid hold of me” (Psalm 116:3). But even then, along with lament stands the “nevertheless” of faith in the faithfulness of God. And so the psalmist concludes,

I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving. . . .
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. (Psalm 116:17, 19)

Now, this psalm isn’t exactly a guidebook on how to be grateful in difficult times, but it is, at the least, witness to the fact that it is possible.

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Vicky:
The Apostle Paul also witnesses to giving thanks in everything. In Philippians 4, Paul encourages us not to worry but rejoice always, in all situations. He writes this while he is in prison! Paul’s life was full of hardship: hazards of travel he went through on land and sea, emotional harassment, physical torture, to say nothing of that mysterious and persistent ailment that troubled him all his adult life that he called “my thorn in the flesh.” He knew pain and suffering. And yet Paul constantly praised God and encouraged us to do the same.

But how can we do that? How can we give thanks always? Paul says, Realize that God is near. Make known to God your requests with prayer and thanksgiving. Paul urges us to focus our thinking on things that are true, honorable, and just. Reflect on whatever is pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy. Or, in simpler vernacular, look on the bright side of life. And do those things which you know are loving and right in God’s eyes. That’s how you will receive the peace of God, which surpasses human understanding.

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Kent:
In an uneasy season, when we may have to ponder not only the “of course,” but also the “nevertheless” of Thanksgiving, bear in mind that there are many other testimonies like Paul’s and the psalmist’s.

There are the pilgrims, to whom we attribute the first Thanksgiving—they and their native hosts. Theirs was the original banquet of turkey and stuffing and corn and the like. But the pilgrims, remember, were refugees, as President Obama reminded us today, saying, “The world is still full of pilgrims.” These pilgrims arrived on these shores well past harvest time. They arrived just in time for winter. A bitter, freezing Massachusetts winter, during which many died. And yet there was in them such indomitability, such steadfastness—not to mention that these refugees were given hospitality—that when we think of them we think of a people giving thanks to God . . . “nevertheless.”

Over the decades since World War II, a body of literature has grown from the experiences of people in prison camps. Dehumanizing conditions were their daily lot. And yet a persistent and remarkable characteristic of these prison writings is thankfulness:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, rejoicing over a letter or a visit from a friend

Victor Frankl, trudging back to camp after a day of hard labor, secretly basking in mental images of his wife and family

The rabbis who, in Elie Wiesel’s story, put God on trial, find God guilty, and then say their prayers

Etty Hillesum, giving thanks for being given so much that is beautiful, especially the gifts of friendship and love

Langdon Gilkey, grateful for the values he had inherited, which held him together under the severest testing

Laurens van der Post, enthralled by the beauty of nature whenever he could see beyond the compound walls

“Nevertheless.”

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Vicky:
And in this land, during the time of Southern slavery, the remarkable spirituality of those in bondage demonstrates how hope can survive and sustain in seeming hopelessness. In the spirituals, despair is constantly coupled with joy that “troubles don’t last always.” Slaves would sing, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home.” But because they were confident that God never abandoned them, in the same song they would add, “Glory, Hallelujah!” Or again,

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,
nobody knows but Jesus.
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,
Glory, Hallelujah!

That refrain isn’t a denial of ills but is rather testimony that God is the companion of those who suffer and that trouble never gets the last word in life. Nevertheless. Nevertheless, it is possible to be hopeful, to be trusting, to be thankful, even when circumstances are disheartening and we are afraid.

We will sing a hymn later that gives another glorious example of giving thanks in everything. You might suppose the words were penned in a safe and prosperous time. But Martin Rinkhart actually wrote the hymn following a plague that had decimated the town in which he lived, a plague that resulted in the death of over half the population, including his own wife. Nevertheless, Martin Rinkhart wrote,

Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices,
who wondrous things hath done, in whom the world rejoices;
who from our mothers’ arms hath blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

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Kent:
Still and all, to be honest, I have largely been spared hardships. And so when I think of the Thanksgiving season, it is for me predominantly “of course” not “nevertheless.” When I think of this day’s celebration, I look forward to turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce and creamed onions, real mashed potatoes with gravy, pumpkin and mincemeat pies, shared at tables with extended family and friends, with lots of love, lots of goodwill, lots of food left over.

But if I were pressed, as in this unsettled, unsettling time many are—and many more may yet be—I could get by without the onions, potatoes, and gravy. You could take away the pumpkin pie and the cranberry sauce, and it wouldn’t ruin the occasion. I suppose I could forgo the mincemeat pie and even the turkey.

But the love and goodwill? No. The realization that God is near? No. For these things I am especially grateful. These, of course, are the greatest blessings. And, by the grace of God, this is what will continue to bless and nourish us all the days of our lives. Amen.