The Proclaimed Word
Preached by the Right Reverend Grant Lynn Ford at
the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, November 25, 2007, at the 11:10
am service.
A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store, but
couldn’t find one big enough for her family.
She asked a stock boy, “Do these turkeys get any bigger?”
The stock boy replied, “No ma’am, they’re dead.”
What did you have for Thanksgiving? Something traditional?
In 1621 some 52 pilgrims and 90 natives gathered in Plymouth Colony around
that first Thanksgiving meal. So what did they eat? No cranberry sauce; they
didn’t have sugar in the Colony. No mashed potatoes either; potatoes still
hadn’t arrived from South America. Apple pie? Surprisingly not. Apples
aren’t indigenous to North America and didn’t come to the United States
until years later.
The feast lasted for three days, so they ate a lot of deer, clams, dried
berries, corn, wild turkeys, and fish such as cod, sea bass, and — yum, yum
— eels. And you might want to remember that when they cooked an animal, the
“humbles” were cooked and eaten as well. We wouldn’t call them “humbles”;
we’d call them “guts”.
So be grateful that you didn’t eat a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, or at
least that traditions have thankfully changed!
Here in this continent the first “official” thanksgiving was celebrated in
1777 when General George Washington and his army, as instructed by the
Continental Congress, stopped in bitter weather in the open fields on their
way to Valley Forge to mark the occasion.
But the Thanksgiving holiday has roots that go far back beyond our
country’s founding, and indeed are found in almost every culture. According
to research conducted by the Center for World Thanksgiving at Thanks-Giving
Square in Dallas, the people of the First Nations observed many rituals and
ceremonies to express gratitude to a higher power for life itself. A Seneca
Indian ritual, for example, states, “Our Creator… shall continue to dwell
above the sky, and this is where those on the earth will end their
thanksgiving.”
Many countries in Asia for many centuries have had festivals in gratitude
for the rice harvest each year. In Africa, many tribal expressions of
gratitude are like this ancient prayer: “the year has come around again,
great Lord of our land. Never can we thank you for your good deeds and all
your blessings.”
In South America, many of the native Indian cultures contain expressions of
gratitude and thanksgiving, and in modern Brazil a special public day of
thanksgiving and prayer has been designated for the fourth Thursday of
November every year since 1949. In the British Isles and Europe, the harvest
thanksgiving is observed in Protestant and Catholic churches with special
altar decorations and sometimes decorated springs or wells.
Some authorities link the American Thanksgiving with the ancient Jewish
observance of Sukkot in the fall, which expresses thanks to God for the
bounty of the earth. Indeed, all the major religions in the world —
Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — possess rituals,
observances, and liturgies that express thanks and gratitude to a higher
power for the gift of life and its wonders.
Albert Schweitzer, the famous explorer, scientist, musician and
humanitarian, said: “To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means
to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that
will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of
course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at
you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression
of gratitude.”
Notice what he said: “a will for the good, which is directed at you.” It is
God who is Good, and who directs that Good to all of us. Therefore, we may
be thankful. We may develop an attitude of gratitude, and be abundantly
blessed by it.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel speaks of the wonder of God’s Good directed
toward us, and how we are humbled by being the recipients of that Good when
he states: “Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing
the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to
fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.”
Rabbi Heschel hits the nail right on the head when he says, and I repeat,
“It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.”
That’s the lesson we may all learn from the Gospel reading this morning.
All ten of the lepers were healed of their physically-debilitating
condition.
Remember the words of Jesus?
“Weren’t all ten
healed?”
Then he asked,
“Where are the
other nine?”
Jesus knew that it was their faith that healed them. He said it
right out loud to the Samaritan who returned to express his gratitude:
“Your faith has made you whole!”
But Jesus also knew that the Samaritan’s healing was not a
once-in-a-lifetime event; it was the beginning of a lifetime of spiritual
growth and blessing. As Rabbi Heschel states: “It is gratefulness which
makes the soul great.”
Why, even stubborn old Naaman went back to declare his gratitude to the
prophet Elisha when he finally dipped himself in the muddy Jordan… and was
healed.
There is a Chinese proverb which says: “When you drink the water, remember
the spring.” It’s so simple. Life is a gift meant to be lived in gratitude.
When we live otherwise, we negate all the good that is coming our way. Then
we wonder why things are always going wrong, or why God has selected us for
negative things. We seldom take the responsibility for our attitudes and
actions, which is the real source of negative consequences.
On the other hand, if we develop and constantly practice the
attitude of
gratitude
, life simply looks and feels so much better. Circumstances may
not be the best, but our attitude can even make the worst situations
bearable.
Anne Frank was barely a teenager when she received her first diary for her
thirteenth birthday, June 12, 1942. Less than a month later her family went
into hiding because of the threats of the Nazis to imprison Jews in
Amsterdam.
They stayed in their little hiding place for two years, when they were
discovered and taken prisoner by the Nazis. During the two-year hiding
period, Anne wrote and rewrote her diaries, hoping they would some day be
published.
Can you imagine, then, that this young girl in such horrible circumstances
could write this? “I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that
remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek
happiness in yourself and in God. Think of the beauty that again and again
discharges itself within and without you and be happy.”
You see, even in the midst of World War II and the terrible scourge of the
Nazis, Anne has the attitude of gratitude, and truly it was her
gratefulness that made her soul great.
She later died of typhus and starvation in Bergen-Belsen Concentration
Camp. Only her father survived until after the war, and he made sure her
diaries were published. Anne Frank has touched the lives of many generations
with the greatness of her soul.
Our souls may reach for greatness, too, when we develop the
attitude of
gratitude
. The Apostle Paul freely wrote: “Let the Expression of Christ be the
Life Force in you. Share it and gratefully as it
overflows from you in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing with all
your heart to God!” [Colossians 3:16]
He also wrote: “Let your heart overflow with psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs. Sing with all your heart to God! Make your music an expression of
thanksgiving to God for everything in the name of our Master, Jesus!”
[Ephesians 5:20]
When our mouth is filled with praise and thanksgiving, it has no room for
complaint and criticism. When we speak words of thanksgiving, we create our
own reality, as Anne Frank did. That reality is based on the Goodness of God
and the wonder of life.
Such gratitude builds great souls. And that’s the Truth!