The thanksgiving holiday is pretty simple
and straightforward, right? I’ve always approached thanksgiving as a time to
make a personal list of the many blessings in my life which are many.
When our family gathers around the
thanksgiving table, we go around the table and share something for which we are
thankful. If we would each share all of our blessings, the food would get too
cold. I think the listing of our blessings is the easy part of Thanksgiving
because there are just so many for us to name.
So it’s no wonder that our Thanksgiving
reading from the Book of Deuteronomy begins with a long list of reasons for the
people of Israel to be thankful. At the top of that thanksgiving list was that
God was leading them to their new home in the Promised Land.
Just listen to this long thanksgiving list
that involves the land they are about to enter. A wonderful land, streams of
water, springs, wells that gush up in the valleys and the hills, a land of
wheat and barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil, honey, no shortage
of food, stones, copper and plenty of stones for building. What a list!
If this was scripture was written today
rather than thousands of years ago, maybe this is how it would read. “Because the Lord your God is bringing you
to a wonderful land, a land with housing developments, a shopping mall, a Starbucks,
a brand new movie theatre, newly paved roads, beautiful parks, and new downtown
restaurants, including a Five Guys Burgers & Fries, you will eat and be
satisfied, and you will bless the Lord in the wonderful land that he’s given
you.”
Whether it’s the 21st century
or during ancient times, coming up with a thanksgiving list is the easy part.
Just take a few minutes to think about your blessings, and I’m sure you’ll come
up with a really long list.
The challenge isn’t in coming up with a
list of blessings in our lives. The real challenge is in not forgetting who we
are. That’s the challenge. Our scripture reading even offers us this warning: “But watch yourself! Don’t forget the Lord
your God. Don’t become arrogant, forgetting the Lord your God.”
We forget the Lord our God whenever
we forget that we live in a world were many people go without the basic
necessities of life. We forget the Lord whenever we forget that the blessings
we have are in some measure due to other people who have helped us to get to
where we are in life.
I think of a successful farmer who started
with little more than a mule and a small piece of land. He plows the fields,
endures droughts and floods, and enjoys abundant harvests and prosperity. At
the end of a long work day, he drinks a cold beverage on his beautiful front
porch that he had built with his own hands. He thinks about his wealth and how
far he has come in life.
In Bolivia, a similar aged farmer who has worked
just as hard as the first farmer is still poor because he hasn’t had adequate
roads to transport his produce to the market. He also lives in an area where
there are inadequate schools, a lack of opportunities for success, and poor
health care. And yet, the first farmer believes that the only reason people are
poor is because they just don’t work hard enough.
I remember my first impression of
Guatemala when I went there on a mission trip back in 2009. Our Guatemalan
mission team leader had picked us up at the airport and drove us to the place
where we would be working for the week.
As I looked out the window of the van
during our hour-long trip to our mission site, I took notice of the many
Guatemalans who were working out in the coffee bean fields under the extremely
hot sun. In addition to the men, I saw many women and children working in the
fields.
I tried to think how different my life
would be if I was forced to work in the hot sun like that every single day.
Even before I arrived at the place we would be staying for the week, God had
already opened my eyes to how so many people live throughout our world.
Our job was to dig a long water trench
from a lake to a tiny village so that the people of that community wouldn’t
have to walk everyday to get their water. I tried to imagine what it would be
like to live in a tiny shack where there was no water.
The Guatemalans of that village worked
side by side with us and together we dug a long trench in the hot sun that
week. They taught us to pace ourselves and drink plenty of water as we swung
pix axes and shoveled the dirt.
Thanks to that mission trip, I have a
renewed appreciation for the cup of coffee I buy at the coffee shop. Somebody
worked long hours in a hot field for very little pay so that I could go through
a drive-thru and have that grande size speciality coffee.
The challenge of Thanksgiving isn’t so
much to come up with a list of our many blessings as important as that may be.
The real challenge is to not forget those who struggle every single day just to
make ends meet. This is the real Thanksgiving challenge.
It’s not surprising then, that just a few
chapters later following our Deuteronomy scripture reading we read that we are
to open our hands to the poor and to the needy. The sheer abundance of the land
means that their wealth is to be shared, not hoarded.
What helps you to not forget those who
struggle to make a living?
When I focus only on my blessings and
forget about so many people who are struggling and lonely, than I miss out on
the true meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday.
So, here’s a typical list of thanksgiving
blessings. I’m thankful for family, friends, job, food, health, clothes, clean
water, electricity, heat, car, and the list can go on and on. This list is important and I hope we name our
many blessings during this holiday week, maybe even around the table before we
eat the big meal this Thursday.
But, there’s another Thanksgiving list
that I hope we make this week. It’s a list based on our Deuteronomy scripture
that reminds us to not forget who we are as God’s people. This list is meant to
help us not just be thankful people but to be a serving people.
Here’s another Thanksgiving list that
might help us to take up the Thanksgiving challenge.
Offer free baby sitting for a single
mother. Provide a financial gift toward our church’s local relief fund to help
people in need. Volunteer to read to children at a local school. Take one of
the angels from our Angel Tree in the parlor and buy gifts for a needy family.
Say something positive to the grocery clerk and to the waitress at the
restaurant. Come to our Second Saturday Outreach in a couple of weeks and help
us wrap Christmas presents for several needy families in our community. Donate
food and your time at a local food pantry. Visit at a nursing home and give
encouragement cards to the residents. Become a pen-pal for someone with special
needs. Throw a pizza party for the children in your neighborhood.
This past summer, I conducted a graveside
funeral service that was located at a cemetery outside of Lancaster. I was to
ride back to Lancaster with the Funeral Director.
Before we left the cemetery, this funeral
director made it a point to call the cemetery office that was in charge of the
cemetery to let them know what a wonderful job their workers did to prepare the
grave for the service. After he got off his cell phone, I told him that this
was a really nice thing to do for those workers.
He said that even though he thanked the
cemetery workers in person, he knew that if he would also call the cemetery
office manager, that they would probably say something nice to those workers as
well. This funeral director was living out the Thanksgiving challenge. He was
thinking of the people who often receive little or no appreciation.
This Thursday, members of our church will
be serving a Thanksgiving meal to people in our community who might not otherwise
enjoy a holiday meal. They too, will be taking up the Thanksgiving challenge by
serving the needs of others.
As we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday
this week, let’s prepare two thanksgiving lists, one that lists our many
blessings, and one that will remind us of how God is calling us to be a
blessing to the people around us.
May
all of us accept the Thanksgiving challenge.
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