Happy Thanksgiving!
November 25, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving, friends! I hope we get to connect tonight at our Thanksgiving Eve worship service, whether you stream the service or join us as one of up to 50 of the in-person worshipers.
As I heed President Washington’s advice to dedicate time of “thanksgiving and prayer,” let me share how thankful I am for YOU, our dynamic congregation who strives with joy and focus to spread Jesus’ love in action. I hold you in my prayers and humbly ask you to do the same for my family and me.
Here are three twists to Turkey Day that caught my imagination:
- Disappointed with Lobster. History teaches that Governor William Bradford called the pilgrims together for a Day of Thanksgiving in 1621. If you read Bradford’s proclamation, festivities were to commence on November 29 with a THREE-HOUR church service! (How many of you will add our 45-minute services to your lists of gratitude?) At a special meal for new colonists a few years later, Bradford shared his disappointment that only lobster was featured on the menu. Not sure about you, but I could be “forced” to eat a few meals featuring lobster. But it’s true: even from the days of Plymouth Rock, we can often focus on what’s not quite right instead of counting our blessings with gratitude.
- A Table of Turkeys. You might know that there was quite a debate among our forefathers regarding the official animal of our new nation. Benjamin Franklin’s strong voice argued for the plentiful turkey to hold place in the artwork of our young country. But as you know, Franklin was overruled. The majestic eagle won the day. Over the years, my friends have joked that this story is also the story of most families too. As young people, we try to court the eagles, those of elegant beauty, mysterious strength, and able to soar to magnificent heights. But as we look at the family that actually gathers with us around the table, we realize that me might be turkeys too, not that all of you don’t retain those wonderful eagle qualities! But let’s admit it, we see in our families and in ourselves people who keep scratching the same old earth and can’t fly above certain issues. We’ve gotta smile at ourselves with humility. Remember an old song’s word of of hope: “If God can love turkeys, then God can love you!”
- Connection to Crisis. While Days of Thanks emerged as part of the national fabric, we know it was President Lincoln’s Proclamation that cemented it as a national holiday. Do you remember the year Lincoln called our nation to this duty? 1863, in the midst of the horrendous Civil War! What?! How profound that Lincoln, even as he negotiated one dark day after the next, sensed that it was not only healthy but necessary for the nation to take time to count its blessings and give very focused thanks to a merciful God. I find that incredibly meaningful and touching as our nation currently weathers this horrendous pandemic of our own generation. Thank goodness that we are not actively spilling our countrymen’s blood, but this Thanksgiving does find our nation enduring lack of trust in each other and a plague which separates us physically as family and friends. And yet, as Lincoln argued, we are richly, richly blessed amid our challenges.
So friends, “Happy Thanksgiving!” I’m thankful for YOU and wish you a very, very meaningful time of reflection as you count your many blessing and, like that 10th leper, turn for a few moments to face Jesus directly to share your praise.
Gratefully,
Pastor Fritz Wiese
Oh, in the spirit of “left-overs,” let me share these two final thoughts:
1. 80 for Haiti. Even more delicious than pumpkin pie is the feeling you’ll get knowing you’ve helped some very under-resourced friends secure their own meals. Consider sharing $8 for each person at your Thanksgiving table. Use the “Give” tab at the coslutheran.org website and mark it for Haiti. For every $80 we collectively give, we feed a Haitian family for two months! Also, thanks to all who prepared 30 complete turkey dinners for our local neighbors!
Please click here to give.
GIVE
2. President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation is so good, I share it below so you can read it in its entirety if you wish. I’ve underlined a few phrases that struck me:
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State