November 20, 2006

Interactive Thanksgiving
by Pastor George Van Alstine

Last Sunday evening Discovery Channel aired a three-hour pre-Thanksgiving documentary entitled “Desperate Crossing,” which chronicled the experience of the Pilgrims, from their joining together as a non-conformist believing community in England, through the rigors of their voyage on the Mayflower, to their establishment of the Plymouth Colony in the midst of Native American communities that already occupied that area.

Watching this was a very enlightening experience. It helped me understand the motivations and the Christian faith of the colonists. It also demonstrated that this handful of Europeans would have had no chance of settling in a region that was home to 40,000 or more natives except for some very fortunate circumstances and some surprising interpersonal connections across language and culture barriers.

What struck me most was how much struggle the Pilgrims had been through before the first Thanksgiving. Their arrival had been in the middle of the previous winter. Disease and malnutrition took a great toll before any of their permanent structures were built. During one period, only six people were able-bodied enough to care for the sick and dying and to gather and prepare food.

But they worked hard and they made it through to spring. Then they had to clear and cultivate land for the seeds they had brought. Throughout the summer they nurtured the crops, hunted for meat, continued their building, made furniture, clothing and tools. There was not a moment to relax. All, from the oldest to the youngest, were involved in hard labor in their struggle for existence.

Then they celebrated the harvest with their Thanksgiving meal!

We want to skip all the hard work and get right to the celebration! We think of the Thanksgiving bounty as our birthright. Yes, we are thankful for it, as a person is thankful for a gift from another. But thanks for a gift and thanks for the fruit of our labors—these are two different impulses.

The Pilgrims were expressing thanks for things they had worked very hard for. They could easily have exulted: “Look what we have done!” But their pre-existing faith led them to be thankful, because they realized their survival and their good harvest was the result of an interactive partnership with God.

The relationship between our work and God’s blessing is expressed this way in Psalm 90:17:“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!” We do the work; God does the prospering. That’s why we owe him thanks. When Old Testament worshippers brought their offerings to the Temple, whether an animal to be sacrificed or wheat or barley sheaves, they were symbolically thanking God for prospering the work of their hands.

If your Thanksgiving experience this week is just a matter of (over?) indulging in God’s rich blessings, you will miss out on an even more meaningful kind of gratitude. The Pilgrims knew what it was to be participants together with God in their labors. That allowed them to celebrate interactive Thanksgiving—the Thanksgiving of people who have put themselves 100% into the life of faith God had called them to.

May you enjoy an Interactive Thanksgiving, not just an Indulgent Thanksgiving.