Thanksgiving Sunday
Last week, on the Interfaith Mental Health Panel, Rev. Dr. John Baggett closed our time together reflecting on the powerful, unifying force of gratitude in our lives. He shared, appropriately, that gratitude was a value in each of the faiths that were present on the call. In addition, the American holiday of Thanksgiving is an example of a place that we can unify in that value. It felt like a cap on a beautiful afternoon and focused our hearts toward our upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
The truth of the matter is, gratitude has a powerful effect on us in many avenues of life. It seems that whatever you may be searching for advice on, gratitude shows up. Whether we are thinking about our generosity, our mental health, the upcoming holiday season, our morning and evening quiet time practices, best practices for relationships, and building connections, gratitude somehow finds its way to the center. It is powerful, popular, at the center of many faiths, and, of course, at the center of the Thanksgiving holiday.
As we consider Thanksgiving this coming week, we can focus on our faith and think of the many times in Scripture where the writer gives glory and thanksgiving to God. It happens again and again; whether in an important battle in the Old Testament, giving glory for a covenant, throughout the power of the Psalms (even the ones where there is lament!), in Jesus’s ministry including at the Last Supper, and into Paul’s letters to the early church. When we consider, like much of Scripture does, the power of God to create, sustain, redeem, and love all of us, and when we survey the earth, it is a natural response to give glory to God and give thanks. What a loving, sacrificing, generous God we serve!
The power of gratitude that Rev. Dr. John Baggett highlighted in our Mental Health Panel is that when we take a step back, give honor and glory to God, and look at the good (even simply a beautiful sunrise or God’s grace through the care of someone else), we feel better. We remind ourselves that we aren’t in control. We can look at the long road of our lives and see how God has walked with us through terrible and beautiful things. We can see God’s handiwork in the skies and in the minutiae of our lives. In a season like the one we have been weathering in the pandemic, it can help us remember that God is still Lord and in control over the long moral arc of our universe, through the end of time. When we see who God is in Jesus, we say, what great news!
This Sunday in worship, we’ll give glory to God for this year’s blessings. We’ll also hear a story of gratitude- and lack-there-of- in Luke 17. Jesus has much to say about our prayers of gratitude, but the story of the ten lepers is one that shows gratitude’s power in full example. In our lives, we can be the one leper that returns to our benefit, the benefit of our communities, and the benefit of our world.
Wherever you are, I hope you’ll join us to give thanks to God for who God is, and what God is up to in our lives. We’re excited to walk with you in that.
See you then,
Pastor Allee