Give Thanks, With Heart and Hand and Voice
Today's feast is the traditional end of the active agricultural cycle of the year. Yes, there is still work to be done getting fields ready for winter. Yes, seasons of rest, such as winter, are important parts of a healthy cycle of production and renewal. But we tend to think of the growing season as beginning in spring with new leaves and planting, moving through the heat of summer, and ending here, with the last harvests brought in from the fields.
Reflection is always a good practice, but endings seem particularly appropriate moments to reflect on what has gone before. We pray every day, often more than once, that God would give us our daily bread. Here we are, surrounded by an abundance that will see us through the winter with far more than bread. It seems that we are still living with the bounty of God's promise, of which the reading from Deuteronomy reminds us. (Deuteronomy 26:1-11) We gather to give thanks for God's abundance, to offer praise, and make our offerings from the bounty we have received.
It is curious that the prayers appointed for today still use the term "dominion" to describe humanity's relationship to the land around us. I do not think it a stretch to say that this idea of total control and complete ownership of everything we see is, at least in part, responsible for the ecological mess we find ourselves in.
If we really are attached to the language of dominion, then perhaps we need to reexamine that word. After all, parents have dominion over their children but we do not think it appropriate if parents exploit their children to support themselves. In fact, we expect that parents will give of themselves to ensure the welfare of their children.
There is a great responsibility that comes when one is given power over another, whether the other is a child or the land. In both cases, gifts from God given to us in trust that we will act for the good of all. When we are given dominion over anything, it is with the expectation that we will be wise, prudent, and caring stewards. We are also expected to remember the source of our many gifts and to give thanks for having been entrusted with them.
When themes of gratitude come up in the Bible, they are coupled with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an action, not a feeling. Indeed, the name of the celebration for which we are gathered, the Holy Eucharist, means "Holy Thanksgiving". When we give thanks, we give away from the abundance we have received. To be grateful for what we have received is to share our blessings with God and neighbour. The Book of Proverbs has much to say about the consequences for those who freely give and those who withhold what is not theirs to keep. (Proverbs 11)
Scripture and the tradition of the church make this kind of grateful sharing sound simple. You and I know that giving away from what we have is a hard request. We are naturally wired to anticipate look after our own wellbeing. We store up what we think we might need in hope that we can better manage hardship when it arrives. In this day and age especially, we are subjected to relentless messages encouraging us to accumulate and hoard more and more. It even appears in church from time to time, when some who misunderstand their nature approach the sacraments as products to be purchased and consumed, rather than the gifts, freely given by God, that they are.
I daresay that many of us are not accustomed to matching feelings of gratitude with acts of thanksgiving. We might offer a word of thanks to someone or even send a card. How do we square these cultural norms with the biblical idea of setting aside the first tenth of our blessings?
Before we leap from our current practice of acts of gratitude all the way to the heights of Old Testament tithing practice, let's imagine what it would mean to focus on gratitude and giving thanks. To make them central to our lives of faith. In every church that I have ever been part of, the Prayers of the People are almost entirely intercessions: prayers for the needs of others. Praying for needs is good and important, we are called to bring our needs and lay them before God, to intercede for others, and trust that God will see to them. We are also called to regularly give thanks to God for our blessings. I can recall only one or two occasions in my life in church where I have heard prayers of thanksgiving offered for specific reasons, mirroring the prayer requests that we hear each week.
How would it change our lives if we heard just as many prayers of thanks each week as we hear prayers of intercession? What would our personal devotions sound like if, for every prayer of concern, we offered a prayer of thanksgiving? What would our Christian witness in the world create if, for each prayer of thanksgiving, we made an act of offering? How would it shape our community, even our whole country, if our first response to receiving a blessing was to acknowledge it and then return some part of it?
On this great feast where we are reminded to count our blessings, come to the Lord's table with full hearts and offer hearty thanks. As St Augustine says, see there what you are and become what you eat. Take the good news of the bread of life from this table with you into the world that you might share it with others and be the cause of their own thanksgiving.
