Deuteronomy 8:7-15
Thanksgiving Day - Year A
So often we have a long prayer before a Thanksgiving Feast. Note here that thanks is given after we have eaten our fill.
This is an excellent piece of advice. Our tendency when full is to expect more. We have been privileged and grown accustomed to such. The Deuteronomist is very clear that danger lurks exactly at the point where we might give thanks, but, instead, we expect
G*D to fill our growing expectation of ease and comfort.
To intentionally give thanks beyond ourselves puts a buffer between our pride and our deserving of more. Thanks, here, is not mouthed piety. Rather, it is steely-eyed reality thankful for how far we have come, but recognizing that none will be whole until all are.
“Take care lest you forget and your heart grows haughty and you forget Freedom’s source is not your own power or worthiness.” Freedom comes through desert hardship and is most fragile in the midst of fertile ease.
It may help to turn to the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, as a Thanksgiving Hymn. It is to be preferred over “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” that looks to a claim on some future heaven, forgetting to work toward paradise in the present.
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Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died.
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee;
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
- - - - - - -
This is an excellent piece of advice. Our tendency when full is to expect more. We have been privileged and grown accustomed to such. The Deuteronomist is very clear that danger lurks exactly at the point where we might give thanks, but, instead, we expect
“Take care lest you forget and your heart grows haughty and you forget Freedom’s source is not your own power or worthiness.” Freedom comes through desert hardship and is most fragile in the midst of fertile ease.
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died.
We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
Selected:
Words by James Weldon Johnson
Music by J. Rosamond Johnson
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
So often we have a long prayer before a Thanksgiving Feast. Note here that thanks is given after we have eaten our fill.
This is an excellent piece of advice. Our tendency when full is to expect more. We have been privileged and grown accustomed to such. The Deuteronomist is very clear that danger lurks exactly at the point where we might give thanks, but grow to expect G*D to fill our growing expectation of ease and comfort.
To intentionally give thanks beyond ourselves puts a buffer between our pride and our deserving of more. Thanks, here, is not mouthed piety. Rather, it is steely-eyed reality thankful for how far we have come, but recognizing that none will be whole until all are.
"Take care lest you forget and your heart grows haughty and you forget Freedom's source is not your own power or worthiness." Freedom comes through desert hardship and is most fragile in the midst of fertile ease.
It may help to turn to the Black National Anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing", as a Thanksgiving Hymn. It is to be preferred over "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" that looks to a claim on some future heaven, forgetting to work toward paradise in the present.
- - - - - - -
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
felt in the days when hope unborn had died.We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee;
let our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.