Thanksgiving Day

In Roman mythology there was a god known as “Janus.” Janus was believed to be the god who was a guiding force for individuals at fresh starts and times of transition. Janus was always depicted as having two faces — one face looking backwards into the past, the other face turned towards the future. Hence the hinge month of “January.”

While being “two-faced” has now become an insult, for those early Romans who knew nothing about neuroscience, the ability to simultaneously keep one’s past in clear view while focusing forward to the future was seen as a unique, in fact a divine, ability.

For Christians to be “two-faced” was to be a prophet, except a prophet was seen in threefold scenarios, not two. A prophet was supposed to have three faces: a face oriented toward the past, a face oriented toward the present and a face oriented toward the future, simultaneously. A prophet doesn’t foresee the future. A prophet sees the past, present and future at once and as one. For Christians, this ability to bring together the past, present, and future is best represented not by Janus, but by Jesus.

Our annual Thanksgiving holiday may be our most prophetic of all holidays.

On one hand, Thanksgiving is all about family and tradition. Even though we are now a “fast-food” nation and a “take-out” culture, Thanksgiving is the one day when we remember old recipes, when we literally and intentionally “taste” our past and let the food tell the story of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans.

We think of Christmas as expensive. But in terms of travel and time, Thanksgiving is more expensive than Christmas. “Black out” days make this the most expensive celebration for using frequent flyer miles. The longest lines at airports, train stations or bus terminals occur at Thanksgiving because everyone needs to leave on Wednesday and return on Sunday.

So why do we do this? Why do we make such a huge investment in this short weekend holiday? Because we want to recall, remember, rekindle and rebuild family relationships. Thanksgiving is the time when we look around the table and give thanks for our roots and our reasons for being together. But…

More and more the big “draw” of the family get-together has a different motivation. Over the last twenty years or so “Black Friday” has grown from being a fun day of sales to being a seismic event that determines the end-of-the-year economic health of major corporations. So crucial are the sales numbers racked up on this coming weekend that stores have now slid down the slippery slope from “Black Friday” to “Grey Thursday.” For too many retail employees, Thanksgiving has become just another “day of work” instead of a special “day of thanks.”

So what is Thanksgiving about today? It is now exactly 400 years after that “first Thanksgiving” harvest celebration shared by the Native Americans and the new settlers in Plymouth. So what are we looking back at, and what are we looking forward to? If remembering and imagining are part of the same mental process, is Thanksgiving a time to look back at family and traditions and looking around the table at ones we love? Or is Thanksgiving a time when we take a deep breath of the past so we can plunge into a future of consumerism, obsessed with cribbing great deals for the upcoming Christmas extravaganza?

In his sermon on the mount in today’s Gospel, Jesus is telling the disciples (and us) to be thankful. He assures us that we need not worry about food or drink or clothing or housing.  God knows we need all those things. And he will provide for those needs.  But remember, he’s talking about needs, not wants. You may want to sip Dom Perignon, dine at Bern’s each night, choose from a closet full of Burberry and Gucci suits, and live in a waterfront McMansion. Jesus made no promises about those things. But God will indeed supply our needs.  Jesus is quite clear on this. And for that we can be thankful.

So what are you really grateful for this Thanksgiving? Are you thankful that you get a four-day weekend off from school or work? Are you thankful that you have a warm home and a lovely meal to sit down to and enjoy with friends and family? Thanksgiving is a strangely laser-focused yet loosey-goosey holiday. It is defined with laser-like focus: a time to “give thanks.” But what we give thanks for is left up to us.

When family members and friends work hard all day to create a wonderful feast — great food, cozy place to gather — that is something to be truly thankful for. But the other “thankfulness” that Thanksgiving should bring out in each of us is not a thankfulness for “things.” Thanksgiving is not just about where we are, what we are eating, or what our shopping strategy is for Friday.

For Christians, Thanksgiving is thankfulness for the greatest relationship we have been given, a relationship with the risen, regnant and returning Christ who calls the faithful to a “glorious hope” and an illustrious “inheritance.”

Admit it. Every family gathering includes some we cannot wait to “embrace,” and some for whom we have to “brace.” Those whom we cannot wait to “embrace” are those whose lives intentionally include and envelop others.

The grandmother who always remembers to send a Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and, even a St. Patrick’s Day card and little gift.

The distant cousin who checks in on Facebook, knows what days are special to you, and lets you know they know it.

The little brother who waits for your text every day, and you wait for his reply.

Those are the ones who at Thanksgiving are easy to “embrace.”

The “brace for family members” is not so easy. Every family has those who are part of the family tree, but do not fit into the family plan. But they are still family. We welcome them with grace and hospitality because they are family, but also because, as people of faith, we know our “family” goes way beyond our genes and geography. Our “family” will always be who and where we make it.

It was probably goose or wild duck (not turkey) that was the centerpiece of that First Thanksgiving. There would have been fish present in the form of eels and various shellfish like lobster, clams and mussels, which were dried and smoked. Probably no salmon, just like no sweet potatoes or cranberries at that first Thanksgiving, although many people have made smoked salmon and salmon dip a feature of Thanksgiving appetizers today. 

Salmon are either the most brilliant or the dumbest creatures on earth. Salmon babies, known as “fry,” hatch out in lovely flowing fresh streams of water. They have plenty to eat and a safe place to live. Then they leave. They travel downstream to escape this nice, safe habitat, so that they might merge into larger streams, rushing mighty rivers, and ultimately into the vast ocean.

Fresh-water born salmon migrate to the salt-water environment of the ocean, a journey that requires them to navigate hundreds of miles and requires them to completely change their bodies. Fresh water salmon fry become salt water salmon. For a while.

And then they “come home.” After spending years being salt water creatures, they finally and fully feel the pull of home. They must go back. They journey through the ocean, go back into the fresh water rivers, navigate through locks and dams and bears and eagles and eager fishermen, and finally — a few of them — make it back to the place they were born and nurtured.

The simple salmon “embraces” every part of its family heritage, at a huge, indeed at an ultimate, cost. When we intentionally gather our families together, it can also be costly. It costs us our independence. It costs us our self-made identities. It costs us our personal power and preferred placement.

We become salmon. We join together and become greater together, individuals with a new and vital future found in company with others. We return to our roots even as we are looking towards the future. We dare to look both backwards and forwards at the same time.

The apostle John writes in Revelation, “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them” (Revelation 14:13).

What “works” follow us into eternity? Not the works of our hands, as in our mansions, our Mercedes, our monies, but the works of our hearts, our deeds of love, beauty, truth and goodness. This is what we give thanks to God for today.

Have a happy and grateful Thanksgiving.