With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I have been doing some thinking about what the attitude of thanksgiving is, precisely. So, I have torn thanksgiving apart, like the remnants of a cooked avian corpse, to see where the meat is. Here are some of the more...filling conclusions of my ruminations. We start with an example that was given to me by my confirmation class this week.
Daniel gives me a piece of cheese.
I like cheese, and so immediately upon receiving the gift I say "Thank you."
Daniel leaves. I put the cheese in the fridge.
The next day, I see the cheese and decide to have some.
I love cheese. This cheese is particularly amazing.
In that moment, while eating the cheese, I think about Daniel and what a great gift he gave me.
At what point in all of this is the spirit of thanksgiving born? Some might say it begins with receiving the gift and saying "thank you." I disagree. Thanksgiving is more profound and sophisticated than simple thankfulness or appreciation. (You may accuse me of splitting hairs here, but please read on to learn more about the distinction for which I am arguing.) I believe that thanksgiving begins in the moment when I am enjoying the cheese. And it depends on what I am thankful for in that moment.
In every case of thanksgiving, there are two parties: the giver and the one to whom the thing was given. Thanksgiving requires that a gift was given, requires that what I am thankful for was transferred to me from someone else. We can be thankful for something, but it does not become thanksgiving until we make the jump to being thankful to the source of the gift. In thanksgiving, the object needs a subject. Daniel gave me a piece of cheese. If I sat relishing the cheese the afternoon it was given, even if I kept saying how thankful I was to taste this cheese, if I did not take the further step and remember Daniel, then my thankfulness would remain selfish. My focus would never leave how wonderful my life was with this cheese in it, and so I would miss the opportunity to break through the isolation in life to find a friendly companion in the world. And the focus would remain on the object, the material thing instead of the intense depth of what the cheese signifies interpersonally, emotionally, etc. Simply being thankful for something is materialistic, selfish and isolating. If being thankful for something never becomes thankfulness to someone, then there is no benefit to my soul.
Luckily, the Christian has a boundless source of benefit for the soul. For when the Christian remembers that "every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17), then everything for which one can be thankful also entails someone to which one can be thankful, namely God. Indeed, the Christian is a Christian only if and precisely when the object one possesses receives a subject who has given it. What's more, every giver who cannot be said to be God is included in this. For the whole quote from James reads, "every generous act of giving, along with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights...." So, when I am thankful to Daniel I am, as a Christian, simultaneously thankful to God whose work inspired Daniel's generous act of giving. Every gift is passed down from on high in this manner. And we all become vehicles of God's generous giving.
Now say that I am thankful for my iPhone, which I am. It was not given to me as a gift. I purchased it. So, then, is it impossible for me to be moved to a spirit of thanksgiving for my iPhone? Not at all. To move beyond being thankful for it, though, I need to do a little work. I must trace the situation back in order to see that it is, in the final analysis, a gift. How is this so? I paid for the phone with money. I earned the money, perhaps, in my job? Perhaps I earned the job, but did I myself earn the economic system in which the job was available? Did I create the organization that hired me? Did I create the situation in which the organization has flourished? Did I win the freedom and prosperity of the nation that has given the organization a place? Or did I create the technology, in order that such a phone would be available to me? In this way, we can trace my possessing the phone back to the component parts--of civilization, of the human intellect and being, and of the materials with which the phone itself is made--and they are traced back to God's creation. Of course, along the way, we also see the many hands that passed this gift down, through which God has worked all the while. And I find that I am not only thankful for my phone, but, indeed, my phone causes in my soul much thanksgiving.
In every act of thanksgiving, there is also a temporal component. It is quite significant that time passed between my receiving the gift and my giving thanks for it. Since, in thanksgiving, I am not only thankful for, but also thankful to, thanksgiving requires that I not only remember the thing given, but also the giver. In fact, remembering the giver is the entire point. In the moment when the gift is given, it is easy to remember the giver, as the giver is present in that moment. (Even if the gift is sent, that is given remotely, the giver is present in my mind immediately upon receiving the gift.) Thankfulness for a gift occurs immediately, in the moment in which it is given. But the deciding factor in whether or not thankfulness will transform into thanksgiving is time. Will I, after a little while, when I enjoy the gift, remember the giver? That is the question. Because the next condition necessary for the birth of thanksgiving is the evocation of the giver and the moment of the giving after the fact. Eternity must meet temporality, and only then do we experience thanksgiving as a holy moment. In enjoying the gift, the giving must become contemporaneous with the moment of enjoying the gift through the act of remembrance. I must remember how the thing came into my possession. If I do not, then the gift is no longer a gift, it is simply something I possess. Moreover, the giver (however distant in time and space) must be brought forth in remembrance. Part of the idea of the gift is for the giver to be present in one's life in a meaningful way through the gift itself. And so the enjoyment of the gift must evoke both these things: the moment of the giving and the giver.
This leads us to our final point. Thankfulness becomes thanksgiving when I give my thanks as a gift. When I stop to remember, in the moment that I am enjoying the gift and not just in the moment I receive the gift, all of a sudden I am giving attention to the giver in a spirit of thankfulness. I am also giving a portion of time to the person--whether they know it or not is inconsequential--as I halt in my enjoyment and remember. At least a portion of my very valuable time and attention is then given to remembering that this cheese was a gift, and instead of simply being thankful for, I have become thankful to in a way that transforms my thankfulness already into a giving. In this way, I am making my enjoyment itself a gift in return to the giver--by taking the time and attention to remember the giver in thanks. My remembering Daniel's act of giving alone constitutes a spirit of thanksgiving. I am not just full of thanks, but am giving it because now there is a subject upon which or before which my thanks can be placed (which brings us back to the beginning).
Thanksgiving, then, requires giving as well as thanks. The other benefit thanksgiving is to the soul is that it fosters in the individual a glad and generous heart. And so in thanksgiving, I not only wish to give thanks to the giver, but I also, perhaps, desire to give as the giver has given, as the Giver gives. My heart is trained in such a way that I become a glad and generous giver.
Every act of worship is a thanksgiving, and it requires all of these components:
Having received a gift; enjoyment of the gift; remembering the giver in thanksgiving; and giving as the giver gives.
Bible Study time. Deuteronomy 26:1-15 is the quintessential thanksgiving text.
It describes what we are supposed to do on tax day (which for us is April 15th).
When we bring our taxes (or our tithe), we are to place it before the altar and remember. We are to remember that God has given us all that we have--the bounty of the earth, the land we possess, the money we have, etc., etc. And so, as we give our first fruits of the year, we recount all that God has done for us (and for our nation!): "...my ancestor was a wandering Aramean" (Abraham) and "you made him a great nation" and "when he went down to Egypt and was enslaved, you brought the people out into freedom" and "you gave us the Promised Land as our habitation." The giving of the tax or the tithe, then becomes an act of thanksgiving as we remember in thankfulness not only what was given, but who gave it to us. Our having received and our giving becomes a small part of a much larger relationship, a much larger economy. Indeed, the passage ends with a plea: 'God, please continue to bless us as you have promised to do, and as you have been doing.' In other words, we want our relationship with you to continue. If only April 15th could feel this good! If only our weekly offering in church could make us feel so infinitely blessed! All it takes is recognizing the gift, remembering the giver, and letting our thankfulness turn into action...into thanksgiving.
What causes you to give thanks?
What has God given to you this year?
Remember these things, and Christ Jesus who is the source of boundless riches, giving thanks to God.
Joyful thanksgivings to everyone!
rha
Thanksgiving, then, requires giving as well as thanks. The other benefit thanksgiving is to the soul is that it fosters in the individual a glad and generous heart. And so in thanksgiving, I not only wish to give thanks to the giver, but I also, perhaps, desire to give as the giver has given, as the Giver gives. My heart is trained in such a way that I become a glad and generous giver.
Every act of worship is a thanksgiving, and it requires all of these components:
Having received a gift; enjoyment of the gift; remembering the giver in thanksgiving; and giving as the giver gives.
Bible Study time. Deuteronomy 26:1-15 is the quintessential thanksgiving text.
It describes what we are supposed to do on tax day (which for us is April 15th).
When we bring our taxes (or our tithe), we are to place it before the altar and remember. We are to remember that God has given us all that we have--the bounty of the earth, the land we possess, the money we have, etc., etc. And so, as we give our first fruits of the year, we recount all that God has done for us (and for our nation!): "...my ancestor was a wandering Aramean" (Abraham) and "you made him a great nation" and "when he went down to Egypt and was enslaved, you brought the people out into freedom" and "you gave us the Promised Land as our habitation." The giving of the tax or the tithe, then becomes an act of thanksgiving as we remember in thankfulness not only what was given, but who gave it to us. Our having received and our giving becomes a small part of a much larger relationship, a much larger economy. Indeed, the passage ends with a plea: 'God, please continue to bless us as you have promised to do, and as you have been doing.' In other words, we want our relationship with you to continue. If only April 15th could feel this good! If only our weekly offering in church could make us feel so infinitely blessed! All it takes is recognizing the gift, remembering the giver, and letting our thankfulness turn into action...into thanksgiving.
What causes you to give thanks?
What has God given to you this year?
Remember these things, and Christ Jesus who is the source of boundless riches, giving thanks to God.
Joyful thanksgivings to everyone!
rha
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