It is fall and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. And this year, Thanksgiving falls in the middle of a hard-fought national election campaign. And I haven't been able to ignore the fact that all of the major parties are telling us that we deserve more. That you and I, the electorate, do not have enough yet but that if we only elect them, they will make sure to give us more! It seems to be the theme of the election as each political promises more and more in the bid to outdo the other.
And it is easy to get caught up in it all, because who amongst us does not want more!
It is so easy to listen to the dominant voice of our society and buy into what it is saying. It is easy to start believing that we have been shortchanged, indeed that we have a right to more and that it is our time to get ahead.
This is why we need Thanksgiving!
Because when we celebrate Thanksgiving, we are proclaiming the opposite. We declare to the world that we have enough. Moreover, we preach that the things we do have, be they big or small, are not something we deserve but something we have been gifted.
Thanksgiving then is the time of year where we are invited to recalibrate. We are reminded that we are called to live lives of thankfulness and not lives of constant complaining and worry. We are told by the very God who died on the cross for our sins, that the object of our lives is not to "get ahead" but to take up our cross!
And what gets me excited is that in recalibrating to lives of thankfulness, we have the opportunity to shout into this world that there is another way of engaging life. That there is a way of living that comes out of profound love and grace, a way of living that sees life as a gift! A way of living that gives everything up to serve.
Friends, we need Thanksgiving! I need Thanksgiving! So may the God of grace and love, the great giver of all good gifts bless us with thankfulness. May God recalibrate our desires and wants, and may God be made visible through word and action of His disciples!
Blessings,
Pastor Rafael